After four posts, I think it’s time to write down the word gym for the first time. Actually, the second time, I think I mentioned “gym training” once before. Liar!
Not mentioning it more often is a little bit ironic, because my thinking has developed in this direction mostly because of the last 20 years I spent pretty much living in gyms.
In my teens, I loved it for the pump and the hype. The muscles started to appear, I was getting stronger, had good times with my mates yet there was no pressure from any commitment. The motto was pretty much “lift heavy, don’t get hurt, don’t overthink it, get it done and have fun doing it”.
In my early twenties the gym also became a place to work at. I still enjoyed training, but 6 years is quite a few years to be doing the same thing over and over again. Overall, I had already had more experience in the gym by the age of 20 than most people have in a lifetime so starting to work in one and eventually build a career from it was a natural progression.
By my mid-twenties I was pretty much living in gyms. Start early, grind all day, finish late, repeat. Monday to Saturday. Without going into details just believe me, there were many things also happening at the same time. Life, studying, eating (food prepping) and trying to be young too.
Lucky for me, I’ve had a genuine interest in all things gym related. Firstly, I liked bodybuilding, so naturally I was reading magazines on how to build muscles and then how exercises would target different muscles. Then I had to learn about nutrition, because you can’t grow big without fueling your body. The combination of the two worked very well, and most importantly, the consistency was there too! I developed myself in many areas: improved my body, my knowledge; I could help people do the same, and I even got paid for it. Pretty cool.
Over time, I started to notice the little things more and more. I would see people doing pull-ups in a million different ways, but surprisingly, the people who did in a very particular way had always had more developed backs than others. This got me looking at exercises differently. However, in a subjective subject (which back shape looks better) there is no measure other than personal preference, and eventually I realized this doesn’t fully align with me.
I wanted the pull-ups to be done in a very particular way. Not only because of my OCD, but because I wanted better results and I believed those results were in the details. Some people would fully bend their body backwards and lift their chest out, while others would be slightly curving their whole body in. Some would bring their elbows wide to the side while others pulled them down to their hips. Some people would be shaking non stop, some would be flying up like a bird. Neither of them was truly right or wrong, they were all doing pull-ups, but they were all simply different. It was hard to define why. Watch enough people do the “same thing” thousands of times and you will start to notice these too. Well. I saw a hundred exercises a million times. Each. Repeatedly.
The combination of all this and the Internet together led me to discover a training methodology that would define standards – a clear starting and finishing point of each of their exercises. For example, in a pull-up, the arms must be straight at the start, the chin needs to be lifted to above the hands at the top, and you must return to the starting position to make a rep count. Hm, I liked that. Finally someone had some rules about the ranges and the movements. So I dived into this methodology.
To achieve those full ranges of motion, you need to have joints that are willing to access those ranges and positions. This requires that you do mobility work. As that was a new concept, I had to learn more about mobility techniques and soft tissue manipulation. This would include various techniques (BFR, sports massage, voodoo flossing, IASTM, joint traction, you name it), but ultimately it introduced anatomy to me on a deeper level. Eventually I understood why the nervous system is the captain of the ship, and continued exploring the world of psychological and physiological realms.
Don’t overlook the last paragraph, because that was a long decade of constantly looking for something that would make a puzzle complete (also keep in mind, that nobody really knows what the final puzzle looks like because it’s slightly different for everyone!).
Probably the most valuable piece in this was learning about the role of the nervous system. This unlocked a whole new world of problems possibilities. For a long time I thought problems could be solved with better technique, more practice, or by becoming stronger and more mobile. While all of these are useful, I came to realize they may not be enough, because a body that doesn’t feel safe is not going to work well.
In a better case, you are just not strong enough yet to do a pull-up. In a slightly more difficult one, you must arch your back to be able to breathe (the exercise becomes secondary already). This pushes your ribs forward on your back side and that limits your shoulder blades’ ability to move freely, which will alter your ability to use the lats effectively in their full capacity. In a slightly more complicated scenario, you are scared of heights, and you will do anything to hold onto a bar. When that happens, doing a pull-up becomes the least of your worries. So what’s the solution?
Good question. It took me around 20 years to arrive at a conclusion that puts the missing pieces into that puzzle and I’m starting to have a clearer idea about the final picture. One way or another the nervous system must be regulated. It should be chilling at times and it should be ready to fight like a mamma bear in others. You just need to know when to do which.
Many disciplines and activities try to teach this. Yoga. Martial arts. Competitive sports. And for me, the gym. What once started as a hobby, became the practice ground. The gym is a safe environment that allows me to gain knowledge which then directly improves my (and others’) wellbeing and opportunities. I can regularly recreate the same situations and observe, measure, challenge and repeat them.
You can look at a pull-up and think – on the surface – it’s just going up and down. In reality, it can be much more than that. A precise practice that can help someone learn to trust their hands, body and strength. A gym exercise that will improve the physique and build confidence. A sequence of movements that will improve and combine breathing mechanics with muscle strength and endurance. A tool to improve focus and clarity. And many more things. Just like the gym itself.
I like a good old-school chest and tricep training session with my mates. I like doing a WOD with a group. I enjoy playing around with and tune in with my body in a yoga class. I welcome new challenges. I give myself time to learn and kinder than I used to be to myself when I can’t get something done. I would also lay down, breathe, meditate and ground myself regularly.
I think the way I do and behave the way I do, because I started going to the gym more than two decades ago, and I chose to have an open mind about the possibilities. And now I am at the point when because of the gym, I look at life differently, and my improved capacity provides me with opportunities in- and outside the gym, and in all areas of life.