Relentless – Taking Action Against All Adversity
I recently took a trip to Washington, DC and visited the National Zoo. The funny thing is, the whole way down to DC, I only kept thinking about one thing.
Where and when can I train.
Many people would say, “You’re on vacation, take a day off!” The fact is I am always busy and when I get a chance to train, that is “my time”. That is my serenity! (SERENITY NOW!) 🙂
I love training and I love hanging out with my training crew. Is that how you feel?
Do you look forward to the workout all day? What weight am I going to hit, or I am going to hit a PR on this lift today!
Well, to make a long story short, after this trip to DC, I will NEVER LOOK AT TRAINING THE SAME WAY AGAIN!
As you remember, I did get to train at Gold’s gym while I was there. But, I really wanted to get some training in the day we went to the zoo.
Before going any further…
PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS, I AM A TRAINED ZOOLOGIST.
That means I can train with animals. In fact Bear Grylls calls me for advice when he has to conquer a new spot. I actually showed him how to eat raw fish and road kill.
When I was at the zoo, I saw a few opportunities to not only workout, but get to know a few of the main attractions, up close and personal.
Here is me hitting some pull-ups in the orangutan enclosure. After they debugged my hair, I was able to get 3 more reps.
Then, I wanted to find out if I could intimidate the so-called “King of the Jungle”. He seemed like a wimp to me but after I got into his cage, I think I shat my pants a little.
I was so tired from the day, that I had to take a nap on bumpy. That is the name I gave to my new best friend. Bumpy the turtle wasn’t the best company because he didn’t say too much, but I was able to catch a few zzzz’s.
All joking aside, the whole point of this post was that, even though I traveled, sat in the same position in the car for 6 hours one way, had a splitting headache – I still got a workout in. Because I knew, once I did, all of the junk from the day would just wash away.
That is one of the great benefits of training.
I also wanted to share a very personal video with all of you. The day we came home, I was beat. It was raining and it was generally just a miserable day. But I couldn’t just come into the house and sit down.
Something made me call up one of my athletes that I train and challenge him. I told him I wanted to feel alive today. I told him I wanted to run hills in the rain. Not only that, I wanted to do the Lunge of Death in this torrential downpour.
Why?
Because no one else would.
You have to be relentless and take action against all adversity if you want to change your life.
Check out this video. If you watch really close you can see us get down on the field and get to work after the hills sprints were done.
I hope I’ve inspired you to challenge yourself everyday. Because if you do that, you will never regret a day gone by.
This post is dedicated to my friend Jason Ferruggia who lost someone special in his life this week. Someone who helped shape and guide him.
Have you guided and inspired someone this week?
PS No time to workout? Build muscle and get freaking jacked with AMD, in 3 short, effective workouts a week!
PPS Did you see my guest blog post for Joe Defranco? It’s got a little science in it, but it has a very important application for athletics – see athletic core training here.
PPPS – Want real world, never-before-seen core training? Tired of the same old BS? Get Combat Core!
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Tags: feeling alive, inspiration, motivation, never give up
August 26th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
I head butted a rhino and arm wrestled a chimp. Nice post Smitty! Good stuff, keep inspiring us and come visit FL for a workout sometime.
August 26th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Did you brush up on some sparing while you were there with a…. BEAR FIGHT!
Nice post, I was in DC last month with the family, had a great time but slacked on the workouts. Lots of push-ups, air squats and crunches.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:17 am
I missed whatever you were trying to do in the video. I watched it twice and still could not see anything.
August 27th, 2009 at 5:27 am
Good stuff! Those are the best training sessions where it’s not planned but you just “feel” like you need to challenge yourself at the most unexpected time.
Some of the best training sessions and also times were spent getting smashed with an unexpected session with my partners.
Luka
August 27th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Smitty,
Have to admire that you had about 30 excuses that you could have made not to train, and no one would have questioned it. But you guys went out and got it done! It was probably little Mikey’s idea….
Joe
August 27th, 2009 at 6:12 am
Awesome stuff. Sorry to hear about Jason’s loss.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Smitty,
Awesome post! I think you could have taken the lion. Where was your seat belt young man!?
August 27th, 2009 at 8:00 am
William,
I am going to put some annotations on it today. If you watch me run down to the field and across, Mike starts lunging…
August 27th, 2009 at 11:24 am
Good post, Jim. I don’t like it when people say that you should relax because you’re on vacation. Fitness for us is not a job, it’s a lifestyle and a passion, and just because I am not at home does not mean we want to leave that behind.
August 27th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Smitty wrestled with a lion…so did Sandow. Strength dudes sure do have their share of characters 🙂
August 28th, 2009 at 5:25 am
train like a beast my man
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:51 am
Thanks everyone!