The only New Years resolution I ever kept was giving up New Years resolutions.
The year I resolved to give up New Years resolutions was the year I came to terms with the fact that they were merely adults casting magic spells over their addictions and struggles -better known as demons. When we cast magic spells it means that were not really ready to deal with the hard work that has to be done to create change in our lives. And because we still love the behaviors that we insist we despise. We don’t really want to change, we just know that we should want to change.
I have worked out over the years in many different styles of gyms; when I was still casting magic spell over my obesity, I chose places with lots of equipment and amenities, because the more tools you have the better the magic works.
Right?
Wrong.
When I became serious about working out and was at the gym on a regular daily basis month after month, year after year, I chose a simple city recreation center gym, and did more worthwhile things there then in all the gyms before it. During those rec. center days, one of my biggest frustrations became the New Years Resolution-ers. Most any day of the year I could do my workouts unimpeded. But from the second week in January till the end of February -sometimes even into the end of March- it was a mad house that always left me struggling to get any workout completed. After the first couple years I figured out that I would have to go either at 5:30 am or the 9:30 pm to get any useful work done during the first three months of a new year. I wasn’t the only one, it was the time all us regulars would cluster in an effort to avoid the crush of people bent on their resolutions. We all knew it was a matter of weeks till they were gone, so it was tolerated with a knowing look when we’d see some stranger, in new workout gear, wandering around and generally in the way.
Since I have gone to the dark side of a CrossFit gym and barbell lifting I don’t have to worry about that anymore. Everyone in a barbell/CrossFit style gym is serious in ways that people in average gyms are not. There is nothing fancy about my gym, it’s a warehouse, cold steel bars, kettlebells and your personal demons. In January. And it costs more.
New Years Resolution-ers never go past the front desk.
Why do I do it?
Because I have kept up at this long enough to know that gym amenities do not make you strong, they are there to shelter you from your weaknesses. I can’t do an unassisted pull up yet because I am still too lazy to commit to the small little daily efforts needed to get me there. If you are using a smith rack to squat, then you can’t really squat. I have used one, loaded it with weight and thought I was pretty good, I wasn’t. I started free style squatting, loaded the bar with a lot of weight and and would squat 6 inches above barely legal parallel and thought I was strong, I wasn’t. Keep learning to squat with your bodyweight till you can add a bar, then keep squatting with the bar till you can add weight.
Sparkly happy shiny butt kissing staff my be nice, but worthless. Ethical demanding people who push your buttons and expect you to work harder is better. As it has been said long ago, “As iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another.”
The more we focus on working harder with less, the stronger we become. There was a time I believed the magic to being a successful, confident and a worthwhile human was to have an ideal body. I have never had an ideal body. So all I could focus on was the same magic spells that all the average Joe’s focused on. If I could only get that ideal body then the rest would come. The magic I have learned over the years is that it’s about being willing to dig in where you are at (is that push ups against the wall? Then so be it.) and to keep outlasting your demons and shooting them down one by one, and to be ok with being bad at something till you get better.
It has been a long time since having an ideal body mattered to me, overcoming these demons that have been haunting me since I was a child is all that matters to me really. It means more to me that even after a few fluffy absent blow off weeks from my routine, I am still one of the people in the gym working day after day, month after month, year after year.
…no magic or amenities needed to make it happen…
…with the knowledge that no magic will happen…ever.
that it will always just be me, choosing to do, or not do the the right work and eat the right food, over and over again. And I get to stop being fat when I choose to do the right work, more than I choose not to. That I am alright with that means more to me than any number on a scale or clothing label.
So, depending on the day, it’s just me dancing or fighting with my barbell, angels, and demons. Tonight. When everyone else is out partying, making their resolutions, I am going to spend an hour or so fighting and dancing too: I will fight with my demon, the back squat and dance with my angel, the olympic snatch.
Here’s to another year of real effort.
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