Workout Meets Reality - Week Four

“You’re pussyfooting Bibby”.

I heard these words over 38 years ago when I was taking drivers education in high school. A group of us were in the car with our instructor learning how to drive on the Interstate. As we came onto the Interstate we were traveling 25 MPH and Mr. Kramer bluntly told the individual that he was “pussyfooting”. He was telling Bibby and the rest of us that pussyfooting when getting on the Interstate could get us killed.

I am unsure as to how many people in the world are pussyfooting as I write this. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is if I am pussyfooting – an action I have been guilty of for the past several years. So I have made a change. I didn’t want to die.

Week Four of The Workout Meets Reality began as usual on Sunday. Week Four was a de-loading phase and it felt natural as over the past years of racing I have always trained in a 3:1 block. It is what has kept me injury free for the last 30 years and able to do events like a triple ironman, a double ironman and UltraMan in the same year.

I felt the squats went well and I didn’t stumble around as I did the week prior. I moved onto the deadlifts and they too went well and though tempted to do more I pulled back and stuck to the plan. It’s always been one of the things that pisses me off about clients I have worked with, in that they come to me and I write them a program and then they read Runners World or Muscle and Fiction and deviate from the plan totally. That’s one of many reasons I don’t train people anymore.

Monday went well too. I was feeling charged and I simply worked through the plan. No great shakes and in the words of Buzz Lightyear it was “all quiet and nothing to report”.

Wednesday was a different animal. I woke up and felt totally unmotivated to go in and lift. I pussyfooted around the house, I let Clar and Lennox sleep in, I began to attempt to justify to myself that I could skip the workout as it was after all, “de-loading”. I almost had myself convinced and then it slapped me upside the head. I had become a herd animal, much the same as many of those McGloboGym crushed souls who rally the excuses and never get anywhere. So I had another cup of coffee and we got it done.

Thursday we worked with Ken. He explained to us our next four weeks and we worked on the movements. He also critiqued my KB swings and he way I bench. Coming from a bodybuilding background I tend to bench higher on the chest and he had me get my elbows down to get the bar lower. He gives good feedback and the next four weeks will be good.

Today the week closed out at The Anvil. We did speed bench with chains, close grips and the like. I concentrated on getting my elbows down so the bar hit lower and dang it if Ken wasn’t right! I am stronger there. It has always cracked me up how in the past people will ask me to write them a program or ask for advice, I give it and then they ask me if I “am sure”. No lambchop, I just like the sound of my voice…

Pussyfooting. Here’s the deal. Pussyfooting is the same as “doing something”. I absolutely hate the evaluation “at least they are doing something”. I loathe it too. I might as well throw in despise too. That covers my feelings. Think about it… how happy would your employer be if you said that today you were going to “do something”. Or if you went in and your boss said “today I want you to do something” so you could stick beans up your nose and you would be “doing something”.

Newton’s Second Law states that Force = Mass x Acceleration.

Pussyfooting is not an example of Newtons’ Second Law.

Living life like you mean it is.

“reject the awful normal” ©