When I look at pictures of athletes back in the early 1900’s on up through the 80’s, they don’t appear to be that much different than the ordinary man on the street. They obviously didn’t know the benefits of proper weight training and the drug industry hadn’t introduced itself into the sports world.
But as I watched a major league ball game the other day, I noticed that just about everybody (maybe less so pitchers) was a carefully carved out speciman of a human being. If you look at sports cards of basketball players in past generations, they were either stringbeans or just standard looking. Again, minus the exception of a Manute Bol or Shawn Bradley, they are now solid walls of steel.
Even our young athletes in high school go through a carefully constructed regimen of weight training as our knowledge of muscle growth advances. We are soon to be, if we are not already there, a nation of the haves and have nots physically. As far as exercise and training are concerned, there will be those that do and those that clearly do not . . . or should I say do-nut.
Being who I am, my sympathies are with the have nots. I am not a doughy have not; I just have not. At a recent men’s retreat, I was warmed by the fact that there were many have nots, who, in their attempt to be “wild at heart”, may have damaged their heart and every muscle they had at one time and thought they still had. I have never seen more limps and pain in one place, though they were forced through their attempt to maintain their manliness to suffer in silence for themost part.
I was a little more intelligent than that. I realize my boundaries and do not exert myself beyond them. But now, in maybe a last ditch attempt, I am going to test myself. I am actually going to work at something physical. I have many things that I want to accomplish, and without stamina, that doesn’t happen.
I have only attempted to weight train seriously three times in my life. In all three cases, it had an immediate positive effect. My personal best was a 30 pound gain in weight/muscle over a two and a half month period, which was accompanied by a grotesque consumption of eight glasses of milk, four with protein powder included, and an extra meal at 2:30 a.m. That was done all on my own. In the other two cases, I needed work out partners. Once they were gone, so was I, and the drop off was just as substantial.
Now, I’ve found another partner. We will be up at 6:00 a.m., the hardest part for me, and we will begin our venture. We are not confused; we will not be walls of steel. Hopefully though, providing we can fight through the excuses, we won’t be walls of marshmallows or toothpicks either.