F*%k the Gym
Some days that’s how I feel now.
Ironic I know seeing as I’m a fitpro running a fitness business.
Hear me out.
Having been a gym rat for 20 years, it was somewhere I lived in. I probably hit about 5 gym sessions a week, plus 4 Rugby pitch sessions and a rugby match at the weekend.
In fact, there wasn’t many days I didn’t train 2 x per day, and if I didn’t train 2 x per day, I felt guilty.
It’s only recently I realised, that for most of my rugby career, I was over training, under recovering and most likely under-performing because of it.
The gym now for me, is somewhere I go when I feel like It and not somewhere I make myself go to.
You know why?
Because I just don’t enjoy it anymore.
I am 100% sure my 20 years of it are responsible for it. Constantly having a fear of failure that I wouldn’t be strong enough or fit enough to succeed or get into what ever team I was playing for.
Don’t get me wrong, I was 100% confident in my ability but not in my body.
I now get my exercise from boxing twice or three times a week, I play 5 a side once a week and do yoga once a week.
That’s it,
This is what I can commit to and enjoy and I can see myself doing this as a routine moving forward.
You see I am one of those people who wasn’t blessed with good genetics and had to work about twice as hard to get into the same condition as most others.
Same applies with fatloss, I certainly don’t have a 6 pack. It doesn’t interest me anymore. I’m happy, healthy and comfortable in my skin, and that is what matters. I would have to go on a fairly restricted diet to get there and I am not prepared to do that at the moment, running a couple of businesses, having two young kids and having broken sleep most nights.
Excuses?
Yeah maybe, but only if I wanted to have chiselled abs, but as I said, it doesn’t interest me.
That’s cool, I am totally ok with that, although it was extremely frustrating at times when others ate what they wanted and did a quarter of my training load but strutted around in amazing condition.
This led to an obsession with training and trying to be the fittest, strongest etc. mainly led by fear, but also to drive the standards of every team I played with forward.
But one thing it did teach me was this…
Work ethic.
How important it is in life and how it will serve you well in all aspects of it.
Nobody would outwork me, and I was proud of that.
Talent aside, that’s one thing you have complete control over, and if you are not succeeding at whatever you are doing, and aren’t working to your capability, then please…I don’t wanna hear it.
So, what am I actually getting at?
Two things really.
Whatever you choose to do in your life,
- Do it to the best of your ability
- Most of all, enjoy it.
Apply this to work, fitness, life, hobbies, family and relationships.
Because if you don’t, it won’t last and you won’t likely succeed at it.
Yours in fitness
Damian
Dalkey Fitpro
South Dublin
