There is something simple and comforting about working out. It isn’t complicated. You are simply exerting force on an object with varying degrees of resistance. It’s the same every time I go, I generally run the same pattern around the gym with slight alterations if someone is rudely using the station I want to use. The music on my mp3 player is the same (I put my phone in the locker so I am not tempted to stare at it). The only real variable in how my workout goes is mental. It is my attitude, my willpower, that makes the difference between just struggling through the hour or feeling like I kicked ass. John Wilder said something I liked in his last post:
What is Truth? Step on a scale. Look down. The number is the Truth. Try to pick up a weight. If you can, you can. That is Truth. The Iron never lies. The scale never lies.
Those numbers on the weights or on the machines are what they are. Either you make them move or you don’t. There isn’t a trick to it.
Almost everyone wants the same results. They want to look better and feel better, to weigh less and be stronger. Most people also don’t want to do anything to get there. Ours is a world of endless distractions, of things that are amusing and easy. What could be easier than letting yourself drown in hours of Youtube or Netflix?
The simple fact is you don’t get the results if you don’t put in the work.
If you do the work, you will get results. Will you look like Arnold back in his prime? Hell no. But you
will get results. I don’t look down at anyone at the gym, mostly because I have no place to judge, but also because just showing up is 95% of the battle.
As I said in Your Most Dangerous Adversary Right Now….
When I am getting ready to go workout, it isn’t AOC who is telling me to just stay home, that I’m too tired or sore. It’s me.
So I respect anyone who shows up and puts in the work. There was a dude this morning, guy was probably mid 40s and looked like he was about 110 lbs soaking wet. He was working out wearing jeans with his t-shirt tucked into his pants. He struggled on low weights on the machines. But he was there and that makes all the difference. He isn’t going to look like Paul Waggener and neither am I. As the kids say, mad props and much respect for doing what he was doing even looking like a dork.
Finding excuses is easy, putting in the work is hard.
On the other half of the title of this post, I was feeling especially frisky today and had nothing scheduled work-wise, so after I worked out I came home, slapped together some breakfast since the wife was gone, and took care of a customer doing a couple of firearms transfers. With some eggs and sausage in my tummy, that post-workout burn fading in my muscles and some new shekels in my wallet, I decided to pack up some gunz and go shooting. The weather was about perfect, searing blue skies with no clouds so what better time to go spew some freedom?
Went to the safe to get out some neglected li’l friends and….it wouldn’t open. Tried again, still no go. WTF?!
Sure I have back-up keys so I could get it open but fat lotta good those guns do me in a time-sensitive emergency as most of my longer range lethal toys are in there. Now I need to figure out what the hell is wrong with the keypad on the safe. It was a cheap safe, my fault there, but this isn’t a pair of boxer shorts that I can throw out and replace. It was a bitch getting the safe in my house and I don’t really want to drop a bunch of cash getting a nicer one. So that needs to get fixed pronto.
Better to figure out there is a problem now than if things are going sideways and I am in a hurry.
Big Country down in Hurricaneida posted here,
Yet Again, and talked about some of his neighbors who were…less than prepared even though they a) live in a state known for hurricanes and b) had ample warning of the Hurricane Ian coming.
They were radically underprepared for this event. We’ve known for at least a week this particular turd was heading towards the oscillation unit. Even knowing this, both of them…
No practice
No experience setting it up in austere circumstances (like in the middle of a fucking hurricane Aye?)
No real working knowledge of what kin kil’t ya and what have you (ungrounded genny = bad things)
THIS right here. THIS is why when you ‘prep’ you have to learn how your shit works BEFORE everything goes to shit. Failure to plan and practice can kill you stone dead quick. Especially fucking around with electricity, water and a storm.
Having your shit is one thing, making sure it works and you can work it, is a whole other thing. Over at Captain’s Journal there is a nice article with some solid links about learning the fundamentals of the AR-15 platform,
Beginners Guide to the AR-15. As he says:
The time to learn your AR isn’t when your family is in trouble but before.
Anyway, got a nice little assortment of pea shooter shooters out and spent some time in the beautiful sunlight sending lead downrange. It was a good reminder that I need to get out and shoot a lot more than I do. While I will never be a certified, gen-u-wine “shooter”, I am an adequate shooter. Adequate ain’t good enough. While the sun is shining and it is fairly safe is the time to get your shit figured out and get good at what you need to be good at.
Whether getting in shape or shooting ur gunz, you have to put in the work.
Resistance training is beneficial at anyage. Don't expect to be Rambo or Ah-Nold in senescence. But there is no excuse to be incapacitated before they stuff you into a pine box on your way into the dirt. It is entirely up to you how you age.
Exercise daily, even if that just means walking the dog around the block, morning and evening, or raking leaves, or washing the car with bucket and sponge. Your grandparents didn't make excuses. Didn't cite sore joints as a pass for hauling firewood. Didn't need a nap after going down to the curb to get the mail. I hope like hell that I die with a barbell in my hands, pulling double bodyweight on a deadlift Friday. My wife wants to pass in her herb garden, where she sinks her aged, spotted hands in dark, fragrant earth and coaxes tiny sprouts to produce wonderful, useful additions to her kitchen.
If you die a wretched, obese Oreo addict, glued to the television with nacho cheese powder crusted around your piehole, and so little muscle mass and so much excess bodyfat that you can be rendered into lamp oil like a 19th century humpback whale, you deserve your early, humiliating death. Grab the reins, fat America. Grab them like your very life depends on it, which it most certainly does.
people do not raise to the task. you will go to the level of what you have trained to do or be.
if you only shoot at targets at 7 yards, that is all you will be good for.
back in the day, a long time ago.. we where made to shoot at 3by 5 cards taped to targets.
a white card on a black target. stands out. and no where as easy as you may think it is.
our SGT. might have been a hard ass, but he did make sure we where trained as best as he could. still have the cracked and healed ribs to prove it too. hand to hand was a bitch to do !
it takes me a magazine , maybe two to get back to hitting the damn card at 25 yards.
I too need to hit the range a bit more.
Sing it.
Tried to post this to facebook- not allowed as someone there reported this as "abusive content" I shit you not…………………….
My domain has been blocked from Facebook for several years, I usually mirror my posts on Substack which is shareable (for now): https://arthursido.substack.com/p/putting-in-the-work-and-checking?sd=pf
Been whole lot of articles and discussion on how good is good enough. Yes you can always improve and, for example, it can be fun shaving 100ths off your splits. But is it really necessary? In terms of accuracy another fer instance is John Farnam. His "combat" accuracy goal is 80%. If your hits are less than that, get better. That's for timed shoot n move exercises, not take your time hitting the target shooting. It's somewhat like the joke about out running the bear. You just have to be better than the other guy. Of course you don't know ahead of time where that bar is going to be set at. Bottom line, pick a realistic standard and keep yourself up to that. Shooting, weights, first-aid, etc.
Steve S6
Pugsley, after listening to the news, "We need to go to the range for a field day."