Another rant.

Here’s the deal.  In case you didn’t notice people hire me (and our other trainers) to "encourage" them to "get fit". What that means to me is that I’m in the same profession as for example when you call Charles and say "Charles, help me with my bathroom, it needs to be re-done."  You know when you call Charles that he’s gonna make it happen on time and for the right price.  Service.  Furthermore, like when you say "Hey, my car is a piece of junk.  I need to get a new one, Mr. Shane Posey can help me with that."  You know that Shane is going to talk to you about cars and how to get the most for your money and do it fairly.  If you didn’t think these things you wouldn’t talk to them about what they do.

Right?

Let’s take this one step further.  All I do is fitness.  CrossFit.  Strongman.  Powerlifting. 1/2 Marathons. 5k’s. Sprint Triathlons. Fire-fighters. Wrestlers. Football Players.  Swimmers.  Military.  All I do is fitness.  I sell fitness.  It’s a VERY specific product, just like a car or a bathroom renovation.  We can decide on the "things" you want, pull-ups, atlas stones, CPAT test, bone-crushing power off the line, a 400# bench press, to be fit enough to not get shot in combat, straight body push-ups, a 10 round "Cindy", a 4 minute "Fran", gain 20lbs of muscle, lose 100lbs of fat.  We can decide on these things.  A Prius, a Cadillac, a Truck, granite countertops, marble floors or is tile ok?  Got me?

If I can do something or offer something that would increase the efficiency of my training (i.e. adding more value to my product) do you think I would do it?  The answer better be yes!  After working 4 years at another club limited by their equipment and philosophy I decided "Hell with this" and recruited people and investors and made a new better gym, this took 2 years.  Why?  So I could offer better training and add tremendous value to my product.  The people that we train are in the best shape of their lives and can do things they never thought possible.  I’m absolutely ecstatic about the amount of fitness we’re generating out of this little facility, it’s amazing and getting "regular" people to be excited about flipping tires (especially the 50+ women category!!!), deadlifting, pull-ups and rowing challenges is rare and special to say the least.  Talk about adding life to your years!

With this in mind, I want to let you all in on a little secret.  I GET HAMMERED BY VENDORS AND NETWORK MARKETERS ALL THE TIME TO TRY AND SELL OR ADVERTISE THEIR PRODUCTS HERE.  To try and recruit people for their seminars, to "just put some flyers on our desk" to post a link on our website etc etc ad nauseum.  I originally was interested in a lot of it thinking that we could offer better products to our clients and promote their gains in fitness faster and blah blah blah.  I always come back to this equation.  If you hate math, it’ll be ok this problem is pretty easy 🙂

Would either A) Harder more frequent workouts + rock solid nutrition = phenomenal results

or would B) Workout when you can + ok food intake + $150.00 a month in supplements and nutritionals = phenomenal results -yeah right.

or would C) Harder more frequent workouts + rock solid nutrition + $150 a month in supps = ABSOLUTELY MIND BLOWING POWER SURGING RESULTS!!!!

*Deep Breath*

Let’s talk about B:  This is a bad equation.  We all look at this and know it’s crap.  But that’s what we really hope for.  The mind lies to you and says "it’s ok Jesse, you can just eat less until you’re at a party or whatever and just take these vitamins and drink this juice and you’ll be healthy."  As if the vitamins and juice will help the onset of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, which if it did would be awesome but we know it’s not true!  These are the biggest killers in our nation and vitamins are a freakin’ BILLION dollar industry. At least $1,000,000,000.00, and it’s still not helping stop these killers.  Crappy huh?

How about C: UBER RESULTS, PREPOSTEROUS LEVELS OF FITNESS!!  Act now! 🙂  Michael Phelps, what did they do a story on?  His creatine use?  NO! His amazing 10,000 calorie a day intake of whole real food.  Not carb powders and meal replacement mumbo-jumbo.  This equation at least makes sense, if the supplements and vitamin pills have any effect then wouldn’t it only get better doing all of it?  Here’s what I say: get there first.  Just go all the way, follow a strict measured Zone compliant diet, workout 3 days on and 1 day off around the week (the off day would rotate meaning that you’d be resting on different days each week) and get into that for a month and then add the supplement piece.  This may indeed be the ultimate.  Costing (including food) what do you think?  $500 – $800 a month to keep up. 

How about A.  Little ole’ boring A.  A wise man once told me that "being boring is sooo cool".  This is where the grind is.  This is where another area of mental toughness is born.  The striving for betterment of yourself.  This is CrossFit.  This is what I sell.  I want you to workout harder more often.  I don’t have any clients who are "perfect" 3 on and 1 off with unwaivering focus, energy, vitality.  To my clients training is a part of life, not the essence of life itself.  Eat a rock solid diet that is Zone compliant.  This is so hard!  I can’t think of anyone here who is "perfect" at this, we have weakness, cravings, parties, failures to cook, pack, plan, shop.  But we can get pretty close.  I think the struggle is so vitally important to what we’re trying to do here.  We’re trying to become more fit than ever before, this is a tough process.  There is no shortcut on the L-sit.  You need to stretch, practice and get stronger.  Period.  No shortcuts.  The Deadlift has no shortcut, if you meet someone who can deadlift 600# you’re going to know something about that person, when Katie Kay came in Monday and deadlifted 205# we all knew that she had been going to work at the gym and getting it done.  You know that they are committed to increasing their deadlift and have worked at it for years, there is no shortcut.  What you won’t find as the common thread amongst the truly fit is any reliance on a certain chemical aid (steroids aside).  Why?  Simply put, because they don’t work.  If one supplement or another REALLY worked do you think in this compeitive world that we woudn’t know about it?  As a matter of fact I did it without even thinking, EVERYONE knows that steroids are a shortcut to certain types of fitness, however they are still no free ticket to a 600# deadlift, you still gotta kick some tail in the gym, yeah it might take less time to get there, which may also only serve to make that 600# less sweet, but you still gotta get to the gym and smash weights.  Sitting on the couch taking roids doesn’t equal huge numbers.  Does that make sense?  In my mind the purpose of training is to cultivate delayed gratification and learn about hard work and it’s benefits to your life outside the gym, AND to be fit and healthy.

Now, with all that said, my last name is Ward and what that means is that I’m decended from people who protect or "ward against danger".  So, this is in my nature 🙂  I honestly feel like I am protecting my clients/friends/family from being taken advantage of when someone calls me to have me help them promote their product/idea/webinar which does something besides A) help people (i.e. fundraisers) or B) help people to perform harder more frequent workouts and to follow a more Zone compliant diet.  See a common thread here?

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Getting it done: Katie Kay.