Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I LOVE these two entries from my friend Jere Keys at Blind Prophecy. This one in June, he talks about getting fit, his memories of his father at the same age, and how difficult just jumping can be.

• Blind Prophecy » 06-03-08 » Jumping is my Kryptonite

[L]ast Friday when I was meeting with [my personal trainer], he decided to “go easy” on me by skipping our strength training drills and focusing just on cardio. First he had me doing sprints, which quickly accelerated my heart rate, but wasn’t impossible. Then he had me jump. Yes, just jump. First with random movements, then forward and back across a jump-rope, then side to side across the rope. And I nearly collapsed. I was embarrassed and mortified that at the age of 31 and with no serious health problems, I couldn’t jump for a minute at a time without losing balance or taking long rests between each set.

Just a month later, he was reveling in the approval from his personal trainer.

• Blind Prophecy » 07-01-08 » I have muscles?

My trainer today pointed out the difference between today’s workout and my first session with him. During that first session, I could barely last 25 minutes and nearly injured myself. Now, we’re doing 50 minutes with considerably higher intensity. He also pointed out that I actually have pretty big arms and chest, we just need to work on definition. So we worked on triceps and chest for about 15 minutes and he was pointing out how much my arms were starting to pop. I’ve still got a lot of work to do, but I’m getting there.

Jere had to move to Cincinnati for school, so I’m sending out a big karma hug to him in the hopes that he can find a personal trainer who can help him as much as Ben did in San Francisco.

It’s really easy to forget how hard a workout used to be when you are easily doing every day now. Take a moment today to look back on your workout history and give yourself a pat on the back for coming so far.