Spoils Of War
I'm not sure who reads these or if they are helping anyone but for this particular blog I noticed that this week I have been mentally feeling like there is a void.
This void would take longer than a few sentences to describe the truest feeling, but this void came to light when I realized its a void based off of feelings.
These feelings tend to parallel with my mindset of being a lone wolf walking my own journey. Do I have friends? Of course, they keep me hungry to be better but even friends cant fill certain voids.
Anyways this void or type of thinking got me thinking about past times when I had similar thoughts and feelings.
What got me through those times? How did I keep going?
Like usual for me the gym and training provided the answer. For me it became clear how I have passed rough stuff is by all the rewards (a.k.a the spoils of the war) I have been able to obtain through my obsessed thoughts of progression.
Many people see the body, abs, muscles, and looks as the reward. In reality for me those are nothing but by products of the real rewards I have been able to reap during my personal progression.
I call these real rewards the spoils of war. For me I try to take a war like mentality to the gym everyday. This keeps things urgent, you hit harder, get nasty with the weight, and it pushes yourself to put everything into the the task at hand.
So the top three rewards I have come to adore and cherish for the benefits they have provided inside and outside a healthy lifestyle are listed below.
Spoil 1: Resilience/Determination-There is no Flag nor Fail
You could apply this to any hard struggle that someone goes through and at the end of the day make it 100% completely through.
However, just in a weightlifting perspective or in a weight loss journey you don't realize just how far, determined, and just plan resilient you can get.
It really starts when that person truly sees their first result. That result is like the last lock on a chest that has contained everything you have been seeking and all of a sudden you have learned how to pick the lock to get the contents.
You get so good at picking the lock that the next time you hit a personal sticking point or wall you know that its just a matter of a small tweak that can pop the lock open.
It might not be the most complex thought but once you figure out how to get past a personal sticking point, use, and apply the same method several different ways to get to what you want.
It installs the determination to get past those walls that you are going to hit and just keep you trying to figure out the best way to bust through the doubts.
This has been a major key in my development and some people may call it obsessed but for me it works. For instance lets look at my dating record. Literally its not existent!
In my 26 years I have only asked one person to be exclusive, they said no. That was rough within its self but the resilience and determination to do better, be better, come back stronger keeps me hungry.
Do I still make mistakes without a doubt, I literally suck at the dating thing, that being said I'm not going to give up just because of one failure. Sooner or later it will happen.
If that means failing 100 times then that's what its going to take. Due to all those failures though I do know that it may just take one success to understand how everything works. (Does this make me a helpless romantic if I think this way?)
Would I be like this if I didn't have the struggles in the gym and failed to reach 12 reps at 100 lbs bench press. Probably not. The desire to keep progressing and the reward of hitting that 100 lb bench press for 12 reps is far greater than any other failure or wall that has been put in my path.
So it becomes simple. In a healthy lifestyle if you have a goal of bigger biceps and you fail to curl 30 lbs like you think you should be able to you. Become resilient and determined to hit that 30 lb curl and grow some biceps.
The spoil of resilience and termination soon spreads into other areas of your life.
No failure can kill a person with a desire to progress and becomes obsessed with the very concept to the point they are willing to keep coming back time and time again.
Don't believe me simply try it.
For one month do 3 sets of 10 reps of dumbbell bicep curls every other day. This can be done in your house with a soup can if you don't have a dumbbell. Commit to doing it and if you can curl more weight, see development, or can do more reps and then you apply another move in with the curl or keep the program up for another month.
You have tapped into resilience and determination.
Spoil 2: Ambitious Goals-The Ultimate Weaponry
I have never been in a fight but if I would go into one I would assume going in I would want the best weapon with me.
What if I told you the ultimate weaponry of mass destruction you already posses. That's right you ambitious goals become your weapon.
How do you ask?
The weapon of the goal you choose, how you choose that goal, makes you dangerous. You have a single purpose and ultimate train of thought to obtain that goal. You build a giant arsenal of ambitious goals.
You get the base goal and that ambition to progress is literally an upgrade to the weapon on hand.
You start picking bigger and bigger goals to push you to another standard because you accomplished one simple task that you thought was once impossible.
Its unstoppable cycle upgrading, trading in, adding onto that sooner or later you will reach a point where you put yourself into a league of your own.
Its not a league to show that you are better than anyone else but its a league that makes you hyper aware of others that have set their ambitious goals just as a high and are wielding their weapon upon their own path.
For me personally I have come to realize that my best friends, most trusted people, and people I tend to want to get to know outside of the gym on a more personal level all have ambitious goals.
If that means moving to a different country, better financial standards, a promotion at a job, own a business, fitness, these people intrigue me. They are the ones I will go out of my way for in circumstance and ask to get to know on a personal level.
They are my motivations because I understand some of the struggles they are going through. The goals they set get me excited to do anything I can to help them progress.
Ambitious goals......... enough said!
Spoil 3: Tactical Command- the Total Commitment
Both spoil 1 and spoil 2 are very progressive and relativity easy to measure. The third spoil is one that is hard to really grab hold of but probably the most important.
The longer I lift, the more I read and understand form, passing my personal training certification, it has all added up to my realization that I am just now starting to reach some of my potential in fitness.
These things are adding up making me a total tactician and one that applies these particular tactics commanding my body to change.
This can be seen in form changes. I may need help making sure I'm hitting everything correctly, setting up correctly, etc. but implementing this tactic has proven more successful and has proven total commitment to my goal.
In essence you stop playing at lifting instead you start lifting with a purpose and understanding how to maximize everything.
When I started breaking these very small things down, I really started working in my mobility and hammering into the importance of the kinetic chain. Such as doing glute bridges on my off days, hitting hip flexor stretches every night, working on proper posture out side of the gym.
I even do the same glute and hip flexor stretches before hitting arms and upper body days.
Becoming tactically in command has brought forth a deeper understanding and better commitment of how to obtain my goals along with applying them to not only my own training but other peoples as well.
After all if I can totally commit to my gym performance then this can only apply smoothly into other areas of life.
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After all this is pretty much a war for you life, your health, and the everyday things that you love to do.
These are just some of the spoils of war that have been a staple and the rewards that are far more valuable than how I look. They all have meaning and all of them can be applied in other areas of life.
Do I like how I'm progressing body wise....ummmm yes but in reality in a war like this its nothing more than an added benefit.
If you cant seem to find the inner drive than find a friend that will go to war with you. With the same goals and go after those goals with a rage and intensity that none have ever seen before.
Go hard for what you want.... become resilient, give yourself the best weapon to win a war, and by all means give in to true commitment and in the end every battle you are struggling will be nothing but a small pin prick in your side once the rewards are distributed.
-The Iron Pulse
(All images are linked back to original source)
