One was an executive in his late 50’s, another, a former teammate of mine in his mid-20’s and the last a total stranger standing in line at the bank, I would guess in his early 30’s. All of them were athletes at some point in their lives. These were three different people in three different places but all shared one common trait: I had the same conversation with each of them, and, in their own words, they all said the same things:‘I used to workout.’
‘I’m so out of shape now.’
‘I wish I could get myself to start training again.’
If you were to ask, I bet 97 out of 100 people would tell you something similar. I can’t tell you what makes people stop training but I will say that its a challenge for everyone to keep going (yes, even highly motivated folks like me.) So what do you do?Let me first mention the fact that human beings seem to have this desire to make things more complex than they are (and certainly need to be.)
Remember what Apollo Creed said to Rocky in Rocky III:
‘Now when we fought… you had the Eye of the Tiger, man, the edge and now you gotta get it back—and the way to get it back is to go back to the beginning.’
Going back to the beginning – to simplify your training for one reason and one reason only: to take it to a level that you know and will actually do…so you can get started. Now here’s the Secret – training never needs to get more complex than ‘the beginning’ — basic exercises, done well, are all you’ll ever need.
At this point, I can only hand the ball off to you, dear reader, because you are the one who makes the decision to go out and train or stay on the couch eating potato chips and living a life of regret.
Train hard,
John Wood