Barrett Garese

On holding, folding, walking away, and running. And Adapting.

60tosexy:

I try to go to the gym three times a week. For the two years I was running my company, I made time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to spend an hour or 90 minutes sweating and lifting heavy things. I would even schedule it into my calendar so I could book my meetings around it. I would wake up, do some work from 8-10:30, change, and go to the gym from 11-12:15 or so, then come back home and shower/eat lunch/get in the car for any 1pm meeting. I might have. The gym gave my day structure, forced me to handle certain things in a timely manner in the morning, and allowed for a mid-day break to clear my head. Perfect.

Originally for Season 5 I was planning on also using my Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays to work on cardio, since one of my goals this season is to drop 7-10 pounds while (hopefully) not losing any of the strength I’ve worked so hard to gain. Since I hate running (I fucking hate it so goddamned much) I went to check out Krav Maga; it’s close to my house and I’ve always had a dream of being Jason Bourne. The class schedule would work perfectly for my little schedule I’d set up and I’d be working out 6 days a week in various forms - awesome.

Then, some changes happened - I accepted a job offer. Earlier this week I started that new job; one that involved me actually going to an office five days a week. I didn’t know how this would affect my schedule, but I knew that I would have to adapt it to a certain degree because they certainly weren’t paying me to take 90 minutes off at 11 to go lift weights. (Also there’s no shower at the office, and I don’t like showering in the locker rooms.)

So, enter adaptation and experimentation mode: Krav Maga is probably out for now, unless I wanted to go to the 7am classes (uh, I don’t.) 8am workouts were in, with a firm 60 minute time limit to allow me to come home, shower, and get into the office by 10am. Let’s see how this would work.

So Rob and I set out to hit the gym and push ourselves to do in 60 minutes what we normally do in 75 or so. And we did. And we felt awesome. Until the next day.

I’d pushed myself too hard, and my lower back was hurting just enough to make me concerned. So I did what I frequently recommend to other people: I took a day off. I didn’t go on Friday like I’d planned to, pushing it back a day to today. And my back feels better today. Granted I probably won’t be deadlifting (I think, we’ll see) but I also won’t be lying on the ground icing my back while cursing my ability to routinely make very poor decisions.

Fitness is a long-term project - be willing to consider yourself an ever-evolving target for improvement. In 60toSexy we break it up into 60 day seasons to make setting goals more digestible, but that finish line shouldn’t be the end point to either stop or push all your energy. 

So here’s my takeaway: be flexible, be adaptable, and listen to your body. Challenges are fun, but don’t push yourself to the point where you burn out or injure yourself. Take a day or two to rest and recover so that when you do choose to push yourself, you can get the most out of it.