Workout Hard Quotes

It's so easy to lose your fitness and so hard to gain it back.

Find something you love and go for it with all your heart. No excuses, no plan B. Never settle for anything less than you know you can do. It will be hard, but I promise it will be worth it.

A well-built physique is a status symbol. It reflects you worked hard for it, no money can buy it. You cannot inherit it. You cannot steal it. You cannot borrow it. You cannot hold on to it without constant work. It shows dedication. It shows discipline. It shows self-respect. It shows dignity. It shows patience, work ethic, passion. That is why it's attractive to me.

Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon, and he made his web gear, He doesn't worry about hat workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn't care how hard it is; he only knows that he wins or he dies. He doesn't go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the cause.

Take distinct steps and exploits. Those who are distinct and distinguished always score distinction. Go there, be there and stay there.

You have to love what you do, to give your best.

It is time to remind ourselves that today’s thoughts and actions become our legacy. When we forget this or lie to ourselves thinking our actions do not matter, we have permission to act as momentary buffoons. We let ourselves break, just this once, from our values. We cheat, just this once. We lie, just this once. We put off the hard task, just this once. We skip the workout, just this week. We take the drink, just one more. And soon we find that each of these little breaks in our will leads to another, and then to a lifetime of compromise and regret. Without vigilance, what is right and strong about the human spirit can be whittled away and broken forever.

Painful workouts yield gainful results. This is true of every gain. No pain, no gain.

You need alot of patient to keep working. It takes time for the goals to be realized.

It wasn't hard going to the gym, as long as he went as soon as he woke up, before he had time to think about not going. Those morning workouts made him feel like he was starting his day like a pinball, with a giant shot of momentum. The feeling sometimes didn’t wear off until six or seven at night (when it was usually overtaken by the feeling that he was just bouncing haplessly from one situation to the next without any real purpose or direction).

Work hard, play hard, stay hard. I coined it first back 1993.

Gym is a sacred place which makes your life feel worth existing by putting effort of care into the home of your soul called body!

doubling of endurance capacity in only six training sessions? With just sixteen minutes of hard exercise? It seemed miraculous.

Believe it or not, going out and doing four to six hundred-meter sprints is a perfectly respectable workout for an endurance athlete. That’s only a couple minutes total of hard work,

But the point is not to do one thing. The point is to master the habit of showing up. The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can’t learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details. Instead of trying to engineer a perfect habit from the start, do the easy thing on a more consistent basis. You have to standardize before you can optimize. As you master the art of showing up, the first two minutes simply become a ritual at the beginning of a larger routine. This is not merely a hack to make habits easier but actually the ideal way to master a difficult skill. The more you ritualize the beginning of a process, the more likely it becomes that you can slip into the state of deep focus that is required to do great things. By doing the same warm-up before every workout, you make it easier to get into a state of peak performance. By following the same creative ritual, you make it easier to get into the hard work of creating. By developing a consistent power-down habit, you make it easier to get to bed at a reasonable time each night.

There is a fairly common pattern in this field where folks go through about three distinct stages. it true of other areas. 1. You know that you know nothing: here you pretty much just use someone else's canned workouts since you don't know what you're doing 2. You know just enough to be dangerous. This is when everybody starts overcomplicating things. You see these insanely complicated training programs and periodization schemes. Lots of charts, graphs and flowcharts. 3. You realize that the above doesn't matter 999 times out of 1000 and you go back to keeping it simple. You realize that hard work on the basics + talent + time > everything else.

Resistance is that temptation that leads you to sit back and criticize others instead of following your own life’s calling; it’s the lost running shoes and malfunctioning alarms that make it so hard to start that new workout routine; it’s the fights that break out among well-meaning people in a powerful ministry at church; it’s the force that has stopped countless artists throughout the ages, repelling them from their work like two similarly charged magnets.

You hop into the saddle and pedal as hard and as fast as you can for thirty seconds against a high resistance. The idea is to go all out. “Go as hard as you can,” I told the subjects. “As if you’re sprinting to save a child from an oncoming car—go that fast.

Novices need to focus only on the frequency of training by getting into the pool and onto the road often. If they do this with no concern for how long the workout is—short is fine—or how hard it should be—easy is best—they will make great improvement in their first year in the sport. The intermediate triathlete in the second and third years in the sport should focus on increasing the durations of swims, bike rides, and runs. Year 4 is the time when a triathlete should begin to give greater emphasis to workout intensity.

And for me, there is no quicker or more efficient way to obliterate stress and get focused on the present moment than to throw myself into a hard-core, edge-pushing workout. Or even better, a series of them. I guess you might say that vigor is one of my Love Languages.

Next, in an experiment that lasted twice as long, at twelve weeks, we compared a sprint group that did three minutes of hard exercise a week, set into a protocol that lasted thirty minutes a week, with a group that exercised for 150 minutes a week, as recommended by the guidelines. Incredibly, the benefits turned out to be the same.

Starting is the hardest part, both in the moment and in the early days of habit-building. Initially, you will see limited results. After a hard workout you will feel sore, but look in the mirror and see no change. After eating broccoli, you will feel about the same. After writing on day one, you will not have a full book. But when you do these things over the long haul, you can end up with a fit and healthy body and several full-length novels.

Most remarkably, research we’ve just conducted in my lab tracked the 1-minute-interval protocol’s effects over 12 weeks on sedentary, nonathletic individuals and compared the benefits to those of another group that conducted 135 minutes a week of moderate aerobic exercise. And the benefits were the same. That’s right: It was possible for everyday, nonathletic sedentary individuals to derive the cardiorespiratory benefits of 135 minutes a week of traditional endurance training—three 45-minute sessions per week—with just a single minute’s worth of hard exercise repeated three times per week.

I was thirteen when I figured out this trick. My pre-awakening came early. Even then, I kicked my own ass to relieve stress. When I caught the first baby whiff of my omega perfume, I panicked, just ran and kept running, knowing that as soon as I started to mature, I’d be on the auction block. A toy for alphas who’ll never see me as a real girl. I ran so hard, so long, and so fast that the pheromones went away. When my perfume came back, a track workout sent that shit packing. The next day, I danced for eight hours and my hormones heard the message. We’re not doing this awakening thing.

Me: It will get better, right? Eventually, it will get better. Scarlett: I’m sorry I’m not the type to lower our discourse to emoji use since you totally deserve a smiley face right now. Yes, it will get better. Me: Ha. It’s just. Whatever. Sorry to keep whining. Scarlett: That’s what I’m here for. BTW, that email you forwarded? My guess: TOTALLY A SECRET ADMIRER. Me: You’ve read too many books. I’m being set up. And stop YELLING AT ME. Scarlett: No way. I didn’t say he was a vampire. I said he was a secret admirer. Most def. Me: Wanna take bets? Scarlett: You should just know by now that I’m always right. It’s my one magic power. Me: What’s mine? Scarlett: TBD. Me: Thanks a lot. Scarlett: Kidding. You are strong. That’s your power, girl. Me: My arms are v. toned from stress-eating ALL the cookies. Hand to mouth. Repeat 323 times. Hard-core workout. Scarlett: Seriously, for a second, J? Just because you’re strong doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask for help sometimes. Remember that. I’m here, ALWAYS, but you might want to take up that offer from someone local. Me: Whatever. Ugh. Thanks, Dr. Phil. I miss you! Scarlett: Miss you too! Go write back to SN. NOW. NOW. NOW. Now tell me the truth? Anyone at your school unusually pale?

ONE OF the biggest differences between the training of world-class runners and that of recreational runners is how slowly we elites sometimes run. Let me explain. Let’s say it’s the day after a hard workout. A typical recovery run for me is 10 miles in 65 minutes. A 10-miler at an average of 6:30 per mile might sound fast, but consider it in perspective. That’s almost 2 minutes per mile slower than I can run for a half-marathon and more than 90 seconds per mile slower than my marathon race pace. For someone who runs a 3:30 marathon, which is about 8 minutes per mile, that would be like averaging a 9:30 pace on a recovery day.

I know what the problem is.” Curran pulled his shoulders back and flexed, warming up a little. I stole a glance. He had decided to fight in jeans and an old black T-shirt, from which he’d torn the sleeves. Probably his workout shirt. His biceps were carved, the muscle defined and built by countless exertions, neither too bulky nor too lean. Perfect. Kissing him might make me guilty of catastrophically bad judgment, but at least nobody could fault my taste. The trick was not to kiss him again. Once could be an accident; twice was trouble. “You said something?” I arched an eyebrow at him. Nonchalance—best camouflage for drooling. Both the werebison and the swordsman looked ready to charge: the muscles of their legs tense, leaning forward slightly on their toes. They seemed to be terribly sure that we would stay in one place and wait for them. Curran was looking at their legs, too. They must be expecting a distraction from the lamia. She sat cocooned in magic, holding on with both hands as it strained on its leash. “I said, I know why you’re afraid to fight with me.” “And why is that?” If he flexed again, I’d have to implement emergency measures. Maybe I could kick some sand at him or something. Hard to look hot brushing sand out of your eyes. “You want me.” Oh boy. “You can’t resist my subtle charm, so you’re afraid you’re going to make a spectacle out of yourself.” “You know what? Don’t talk to me.

In late 2014 we published a study that tracked the benefits of the smallest amount of exercise my lab has tested: three 20-second sprints per day, totaling a minute’s worth of hard exercise per day amid a total per-day time commitment of 10 minutes. Repeated three times in a 7-day period, the protocol amounted to 3 minutes of hard exercise per week. We asked sedentary, overweight, and obese men and women in their twenties and thirties to follow the protocol for 6 weeks and were astonished at the results. Just 3 minutes of intense exercise per week reduced blood pressure by 6 to 8 percent, and elevated cardiorespiratory fitness by 12 percent, translating into a reduced risk of dying and developing chronic

Somewhere, there is a Moatengator trained to kill you. He was trained with minimal food, water or sleep. He was trained day and night to think, to lead, and to survive under conditions so extreme, you might find them comical. He learned more about himself and camaraderie on his first trip into the jungle than most men learn in a lifetime. The only thing clean on him is his weapon. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs. His runs ends when it ends. This Moatengator is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or he may die and so may his Brothers. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is always at home. He knows only the jungle, his rifle and the Moatengator brotherhood.

Keep in mind the rewards ahead. Workouts provide awesome internal rewards; after a long dance practice or gym workout I always have more energy and a clearer mind, and I’m able to focus on things I need to get done. But we all know it’s hard to remember that great feeling when you’re headed off to the gym, dreading the work ahead. Conjuring that ecstatic state of mind you know you’ll find later can be a tremendous motivator. If you prefer external rewards, motivate yourself with baby steps every day to hit a bigger long-term goal--one with a luxurious reward as your prize. Once you’ve reached it, allow yourself to follow through with whatever reward it was that motivated you, whether it’s a great glass of wine or a Sunday movie marathon.

A minute of hard exercise. You sprint as hard as you can, for twenty seconds, and then repeat that twice more for a total of three sprints? Congratulations. You’ve just done the most potent workout available. I feel confident saying a minute because we just published a study that showed people who did a minute of all-out exercise three times a week, within a total time commitment of 30 minutes a week, had the same improvement over three months as the people who did all the exercise specified by the public health guidelines. That is, 150 minutes a week of continuous, moderate exercise. Here’s why: Intensity is more important than duration. Relative to all sorts of health benefits, it is more time-efficient to exercise hard for a short amount of time than it is to exercise easy for a long amount of time.

A minute of hard exercise. You sprint as hard as you can, for twenty seconds, and then repeat that twice more for a total of three sprints? Congratulations. You’ve just done the most potent workout available. I feel confident saying a minute because we just published a study that showed people who did a minute of all-out exercise three times a week, within a total time commitment of 30 minutes a week, had the same improvement over three months as the people who did all the exercise specified by the public health guidelines. That is, 150 minutes a week of continuous, moderate exercise. Here’s why: Intensity is more important than duration. Relative to all sorts of health benefits, it is more time-efficient to exercise hard for a short amount of time than it is to exercise easy for a long amount of time. The reason comes down to the metaphoric

That’s what it was supposed to be, but then we started meeting up for morning workouts, which led to a joint trip to the GNC, and then we discovered we both play chess, which led to inviting him over for a game night, and then I quoted Mallrats but he didn’t get it, which led to a movie enlightenment mission and several movie-at-home nights…” I trail off, leaving the “etcetera etcetera” unspoken. Huffing out an exasperated sigh, I explain, “The more we hung out together, the more couple-y we got, and before I knew it we were buying extra toothbrushes to keep at our apartments and doing silly shit like giving each other keys. Add in the most amazing porn star sex ever, and it’s apparently enough for me to want to have his puppy.” “You mean baby.” “God, no. You know better than that. I’m not the nurturing type.” “Yeah, well, you also used to say you weren’t the falling in love type, either.” I narrow my eyes at her. “No one likes a wise-ass, Janey.” “Maybe not, but sometimes a hard-ass like you needs a wise-ass like me.

Peak Intensity • 10+ Duration • 25 minutes The Evidence • When it comes to boosting fitness, there’s something remarkably potent about going all out—and this is the protocol that helped us grasp that. We based it on repeats of the Wingate test, a 30-second all-out sprint on a stationary bike. It’s exhausting—and remarkably powerful. The training protocol features a series of five 30-second all-out sprints, a total of just 2.5 minutes of hard exercise per day. In our study, we had our subjects repeat the protocol three times a week, amounting to a weekly time commitment of just 1.5 hours, and less than 10 minutes of hard exercise a week. After 6 weeks, we compared the sprint group’s benefits with those experienced by a group that exercised continuously at a moderate intensity five times a week for a total of 4.5 hours a week, also for 6 weeks. The sprint subjects either equaled or exceeded the conventional exercisers in their improvements in aerobic capacity, muscle endurance, and the ability to burn fat. A remarkable result, considering the sprint group spent a third of the time exercising.

Peak Intensity • 10+ Duration • 25 minutes The Evidence • When it comes to boosting fitness, there’s something remarkably potent about going all out—and this is the protocol that helped us grasp that. We based it on repeats of the Wingate test, a 30-second all-out sprint on a stationary bike. It’s exhausting—and remarkably powerful. The training protocol features a series of five 30-second all-out sprints, a total of just 2.5 minutes of hard exercise per day. In our study, we had our subjects repeat the protocol three times a week, amounting to a weekly time commitment of just 1.5 hours, and less than 10 minutes of hard exercise a week. After 6 weeks, we compared the sprint group’s benefits with those experienced by a group that exercised continuously at a moderate intensity five times a week for a total of 4.5 hours a week, also for 6 weeks. The sprint subjects either equaled or exceeded the conventional exercisers in their improvements in aerobic capacity, muscle endurance, and the ability to burn fat. A remarkable result, considering the sprint group spent a third of the time exercising. Who

EVEN BEFORE HE GOT ELECTROCUTED, Jason was having a rotten day. He woke in the backseat of a school bus, not sure where he was, holding hands with a girl he didn’t know. That wasn’t necessarily the rotten part. The girl was cute, but he couldn’t figure out who she was or what he was doing there. He sat up and rubbed his eyes, trying to think. A few dozen kids sprawled in the seats in front of him, listening to iPods, talking, or sleeping. They all looked around his age…fifteen? Sixteen? Okay, that was scary. He didn’t know his own age. The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Jason was pretty sure he didn’t live in the desert. He tried to think back…the last thing he remembered… The girl squeezed his hand. “Jason, you okay?” She wore faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the sides. She wore no makeup like she was trying not to draw attention to herself, but it didn’t work. She was seriously pretty. Her eyes seemed to change color like a kaleidoscope—brown, blue, and green. Jason let go of her hand. “Um, I don’t—” In the front of the bus, a teacher shouted, “All right, cupcakes, listen up!” The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he’d eaten something moldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would’ve looked pretty scary if he hadn’t been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called, “Stand up, Coach Hedge!” “I heard that!” The coach scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes fixed on Jason, and his scowl deepened. A jolt went down Jason’s spine. He was sure the coach knew he didn’t belong there. He was going to call Jason out, demand to know what he was doing on the bus—and Jason wouldn’t have a clue what to say. But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat. “We’ll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don’t lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way.

Fitness trainers will tell you that arm lifts with light weights can prevent wiggle waggle. But if that were true, would Jane Fonda have it? This is hard-body Jane, the woman who, back in the ’80s, produced the best-selling workout videos. When she was 72, she made two more, though they included things like exercises for arthritic hands (and wore a leotard that covered her arms).

Your best compound exercises are squats, front squats, deadlifts, Trap Bar deadlifts, standing presses with barbells or dumbbells (or a single dumbbell), barbell and dumbbell bent-over rowing, pull-ups, chin-ups, pull-downs, weighted push-ups, bench presses (performed with barbells, dumbbells, or a single dumbbell), incline presses (performed with barbells, dumbbells, or a single dumbbell), shoulder shrugs (performed with a barbell, two dumbbells, one dumbbell or a Trap Bar), deadlifts from the knees (performed with the bar or Trap Bar elevated by resting the plates on sturdy wooden blocks), hand and thigh lifts, and Hise shrugs. (Many would add dips to the list; I don't because they're hard on the shoulders and can cause shoulder problems for many trainees, particularly older trainees.

Ms. Perry, I didn’t ask you to ride me so hard. You didn’t have to give yourself that much of a workout… but your reverse cowgirl position was an incredible view.” Nubia’s lip curled into a sneer. “No, you didn’t ask me to. But the way your toes curled up, and all that moaning you were doing was such wonderful motivation that I just couldn’t help myself.

So training smart, training effectively, involves cycling through the three zones in any given week or training block: 75 percent easy running, 5 to 10 percent running at target race paces, and 15 to 20 percent fast running or hill training in the third zone to spike the heart and breathing rates. In my 5-days-a-week running schedule, that cycle looks like this: On Monday, I cross-train. Tuesday, I do an easy run in zone one, then speed up to a target race pace for a mile or two of zone-two work. On Wednesday, it’s an easy zone-one run. Thursday is an intense third-zone workout with hills, speed intervals, or a combination of the two. Friday is a recovery day to give my body time to adapt. On Saturday, I do a relaxed run with perhaps another mile or two of zone-two race pace or zone-three speed. Sunday is a long, slow run. That constant cycling through the three zones—a hard day followed by an easy or rest day—gradually improves my performance in each zone and my overall fitness. But today is not about training. It’s about cranking up that treadmill yet again, pushing me to run ever faster in the third zone, so Vescovi can measure my max HR and my max VO2, the greatest amount of oxygen my heart and lungs can pump to muscles working at their peak. When I pass into this third zone, Vescovi and his team start cheering: “Great job!” “Awesome!” “Nice work.” They sound impressed. And when I am in the moment of running rather than watching myself later on film, I really think I am impressing them, that I am lighting up the computer screen with numbers they have rarely seen from a middle-aged marathoner, maybe even from an Olympian in her prime. It’s not impossible: A test of male endurance athletes in Sweden, all over the age of 80 and having 50 years of consistent training for cross-country skiing, found they had relative max VO2 values (“relative” because the person’s weight was included in the calculation) comparable to those of men half their age and 80 percent higher than their sedentary cohorts. And I am going for a high max VO2. I am hauling in air. I am running well over what should be my max HR of 170 (according to that oft-used mathematical formula, 220 − age) and way over the 162 calculated using the Gulati formula, which is considered to be more accurate for women (0.88 × age, the result of which is then subtracted from 206). Those mathematical formulas simply can’t account for individual variables and fitness levels. A more accurate way to measure max HR, other than the test I’m in the middle of, is to strap on a heart rate monitor and run four laps at a 400-meter track, starting out at a moderate pace and running faster on each lap, then running the last one full out. That should spike your heart into its maximum range. My high max HR is not surprising, since endurance runners usually develop both a higher maximum rate at peak effort and a lower rate at rest than unconditioned people. What is surprising is that as the treadmill

Workaholism’ is endemic, and for many of us our life is governed entirely by work. Once upon a time, we worked to live; now, we live to work. Any ‘life’ we do have is merely recovery from work. We work, recover from work and then work again. We go to the office to work. After work, we bring some work home with us. For rest, we go to the gym for a workout. Totally exhausted, we go to therapy to work through our problems – ’I’ve done a lot of work on myself,’ we say. After all that, there’s the housework! Finally, we go to bed, too tired to be happy, but our mind is still working and we can’t sleep. No problem. Insomnia is a wonderful chance to get more work done! The work ethic is motivated by the belief that anything worthwhile requires great work, effort and labour. According to the work ethic – creativity isn’t inspiration, it’s perspiration; love is a labour, not a joy; success is a marathon, it never comes easily; health is about a ‘no pain, no gain’ attitude; salvation is hardest of all – it is a wrestling match with the angels, just ask Jacob. Nothing comes easily, according to the work ethic. Has it ever occurred to you that ... you’re trying too hard to be happy?

THERE’S a square in the upper right-hand corner of your computer keyboard that probably looks more banged up than it did a week or two ago. It’s the one marked “delete.” I’ll bet that you’ve been giving it a workout lately, pressing it hard and often, moving relentlessly backward over your emails, fretting and fussing and killing off nearly as many words as you birth. Are they open to misinterpretation? Is their tone too mischievous or meanspirited? Delete, delete, delete. Better safe than Sony’d.

Women recover faster with 25 to 30 grams of protein (with 5 to 7 grams of BCAAs) within 30 minutes of a hard workout.

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So there we were before breakfast in the hotel garden beneath palm trees, all wearing our matching conference T-shirts. The sound of waves crashing into the hotel beach was drowned out by a boom box playing loud electro workout music to pump us up: exuberant, high-octane tunes with pulsating rhythms that keep building to new crescendos. After dividing into teams, we spent the next forty-five minutes racing from one exercise to the next—planks, squats, sit-ups, sprints, and burpees (a combined squat, push-up, and vertical jump)—constantly high-fiving each other and shouting encouragements. At the end, everyone was exhausted, and we all congratulated each other for our efforts, agreeing vociferously how much fun it was. I enjoyed myself, but was it fun? I did the exercises as best I could, but what I actually enjoyed was the camaraderie, the beautiful setting, the high-fiving, and even the music. Afterward, I also enjoyed the feeling of having exercised intensely. But frankly, the planks, squats, sit-ups, sprints, and burpees were hard. The routine brought to mind the running guru George Sheehan’s observation that “exercise is done against one’s wishes and maintained only because the alternative is worse.

There is nothing quite like the feeling of accomplishment at the end of a hard workout or race.

Check into Whatever Task You’re about to Perform: Before you begin a hard day at work, a workout, or even have a family dinner with the in-laws, check in. Ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing. Are you working hard to take care of your family? Checking in will help you be more aware of your emotions and can make even the most challenging or mundane things more fulfilling. I am about to ________________________________. I am going to do this because ___________________________________. For example, I would write, “I am about to go to the gym. I going to the gym because I feel amazing afterwards. The hour or so of work in the gym makes the rest of my life feel amazing. I have more energy, vitality, and an overall sense of wellbeing.” If I were about to do something unpleasant, such as visit family who hold different beliefs, I may say, “I am going to visit my family. They are kind-hearted people who have always been there for me. Whatever annoyances I face are small in comparison to the largeness of their hearts.

Twenty minutes in, I figured that yin was not the kind of yoga I’d seen on YouTube. It wasn’t a workout, which at first irritated me—I wanted that good butt, after all—and in my experience, if something wasn’t hard, it didn’t work.

So if I’ve done a hard workout, I should…” “Ask me to lick the sweat off your body? Yes, please,” he said before he could think better of it. He nuzzled his armpit again before continuing his exploration on his other side.

I fell into climbing, so to speak, a willy-nilly response to a crushing bout of depression that began in my mid-thirties. The disorder reduced my chronic low self-regard to a bottomless pit of despair and misery. I recoiled from myself and my life, and came very close to suicide. Then, salvation. On a family vacation in Colorado, I discovered the rigors and rewards of mountain climbing, and gradually came to see the sport as my avenue of escape. I found that a punishing workout regimen held back the darkness for hours each day. Blessed surcease. I also gained hard muscle and vastly improved my endurance, two novel sources of pride.

Train 2-7 times a week. Try to complete your workout in 45 min or less. Vary the length of your workouts, for example Monday 30 min, Tuesday 45 min, Wednesday 20 min, Thursday off, Friday 35 min.

Do not be afraid to push into slight overtraining and then back off with lighter workouts. As a Lithuanian saying goes, “A river with a dam has more power.

Each session do as few or as many exercises as you wish but do not work equally hard on every one of them. For example, on Monday do a lot of sets of the bent press, on Tuesday skip the bent press or take it easy and work hard on snatches, etc. Do not be overly pedantic about the order. Just do not do one pet feat at the expense of everything else all the time. Also, do not be afraid to make some workouts relatively easier than others.

Snatches, cleans and jerks can be performed for any number of repetitions, from one to hundreds. Leave all the sets of more than ten reps for the very end of the workout to avoid their negative effect on your presses. The exception is when your presses have become too easy and you have not saved up for a heavier kettlebell yet. Understand that performing strength drills on the background of pronounced fatigue is only marginally effective.

Periodically speed up or slow down the movement from the comfortable pace. For example, snatch at the limit of your explosiveness or at a near stall. When pressing, lowering the kettlebell fast but lifting it slow or vice versa is an option. If you have been following the Power to the People! workout, alternate a 2-4 week period of kettlebell training with a PTP cycle.

Kettlebells stake out the gray zone between the two disciplines. Users handle significant poundage virtually non-stop for the session duration. Workouts are brutal affairs as the athlete tugs, throws, lifts, flings, powers or finesses the bell, singularly, or two at a time, in a wide range of patterned exercises for multiple sets and reps. In a typical progressive resistance exercise the motor-pathway is narrow. When using a progressive resistance machine the groove is narrower yet. A kettlebell uses a broad motor pathway that forces whole series of muscles to work in a coordinated fashion to complete the proscribed exercise. The ‘gaps’ are attacked and the space between conventional weight training movements are filled in.

WORKOUT #1 1. Double arm swing to warm up. –x20 2. Military press (strict). –x10 3. Clean and push press. –x10 4. Cleans. –x10 5. One arm side press. –x5 (each side) 6. Overhead one arm squats. –x10 7. Lunges. –x20 8. Sumo deadlifts. –x20-50 9. Wrestler’s bridge press. –x10 10. Turkish get ups. –x5 (each side) 11. Janda or Ab Pavelizer situps. 12. Chin up ladders. –alternate with a partner. The circuit is done with no rest between exercises for one set of the above repetitions with kettlebells that weight about 23.6 kilograms or 52 pounds each. The workout is under 15.00 and I attempt to lessen the time every workout. Zack and Steve Maxwell are ready to take on their kettlebells.

Falameyev advises to start training with 16kg, advance to 24 kg in four to six weeks, and later to dvukhpudoviks. Beginners are not supposed to train longer than 30 min per workout. Three workouts a week on non-consecutive days, preferably at the same time of the day, are the rule of thumb.

Your kettlebell exercises strengthen your bones and fight osteoporosis. • Kettlebell swings are great for the back and can help overcome back pain and immobility. • Kettlebell swings are the fastest exercise. You can go from sitting to full exertion in seconds and be all done in little over a minute. • With your daily workouts, you will be fierce. And why not? You are slimmer, harder, taller, smarter, fitter, and your booty be bad! The twelve minutes are not done at once. As a matter of fact, eight sessions, each 90 seconds long may be optimal for exertion and spacing for maximizing metabolic risk protection.  Eight sessions has you exercising frequently throughout the day, in quick, easy sessions. Well, quick at least. Your twelve minutes is roughly the cardiovascular equivalent of running an eight minute mile pace for a mile and a half in 12 minutes. A moderate daily aerobic workout is a key component of nearly any health regimen.  It is very good for your heart health to raise your heart rate and respiration with cardiovascular exercise on a daily basis. In many ways, the first minute and a half of running a long distance is the most difficult part of a run, as the body shifts from rest to intense exercise. In this same way, the 90 second kettlebell swings are quite intense, as your body adjusts from no-load to heavy exertion immediately. Kettlebell swings represent a type of interval training, a short burst of intense exercise. Twelve minutes a day of kettlebell swings build muscle.  Muscles, generally, are a good thing, helping us be athletic, protecting us from injury, burning lots of calories and basically looking good. Twelve minutes per day is a very short time to build muscle, compared say, to a construction worker doing demanding physical labor all day. The construction worker will be well muscled, but not necessarily better than yourself, because you are harnessing the weight training effect with your kettlebell swings. You can build significant muscle size and strength with just these few minutes each day, while not having to spend the entire day in hard labor.

Twice a week, a hard 12 minutes of the U.S. Department of Energy “Man Maker.” The Man Maker is a painfully simple workout that was devised and implemented at a federal agency’s academy by Green Beret vet Bill Cullen, RKC. Its template is simple: alternate sets of high-rep kettlebell drills—swings in our case—with a few hundred yards of jogging. Do your swings “to a comfortable stop” most of the time and all-out occasionally. Don’t run hard; jogging is a form of active recovery. Senior RKC Mike Mahler prefers the jump rope to jogging, another great option.

Alcohol was seldom the refuge she sought. Hatch had accustomed herself to physical punishment in the way of a hard workout or a long run. Those were the ways she took the edge off or eased her anxiety, or in some cases, tried to forget some of the past.

Treat Your Manager as a Coach Given what we’ve discussed about the role of managers, your own boss should be one of your best sources of learning. But this might not naturally be the case. Maybe he doesn’t see the day-to-day of your work, or he’s busy putting out other fires, or he simply isn’t as proactive about helping to guide your path as you’d like. Regardless, the person most invested in your career isn’t him; it’s you. Your own growth is in your hands, so if you feel you aren’t learning from your manager, ask yourself what you can do to get the relationship that you want. One of the biggest barriers I’ve found is that people shy away from asking their managers for help. I know that feeling well; for years, I held the mental model that my boss—like my teachers and professors of the past—was someone in a position of authority who took note of what I did and passed judgment on it. As such, how I interacted with my manager could be summarized in one neat statement: Don’t mess it up. I considered it a failure if my manager had to get involved in something I was responsible for. It felt to me like the equivalent of a blinking neon sign that read, Warning: employee not competent enough to take care of task on her own. But we know by now that a manager’s job is to help her team get better results. When you do better, by extension, she does better. Hence, your manager is someone who is on your side, who wants you to succeed, and who is usually willing to invest her time and energy into helping you. The key is to treat your manager as a coach, not as a judge. Can you imagine a star athlete trying to hide his weaknesses from his coach? Would you tell a personal trainer, “Oh, I’m pretty fit, I’ve got it under control,” when she asks you how she can help you achieve a better workout? Of course not. That is not how a coaching relationship works. Instead, engage your manager for feedback. Ask, “What skills do you think I should work on in order to have more impact?” Share your personal goals and enlist his help: “I want to learn to become a better presenter, so I’d be grateful if you kept an eye out for opportunities where I can get in front of others.” Tell him your hard problems so he can help you work through them: “I’m making a hiring call between two candidates with different strengths. Can I walk you through my thinking and get your advice?” When I started to see 1:1s with my manager as an opportunity for focused learning, I got so much more out of it. Even when I’m not grappling with a problem, asking open-ended questions like, “How do you decide which meetings to attend?” or “How do you approach selling a candidate?” takes advantage of my manager’s know-how and teaches me something new.

Where HIIT intervals are very short, typically measured in seconds, VO2 max intervals are a bit longer, ranging from three to eight minutes—and a notch less intense. I do these workouts on my road bike, mounted to a stationary trainer, or on a rowing machine, but running on a treadmill (or a track) could also work. The tried-and-true formula for these intervals is to go four minutes at the maximum pace you can sustain for this amount of time—not an all-out sprint, but still a very hard effort. Then ride or jog four minutes easy, which should be enough time for your heart rate to come back down to below about one hundred beats per minute. Repeat this four to six times and cool down.

Kettlebell workouts are very effective at burning fat. When done properly, these routines can burn up to 400 calories in a single 20-minute session. The combination of intensity and targeting of specific areas on the body makes for impeccable results, even for hard to reach places. This will be a major time saver for all of your busy-bodies out there.

Where HIIT intervals are very short, typically measured in seconds, VO2 max intervals are a bit longer, ranging from three to eight minutes—and a notch less intense. I do these workouts on my road bike, mounted to a stationary trainer, or on a rowing machine, but running on a treadmill (or a track) could also work. The tried-and-true formula for these intervals is to go four minutes at the maximum pace you can sustain for this amount of time—not an all-out sprint, but still a very hard effort.

It’s not that hard on any given day, but the trick is you can’t skip days. Your workouts can be reasonable and still deliver results—if you don’t skip days. Your writing sessions can be short and the work will still accumulate—if you don’t skip days. As long as you’re working, you’ll get there.

As you learn to be your own coach, be aware of your impatience. Keep it in check. Remind yourself before a hard workout or race that you must contain your emotions early on in order to finish strongly.

I was proud of him, but I was also proud of myself. I'd had a minimal amount of time to get in shape to qualify for one of the hardest jobs in the world. It had been a demanding journey, with agony an ever-present shadow. Yet at thirteen weeks post-surgery, I rode my bike 444 miles. At eight months, I ran forty-eight miles in forty-five hours, and at nine months, I was challenging twenty-somethings in everything from running to rucking to pull-ups to hauling heavy shit a hell of a long way. But I wasn't out to take their souls. This young group inspired me. I wanted to push them like they were pushing me because they were the next generation of hard, and though I did like winning my fair share of runs and workouts, I liked it even better when they got me. p286

People who’ve spent time on high country trails know the heartbreak of a false summit. When all you want is for the incline to stop kicking your ass, it tricks you into thinking you’ve made it, only to reveal that you aren’t even close! But you don’t have to be a trail rat to know that feeling. In life, there are plenty of false summits. Maybe you think you’ve rocked an assignment at work or school, only to have your teacher or supervisor rip it to pieces or tell you to start over again. False summits can come in the gym when you’re doing a hard circuit workout and think you’ve hit the last set, only to hear from your coach or trainer—or from a quick glance at your own notes—that you have to go back through the entire circuit one last time. We all take a punch like that every once in a while, but those who tend to crane their necks looking for the crest of the mountain as they beg for their suffering to end are the ones who get smashed the most by any false summit. We have to learn to stop looking for a sign that the hard time will end. When the distance is unknown, it is even more critical that you stay locked in so the unknown factor doesn’t steal your focus. The end will come when it comes, and anticipation will only distract you from completing the task in front of you to the best of your ability. Remember, the struggle is the whole journey. That’s why you’re out there. It’s why you signed up for this race, or that class, or took the damn job. There is great beauty when you are involved in something that is so hard most people want it to end. When Hell Week ended, most of the guys who survived cheered, wept tears of joy, high-fived, or hugged one another. I got the Hell Week blues because I’d been immersed in the beauty of grinding through it and the personal growth that came with it.

Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon, and he made his web gear. He doesn’t worry about what workout to do—his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn’t care how hard it is; he only knows that he wins or he dies. He doesn’t go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the cause. —ATTRIBUTED TO AN UNIDENTIFIED U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES INSTRUCTOR, FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA, DATE UNKNOWN

Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water, in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon, and he made his web gear. He doesn’t worry about what workout to do—his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn’t care how hard it is; he only knows that he wins or he dies. He doesn’t go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the cause.

He ditched the plasmapheresis treatments. He kept going to CrossFit with his brother and sister, and got his dad to join. For everyone else at CrossFit Oldtown, the Unknown and Unknowable was tomorrow’s workout. For Mike, the Unknown and Unknowable was how much of his nervous system had been nipped around the edges since the last time he’d done the same WOD. Workout loads were going down from heavy to moderate to lightweight, and then to only bodyweight. The mission was simply to push his body as hard as it could go, with its corroded wiring, to make the system remember its repertoire of full-body movements.

Difficult Distinctions: Famous and Infamous In a book by a well-known writer I once saw the phrase “Mom’s infamous recipe for pumpkin soup,” in which one mischosen word turned the meaning of the phrase around. Something famous is well known for its good or desirable qualities; a famous person is outstanding or distinguished in some way, and therefore admired. But something infamous (IN-fuh-mus) is remarkable for its bad qualities and bad reputation; it is notorious, scandalous, disgraceful, or evil. Thus, a family with a famous recipe for soup would cherish that recipe for generations, while a family with an infamous recipe for soup would have a hard time filling the chairs at the dinner table.

Kissing Ellie was like putting on glasses after a lifetime of squinting at far-away shapes. Like the first gasp of air after cliff diving into the ocean. Like a cold shower after a hard summer workout. Like a fucking reward.

love yourself when things are hard, when you make mistakes, when you give up before trying, when you don't workout for the second day in a row, when you lay in bed all day, when all you feel is sadness, when a promise is hard to keep, when you don't know what to say, when you say too much, when you fail, when you don't want to. love yourself even when you don't feel like it

ENDORPHINS SERVE ONE purpose and one purpose only: to mask physical pain. That’s it. Think of endorphins as our own personal opiate. Often released in response to stress or fear, they mask physical pain with pleasure. The experience of a “runner’s high,” the feeling of euphoria many athletes experience during or after a hard workout, is in fact the endorphin chemical surging through their veins.

Where HIIT intervals are very short, typically measured in seconds, VO2 max intervals are a bit longer, ranging from three to eight minutes—and a notch less intense. I do these workouts on my road bike, mounted to a stationary trainer, or on a rowing machine, but running on a treadmill (or a track) could also work. The tried-and-true formula for these intervals is to go four minutes at the maximum pace you can sustain for this amount of time—not an all-out sprint, but still a very hard effort. Then ride or jog four minutes easy, which should be enough time for your heart rate to come back down to below about one hundred beats per minute. Repeat this four to six times and cool down.[*4]

I love you,” I try. It isn’t nearly as hard to say as I thought it would be. “I love you so much.” Actually, it does hurt to say it. But it aches in a good way. Like sore muscles after a good workout. It aches like progress. Roddy leans down and places a soft kiss on my temple. “I know,” he says. “I love you, too. Now just relax.

Working out with a bad partner sucks. It drains your energy and motivation and can even cause you to lose enthusiasm for working out altogether. On the other hand, working out with a good partner can go far in keeping you on track and making progress. He helps keep you accountable and wanting to show up every day, and having a spot on certain exercises helps push you for another rep and encourages you to move up in weight as you should. These things can make a big difference as time goes on. Those workouts, additional reps, and progressions in weight that wouldn’t have happened if you were solo add up to real gains. So, I recommend that you find someone to work out with before you start, and the two of you should agree to the following code. 1. I will show up on time for every workout, and if I can’t avoid missing one, I’ll let my partner know as soon as I know. 2. I won’t let my partner get out of a workout easily. I will reject any excuses that are short of an actual emergency or commitment that can’t be rescheduled, and I will insist that he comes and trains. In the case where there’s a valid excuse, if at all possible, I’ll offer to train at a different time so we can get our workout in. 3. I will come to the gym to train—not to chat. When we’re in the gym, we focus on our workouts, we’re always ready to spot each other, and we get our work done efficiently. 4. I will train hard to set a good example for my partner. 5. I will push my partner to do more than he thinks he can. It’s my job to motivate him to do more weight and more reps than he believes possible. 6. I will be supportive of my partner and will compliment him on his gains.

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stimulating conversations–ones that make us laugh so hard that it feels like we just completed an extreme abdominal workout, ones that

To do truly meaningful work, you need to get serious, focus, and go all in. Floyd Mayweather Junior is the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world. As of this writing, he is also the highest paid athlete in the world. His motto? Hard Work, Dedication. His team chants the motto as he trains. One group yells, “Hard work!” and the other responds, “Dedication!” The chants get louder and faster as Mayweather increases the speed and intensity of his workout. Mayweather knows the value of these words, and the impact they have on success. He lives by them. He endures grueling training sessions, 2-3 times per day. He often trains late into the night. He doesn’t smoke or drink alcohol—ever. Floyd Mayweather is no joke. He’s the real deal. And that’s why he’s such a big deal. He lives to box. It’s what he loves to do. His hard work and dedication have paid off, literally. Some people question Mayweather’s morals, or ridicule him for his arrogance, but it’s hard to argue with his unparalleled achievements in boxing and the relentless dedication that backs it all up. The best in the world are the best because they work their asses off doing what they were born to do. They make sacrifices. They keep grinding—and they don’t stop.[36]

You’d think I’d be excited to get into shape, but I wasn’t. I don’t like to exercise, but not because it’s painful or tiring. I’ve climbed mountains in Peru and ridden my bike across America. I’m willing. The reason I don’t like exercise is because somewhere, in the deep recesses of my brain I’ve become convinced no amount of work is enough. I never leave a workout satisfied or proud of myself. And for that matter, I never quit a writing session thinking I’ve worked hard enough either. Or a teaching gig or a business meeting or anything else. I’m so bad about this I used to mow my lawn then crawl around on the grass with a pair of scissors, cutting uneven blades of grass. No kidding. I might have a problem. There are really only two things a person can do when they’re that much of a perfectionist. They can either live in the torture and push themselves to excel, or they can quit. I tend to go back and forth between the torture of working too hard and the sloth of quitting. The reason I bring this up has nothing to do with exercise or writing. I bring it up because it’s a symptom of a bigger problem, a problem that is going to affect mine and Betsy’s relationship. The problem is this: those of us who are never satisfied with our accomplishments secretly believe nobody will love us unless we’re perfect. In the outer ring Bill was talking about, the ring that covers shame, we write the word perfect and attempt to use perfection to cover our shame. I had a friend once who used to mumble curse words every time she drove by her high school algebra teacher’s house because, years before, the teacher had given her a B-.

Lily Thomas lay in bed when the alarm went off on a snowy January morning in Squaw Valley. She opened her eyes for just an instant and saw the thick snow swirling beyond the windows of the house her father had rented, and for a fraction of an instant, she wanted to roll over and go back to sleep. She could hear the dynamite blasts in the distance to prevent avalanches, and just from a glance, she knew what kind of day it was. You could hardly see past the windows in the heavy blizzard, and she knew that if the mountain was open, it wouldn’t be for long. But she loved the challenge of skiing in heavy snow. It would be a good workout, and she didn’t want to miss a single day with one of her favorite instructors, Jason Yee.

I had been watching the yakuza for over a month now, and knew his routines. I’d learned that he liked to vary the times of his workouts, sometimes arriving at the gym early in the morning, sometimes at night. Probably he assumed the resulting unpredictability would make him hard to get to. He was half right. Unpredictability is the key to being a hard target, but the concept applies to both time and place. Half measures like this guy’s will protect you from some of the people some of the time, but they won’t save you for long from someone like me.

Step One Preparing The Mind Anytime athletes compete, they condition themselves that they may win the prize. An athlete is well self-disciplined, and temperate in all things. They tell their bodies what to do rather than letting their bodies tell them what to do. They have self-control and self-discipline in every aspect of life including their diet, in sleeping, in their behavior, in their conduct, and in their exercise. They keep a goal in mind with a plan of attack, and a determination to win. They exercise their bodies with a plan to optimize themselves in strength to overcome. For example a runner will be more concerned with leg exercises and the parts of the body which help run. They will train for endurance more so than strength, whereas some other athletes may be concerned with upper body strength only. Likewise we need to be conditioned in all things and well-disciplined to exercise ourselves towards godliness. Our target workout is not upper or lower body, but the spiritual body with soundness of mind. Without self-discipline it is impossible to memorize the amount of Scripture we should memorize. It goes without saying that mental conditioning should be a primary focus when attempting to memorize. That way, one may be optimized for memorizing the word of God. A runner exercises their legs for optimum performance and likewise we should also exercise our minds in Christ for memorizing and walking in wisdom. To make the most of memorization time one needs to be fully alert. It is best not to do it after a long day of work, an extremely stressful period of time, early in the morning when you’re groggy, or late at night before you go to bed. Rather it is better to pick a peaceful time of day during which you are most alert. Sometimes a small sip of coffee or other mental stimulant can help wake you up enough for meditation time. In order to be well conditioned mentally, first we need to understand how to be at peace within ourselves. If you’re often stressed out it can be difficult to memorize what you need to. Watch your own heart and be certain that you don’t take things too critically in life. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you take it. If you find yourself stressed out often, it may be more of how you’re handling the situation, than what’s happening to you. Although there may be something stressful happening in your life you may not need to take it so hard. In fact, the Lord calls us to always be rejoicing. As it is written, “Rejoice always” 1Th 5:16  The apostles through hardship and persecution were known to give joyous glory to the Lord. After being beaten by the council in Acts the apostles rejoiced in the Lord for the persecution they received. As we read, “…and when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.” Act 5:40-41 Likewise our temperance and spiritual state of mind can help us when it comes to time for memorizing the word of God. There are both short term and long term exercises that we should practice. In the short term we should learn to rest in Christ and release things to Him. In the long term we should grow in meekness, not taking things so critically in life that we can be at peace.

You have to have the vision of what it is you are going to achieve by the hard work, but more importantly, you have to find a way to make the hard work fun … every workout is a small competition within yourself. John “Big Jake” Carenza, 1972 Olympics – Soccer

The cyclicality of hard alternating with easy plays out not only in the day and the week but also across training cycles and even across years. Think of Olympians who take an easy year or two in their quadrennial cycles. Check that there is variety across your training at every level, from the cooldown after a hard workout to the easier year after a particularly tough season. Active recovery, both in easy workouts and in easy days, introduces variability to training. Remember Carl Foster’s finding, outlined in Chapter 4, that athletes can adapt better to a greater overall training stress when it is variable instead of monotonous. Make the easy days really easy so that the hard days can be truly hard. If you can rein in your effort on your easy days, you’ll have room to push a little faster or a little longer on your hard days, yielding a much bigger fitness reward than simply muddling through with easy days that are too hard and hard days that therefore become too slow or short.

You have to hustle just to pass muster, and work twice as hard as that to gain ground.

We hear all the time about how important it is to be physically fit. Our society has become ultra-focused on fitness and health. Our Facebook feeds are filled with seven-minute workouts. There are YouTube videos galore on seven days to rock-hard abs. The radio plays ads to lose ten pounds in ten days, but only if you call in the next ten minutes. Even the president told us to be physically fit. Remember the Presidential Physical Fitness Test in elementary school? A quick shuttle run, the dreaded flexed arm hang. It tested strength, endurance, flexibility, and agility. All different ways to prove we were physically fit. Or not. As a matter of fact, Americans now spend more on fitness than on college tuition.1 Over a lifetime, the average American spends more than $100,000 on things like gym memberships, supplements, exercise equipment, and personal training.2 Seems shocking, right? But where are the training programs for the thoughts in your head? Those thoughts that tell you that you have no choices when bad things happen. Those thoughts that try to convince you everything is out of your control in difficult situations. Where do you go if you want to be Thoughtfully Fit? Right here in this book.

To escape from this trap, we must first stop moralizing our behaviors. Instead of using fuzzy feelings of “right” and “wrong” and “good” and “bad” to guide our actions, we need to remember why we’ve committed to doing the hard things like exercising, following a meal plan, educating ourselves, sticking to a budget, and working overtime. We need to view these actions as independent steps necessary for achieving the outcomes we desire, not as “good” behaviors that we can “cash in” for sins. For our purposes here, remember that our goal isn’t just good workouts or on-target eating. It’s enjoying shopping for clothes again—especially for the breezy, summer, sleeveless stuff. It’s throwing away the scale because you don’t need it anymore. It’s the surprise on people’s faces when they haven’t seen you in a while. It’s the newfound intimacy in your love life. In short, bingeing on chocolate and missing workouts aren’t little “oopsies” that you can erase with the right thoughts. They’re direct threats to your overarching objectives. Remember that when you come face to face with sticky willpower challenges.

Many of us tell ourselves a story that we don’t have time for Stillness. That there’s so much to do at work and at home that we can’t make space for mental breaks. However, you need breaks. Imagine if you finished a hard workout, and immediately afterward you told yourself you had to do another hour of intense exercise. That would be crazy, right? You would insist on a break to catch your breath, drink some water, and slow your heart rate. Just like your body, your mind needs time to relax and recover. If you ask it to keep going at top speed all day and into the evening, eventually you’re not going to be productive.

When you first start doing core workouts, it’s rough. It’s hard. And it hurts. But if you’re consistent, it gets easier. The exercises become less painful, and you start to feel and see the results. And one of the sneaky things about a strong core is that it shows up in places you might not expect. Perhaps you thank your core for the fact that your back doesn’t hurt anymore. Or perhaps it’s easier to shove your suitcase in the overhead bin on the airplane. A strong core provides a physical support system and helps you function better—whether you’re carrying the groceries into your house or competing in an Ironman. If you’re reading this book, you’re already putting in the work! You see that things could be better, and you’re ready to do something to make that happen. So, let’s engage your core. As with your physical core, your Thoughtfully Fit core can provide you with a support system that makes it easier to be thoughtful with yourself and others. You’re then less likely to have conflict and regrets. However, this also takes consistent practice. Just like ten sit-ups won’t give you much core strength, pausing once a month won’t have much impact on your life or relationships. But if you practice, engaging your Thoughtfully Fit core will get easier, and the effect will sneak up (in a good way, I promise). As your core confidence builds, your day-to-day decisions will be more thoughtful, better informed, and made with more empathy.

They encouraged each other as they suffered through ridiculously hard workouts. They pushed each other. They coached each other. They made each other better.

From the beginning, I was a believer in the basic movements, because that was Reg Park’s preference. At the times Reg hadn’t accelerated his workouts for some major competition, he would stay with the basic exercises—bench presses, chin-ups, squats, rowing, barbell curls, wrist curls, pullovers, leg extensions, calf raises. These were the movements that worked most directly on all the body parts. I was following his example to the letter. And as it turned out, I could hardly have chosen more wisely. The basic exercises were creating for me a rugged foundation, a core of muscle I could later build upon for a winning body. Reg Park’s theory was that first you have to build the mass and then chisel it down to get the quality; you work on your body the way a sculptor would work on a piece of clay or wood or steel. You rough it out—the more carefully, the more thoroughly, the better—then you start to cut and define. You work it down gradually until it’s ready to be rubbed and polished. And that’s when you really know about the foundation. Then all the faults of poor early training stand out as hopeless, almost irreparable flaws.

COUPLES HAVING BARIATRIC SURGERY TOGETHER It happens more and more often: Two people will have bariatric surgery together. It is difficult being the patient. It can also be trying for the significant other. When couples have the surgery together, it can be twice as hard. Each person has the problems of both the patient and the significant other. I have found that people in healthy relationships do well together, but those having problems often see increased relationship difficulties after surgery. If you plan to have the surgery with a partner, try to remain independent as far as exercise and food choices. Working out together is a bonus, but do not get into the habit of skipping workouts because your partner cannot participate. Do not let your partner be in charge of your habits. Good communication is the key to a couple’s success. Before the surgery, discuss the logistics of the changes you must make. After the surgery, talk to each other weekly about your feelings regarding the surgery and the changes you are both experiencing. It is possible to grow much closer as a couple as a result of this experience. There will be a tendency to talk each other into tiny cheats. Typically, this is how it works: “C’mon, let’s just have a little bit. We deserve it.” Having the surgery together represents some increased challenges, but has the potential for increased excitement and support. Keep communication flowing and problems will be minimized.

THE CODE OF A GOOD TRAINING PARTNER I will show up on time for every workout, and if I can’t avoid missing one, I’ll let my partner know as soon as I know. I will come to the gym to train—not to chat. When we’re in the gym, we focus on our workouts, we’re always ready to spot each other, and we get our work done efficiently. I will train hard to set a good example for my partner. I will push my partner to do more than she thinks she can. It’s my job to motivate her to do more weight and more reps than she believes possible. I will be supportive of my partner and will compliment her on her gains. I won’t let my partner get out of a workout easily. I will reject any excuses that are short of an actual emergency or commitment that can’t be rescheduled, and I will insist that she comes and trains. In the case where there’s a valid excuse, I’ll offer to train at a different time so we can get our workout in (if at all possible).

WOMAN!” I SHOUTED, and shook Rachel’s bed roughly. “Wake up.” She shot straight up, her eyes wide in panic as she looked around her room before settling them on me. “God, I thought earthquakes had followed me to Texas.” Taking a calming breath, she brushed her wild hair back from her face and scowled at me. “What is wrong with you? And what time is it—seven? Really, Kash?” “Get up and get ready.” “No.” Pulling the covers up past her shoulders, she sank back into the mattress and shut her eyes. Hell. No. “This is your last warning, Rach. Get up.” A single snort was her only reply. “Such a pain in my ass,” I mumbled, and walked to the foot of the bed. Grabbing the bottom of the comforter, I ripped it off the bed and dropped it on the ground. “Oh my God, what if I had been naked?!” I raised an eyebrow and let my gaze run over her body. I wouldn’t have minded. Ah shit, now I was getting hard and the jersey material of these shorts wouldn’t hide that fact. Think about Mrs. Adams and her fake cats. Think about Mrs. Adams and her fake cats! “Moot point; you’re not. Now, get your ass out of bed.” “Give me at least another couple hours. I just went to sleep.” “Not my fault, and you’ve had more than enough chances to get up yourself.” “Kash, please,” she whined. “Don’t whine. It’s not attractive.” Without giving her any more time, I scooped her into my arms and threw her over my shoulder before heading toward her bathroom. A low oompf left her before she began bitching at me. “I am going to gut you, you freakin’ asshole! Seven in the damn morning, what the hell is wrong with you?! Put me down—ugh! Easy, this shit hurts. You have really bony shoulders, has anyone ever told you that?” She gasped when I turned the shower water on. “Put me down right now, Logan Hendricks, or I swear to all that is holy you will regret the day you moved in across from me and almost took my Jeep door off!” “No can do, my little Sour Patch.” Thank God I was still only in my workout shorts. Kicking off my running shoes, I stepped into the large tub and winced when she shrieked. “You evil bastard, let me go!” “You sure have a mouth on you when you wake up.” “I will murder you!” I couldn’t help but smile. She was just so damn cute. “And you’re a little dramatic.” “This water is freezing,” she whined, and I’d bet she was pouting just as bad as Candice usually did. At least her anger was dying down and her fists had stopped pounding on my back. “What did I ever do to you?” “I gave you every opportunity to get yourself ready. You were the one who wouldn’t get out of bed.” “I had barely gone to sleep!” “Rach,” I snorted, “it’s seven in the morning and you left my place at nine last night. Why had you just gone to sleep?” She didn’t answer and stopped wiggling against me. She just hung there, limp. “What—no more threats? No more whining?” Silence. “Woman, I swear to God, if you fell asleep on my damn shoulder . . .” I trailed off when I heard her mumble something. “What’d you say?” “I was afraid to fall back asleep,” she whispered, and my eyes clenched shut. “Ah, Rach.” I slid her awkwardly down my body until she was standing in front of me. I tried to block the water that was directed at her, but little droplets were bouncing off my bare shoulders and hitting her face. She blinked rapidly against them before dropping her head. “Why didn’t you call me or something?” She huffed and shook her head. “What for, Kash? To make you sit there with me in sweats longer? So you could act like what happened yesterday morning didn’t? I don’t need you to babysit me when I’m being ridiculous.” “That’s not ridiculous.

In our personal life also, there are many important tasks that are not pleasant. For example, every person knows the importance of fitness in leading a healthy and happy life. One easy way to keep fit is to do a morning walk or workout regularly. These activities are hardly pleasant in the beginning. However, if you follow the routine of doing morning walk and exercise, you gradually train your mind to take the important-but-unpleasant task first and let other interesting activities of the day wait till your difficult but important job is over. If you follow this regime, you will find that even the other daily activities throughout the day become more enjoyable.

With a strong grounding in my purpose, I can suffer through almost anything. Our mental exercises at the Cape helped us understand our purpose. Self-knowledge allows instinct to take over in competition. When it gets hard -- in the last thirty seconds of a workout, or in the middle of a ten-rounder -- the answer for why you are working so hard will dictate what you do next. Stomp the gas, or hit the brake.