It’s official: watching professional athletes do their thing and do it well really motivates me to work harder on my own fitness and nutrition goals.
Yesterday, I went to the little movie theater in town. You know the kind. They have old car seats and couches, mismatched tables, cold beer on draft, and cheap movies. Well, they played the Patriots/Colts game. People from Indianapolis (or fans of such) look away: The Pats kicked the living shit out of the Colts.
I’m not a big professional sports fan. I really only get caught up in such things around the time of the playoffs. But lately, what’s going on is, I’m getting all these new big emotions and motivations around great athletes doing things well. So, I watched the game to see people exerting their power, their finesse, and their fluidity of motion. I saw a whooping instead.
Today at the gym, I repeated my three single chinups. In fact, I got 1.5 out of my first set. I did 12 negatives in there, too, to try and stimulate myself to the next level. I did 35 pushups for the first time, though the last seven or so were crappy. Maybe last 10. By “crappy,” I didn’t really touch my nose to the ground. I wussed out a bit. I posted gains in all my lifting again, and that was a nice feeling. This is the last week of four weeks of measuring for improvements, and I saw gains more often than not, including going from 20 pushups at a time maximum to 35, and going from no chinups to three singles.
I ran 30 minutes of interval drills, sprinting my little head off. I’m really responding well to the stepped up running program. Instead of beating distance into my muscles, I’m telling my muscles to work harder in bursts. When I get back to mixing the two methods together, I’m going to feel PRIMED.
My gym experience was about beating the crap out of myself responsibly. I think the next four week cycle (beginning next Monday) will focus on that intensity even more. I read a great workout on Fran’s site where they did 15 rounds of 1.5 minutes to accomplish a fistful of exercises. I like that because it’s interval training mixed with strength training. I’m all about the mix lately.
I busted my cheats and monster streaks over the weekend. I had a few cheats on Friday (calories not worth their fuel value) and a monster event on both Saturday and Sunday night. I’m not sad. I’m not disappointed. I’m responsible. My effort is on today and the future. Besides, I still posted 2 more pounds of weight loss for the week (though not the 4 I was trending towards on Thursday).
My motivation levels are at their prime when it comes to my fitness, and they’re near the top for nutrition. I’ll bring that up this week. Measuring my motivation and determination on a chart this last week was neat. It shows that I have peaks and valleys to my efforts, and that I need to dig in and push more effectively the moment I see something flagging.
Another note: I’m really aware of one weakness. I tend to feel deprived around foods from time to time. When that feeling hits (and it’s not valid), I need to marshall better defenses than I currently have in place. I’m working on something for that now.
Watching people move themselves forward towards their goals is motivational. I’m really appreciating the blogs I read regularly for that reason. I’ve finally surrounded myself with people intent on bringing their success to new levels. It’s a great feeling.
Thanks!
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