The Reluctant Weight Lifter

Hello everyone.

Several years ago, I traded some time and talent as a professional camera man for a Golds Gym membership that I would have had trouble affording otherwise. This particular Gold’s gym had as many CEO’s, Diva’s and paparazzi as it had real weight lifting members. It was here that I met a massive gentleman whom like myself who was working there in order to get the opportunity to be near this fabulous gym, its new equipment and the fantastic talent that was there all the time.

The reticent quiet individual had at that time won dozens of body building awards and was continuing to win consistently even at that time.

Weirdly enough, none of the other guys in the gym could remember this so called janitor ever having a strenuous workout. Sure, he was moving weights around the gym all the time, but all of us were doing that and wonders of wonders none of the rest of us were winning anything.

It seemed that the more he DIDN’T work out was the more he won. I shouldn’t say it was natural for the talk to move in this direction, but human nature being what it is, it wasn’t long before people ( mostly guys ) had had it up to their ears with this janitor who was continuing to win body building awards without working out. The talk about illegal drugs and this guy’s name were starting to make the rounds. It took more than a month before I actually found him in a position that looked like he had just been lifting weights.

Curious as I was, in my head I had already asked him for his secret.

“You are winning regional contests but rarely ever work out”, I began.

He looked at me oddly and asked me why I thought he never worked out. I told him about the rumors that he might be on muscle building drugs or steroids etc. He laughed quietly and remarked, quite truthfully that drugs don’t build muscles they only help one to work out more strenuously.

Thinking that this was the beginning of some kind of story, I waited, but he went back to picking up a stray weight on the floor almost as if i wasn’t there. Four weeks passed before we could resume the topic.

This time, I found him studiously doing a preacher curl with one arm as he examined the striated muscle group. As he finished, I went to him and exclaimed ha ha, so you do lift after all. He looked at me oddly, and as if continuing the conversation from a month earlier, he said, I never claimed not to.

This time I pestered him to tell me his secret. I even intimated that he waited until we had all left the gym before training hard just like the rest of us. Again, he laughed gently and this time he said “Ok, Trevor, persistent you are, so I will tell you”

I couldn’t help myself, I smiled as I thought he was finally going to tell me something earthshaking. Something so profound that the rest of the guys in the gym would just marvel. With earth-shattering stillness, he simply said the difference was in the interval. Oh yes, I thought to myself your interval is like once every 30 days. Aloud, I said patiently, is that so?

Without fanfare, he simply said, “Trevor, the difference was the interval period used between various workouts”.

He told me that he knows his heart rate when its at rest and that after a really heavy workout the muscle fibers are damaged and need to be rebuilt. None of that is rocket science, we all pretty well know that. However, what was different is that in his case, he won’t start working out any body part at all until his heart rate is once more ‘at rest’ again. This could be several days or even a week, but he won’t work out again until then.

And at the time i left that beautiful part of Asia, this reluctant weightlifter continued to win Asian regional awards in a fairly consistent manner. He was placing in the top 3 nationally and outright winning most regional events that he entered.

If you are not a body builder and haven’t left a few gallons of sweat in a local gym already this story is probably a total non-event. The “No pain no gain” mantra might have been one of those cutesy phrases that you have merely heard. The real point being made here is so many of us who exercise and have been doing it for years can get so sure that we know, we absolutely know the right way to do a particular thing. So, ohhhhhh no, we are not going to change what we are doing.

So, we have all seen the tunnel visioned friend who is working hard at doing exactly the same thing he has been doing all along and hoping, yes even praying that his future plans which contain more of the same old methodologies will finally bring him that much needed change. Oops, would that be too much to expect?

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