I’m a huge T-Nation reader, but one thing I notice is the utter seriousness of all the articles.
Amidsts all the seriousness and the obsession with results, I sometimes wonder if one thing has been lost: fun. The truth is, on your death bed you won’t be thinking about the reps, the sets, the weights, or those anti-social “I’m wearing a hoodie leave me alone” type work-outs.
You’ll be thinking about all the good times you had in your life - the memories, etc. (I know this because I almost died once, and believe me, I wasn’t thinking about my career or my max bench…)
I don’t know about you guys, but one of the main reasons I train is because I love it. I love trying out new exercises, seeing results, talking to everyone @ the gym, bullshitting at the juice bar, doing the occasional aerobics or cardio-boxing class for the hell of it.
Sometimes I watch Pumping Iron and I notice the guys in the movie are having so much fun. Of course they take training seriously. There’s no point to doing it if you’re not doing it well. But they laugh, they party, they razz each other.
Anyway, just a thought, but I always try to make my gym days fun.
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As some recommend doing 1 exercise you “hate” every workout, I also like to add an undocumented exercise to each workout that I just feel like doing. It can be as simple as a lat pull-down (I never use machines for my “planned” workout) or kettles. Anything to break the monotony.
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I don’t get caught up in “ego” - I see this all the time. Guys who are so one-dimensional, they only train what they’re good at. Usually this is the bouncer with no cardio who is doing his 200 sets of chest. The truth is, I love stretching, playing basketball and soccer, doing cardio-boxing, etc. I don’t care how dumb I look doing it.
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The body part I hate working out the most is abs. This is because I was cut open during a surgery (see part about almost dying) and I had severe atrophy in that area. I’ve slowly built them back up to where they were before but I have zero interest in having “hawt abs”. I do them maybe once or twice a week, tops. I think unless one is getting punched in the gut regularly, abs training is wildly over-rated and boring as fuck. Life is too short to spend on a friggin yoga mat, torturing yourself.
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Believing that happiness is all about balance, sometimes, I skip a workout to read a good book or ponder life itself. I usually don’t regret it.
Thoughts? Flames? Etc.