Attack Your Weaknesses!
So I just got done with my first workout in over 72 hours, and good God am I feeling it! It’s funny how just a few days of inactivity can result in such a noticeable loss of flexibility and endurance.
I’ll admit, I probably pushed myself a little too far on Day 1 back from a respiratory illness, but man, even with doing a simple yoga routine focusing on my hips, knees and lower back, my hips and knees are barking and quivering nearly half an hour AFTER the workout! Which brings me to today’s message…
ATTACK YOUR WEAKNESSES!
When I was a toddler, my parents tried to enroll me in sports — Specifically, Little League and Youth Soccer. I hated both, and one of my earliest memories is throwing a temper tantrum to get my parents to take me off the field during a baseball practice. We quickly came to the consensus that I had no interest in playing sports, and as a result, my childhood was incredibly sedentary.
My favorite activities included playing video games (Mario ’64 was my jam), watching R-rated movies from age six on (thanks Dad!), surfing the web on our AOL dial-up modem, and eating quite a bit of sugary garbage…
So, it was to my dismay that when I began my active lifestyle at the age of 12, I had quite a bit of muscle atrophy and tightness to overcome compared to my peers. My classmates had been playing sports since they could walk, and not only were they much more in-tune with their bodies, but I was in that awkward growth spurt phase, making the learning of athletic movement all the more difficult.
Since I started playing baseball, I remember struggling fielding ground balls. ‘Get low!’ my coaches would yell, and while my teammates were doing so with ease, I couldn’t understand how they could get into such a low squatting position practically every time a ball was hit at them, all while the ball kept skipping under my glove because I wasn’t getting down far enough.
It wasn’t until I was an adult and getting my CrossFit Level 1 certification that I realized that due to the first 12 incredibly inactive years of my life, my hips, knees and lower back were EXTREMELY tight! I remember doing a group seminar on how to squat properly, and the instructor kept using me as the example of how you should NOT being squatting…
My heels were coming off the ground, my chest was falling forward, and the only reason I had any stability in my poor excuse of a squat was because both my toes and my calves were disproportionately strong compared to the rest of my lower body. The instructor went on to tell both myself and the coaches getting certified with me how to drill these poor postural patterns out of new clients.
So, I took some of the drills I learned in that seminar, and practiced my squat every day, doing things like holding a deep squat while holding onto a wall or a pole in front of me. At first, it was excruciating! My hips, knees and lower back were all barking, and within just 10–15 seconds, they were spasming uncontrollably.
While this was tough, I didn’t give up. I kept practicing those drills, until i could squat better than 99% of the people I saw at gyms, in fitness videos, etc.
But it didn’t end there. A couple of years ago, my buddy got me a gag gift: A scrubbed DVD of a yoga program called DDP Yoga. For those of you who weren’t big wrestling fans in the 90s, Diamond Dallas Page (or DDP) was a popular wrestler whose career was cut short due to a severe back injury. With the help of yoga, he was not only able to rehabilitate his back injury, but was able to get into better shape in his 50s than he’d been at any point in his life, including during his wrestling career where he would routinely body slam 250–300 lb men.
This led him to open up a yoga studio in Georgia, and to begin teaching others what he had learned during his rehab journey. At first, I treated this gift like it was — A cheap gag gift that I was never going to use. I initially looked at yoga as a very non-masculine form of exercise, and didn’t begin to utilize it until years of powerlifting with admittedly poor form began to catch up to me.
The transformation in my flexibility and performance since I actually decided to try it out has been nothing short of remarkable. My explosiveness and power are way up, my flexibility is now BETTER than most people’s, and I because of the incredible results I’ve seen in just a few short years, I want it to get even better!
While weird goals for a male my age, I’d like to one day be able to perform a full split, to be able to perform a Half Pigeon pose touching my entire outer thigh to the ground, and to sit in a perfect Double Pigeon pose.
To this point, I’ve gotten between 50–75% of the way there in each instance, but not quite there yet. This just goes to show how over half of my life later, I’ve still not gotten full range-of-motion in my hips despite regular practice and drilling via focused exercise practices.
So, what are you looking to improve? By how much? Is it strength? Flexibility? In what parts of your body are you looking to achieve these goals?
Imagine how much EASIER life would be if you could get that area of your body into the type of shape you’d need it to be to perform at your best. Trust me, between my personal experience and in helping my clients to overcome their initial movement deficiencies, it’s incredible what a significant difference these improvements can make.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it (and trust me, you should accept it!): Attack your weaknesses, and never relent!
Enjoy the rest of your weekend :-)
Sincerely,
Coach Pete
pete@weightlossbypete.com
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Until tomorrow!
