The Born Fitness Approach: Health and Fitness

I stopped taking a deep breath and opened my eyes. Then, I panicked.

My mind told me to push! But my arms wouldn’t move. I wondered what the trainers meant by advising against extreme programs that could "death with a barbell"?

Those are your thoughts as you lie under your own bench press. Cold iron grazing the back of your throat, like an impending knife. I gasped in despair, surrounded by embarrassment.

My hero ran across the street in one direction. I never got his name, but he grabbed the sand and pulled it off my head. I jumped, exasperated, relieved, and thanked God for my Neo-like reincarnation. He chuckled and made sure that I was OK before leaving me with words I will never forget.

"Probably didn’t know you needed one, huh?"

I looked down at that bar. There were only 10 pounds on each side.

It was official. The 65-pound bench press had found a way that completely embarrassed me.

Start From Scratch

Because the bench press (let's call BPI because we like it better) was not an isolated case, you see. I was just a freshman in college. I was also going to the rec room to train very early in morning.

It wasn’t because of my busy schedule. I was trying to go when there would be no one else. If you're looking for distractions in your gym, there are plenty of college rec centers open at 5:15 am. Cemeteries seem more alive.

I was ashamed of my weaknesses and wanted to be isolated. I was weak. I was small. I had no clue of what I was doing. I even knew of a girl who could shoulder-press twice as fast as I could so I had the task of scheduling around her arrival. To be fair, I wasn't the first person to have difficulty in the gym.

Growing up, was I overweight? And I'm not talking about little-boy-that-can't-shed-his-baby-weight. I was fat. I was always the subject of jokes during junior high, as the boys who saw me in my locker room were convinced that I had some the largest breasts in school.

A Lesson in Failure

I would pretend that after BPI, my gym was rediscovered and I met Mr. Miyagi. Everything instantly improved. This would be cruel to the human condition and real life.

Life doesn't happen in montages. (Even though it would make life so much more interesting.)

Looking back at how I approach fitness, I believe I have made more errors than any person I've ever encountered.

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I lifted weights untrained and never had the opportunity to be coached. I didn't know what to do, so I just kept going. I avoided all dietary fats. I also avoided carbs. Add to that, I ate hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gram of protein. And, I made many girlfriends endure the "asss of flame years." (My sincere regrets.)

I considered supplements to be evil, so I didn't take any. I tried every legal and illegal supplement to try to lose weight.

I bulked. I cut. I ran. I also took up swimming. I did yoga. I also lifted weights - eventually, big weights and then small weights. I did high reps, low repetitions, timed, Tabatas, Tae-Bo, and Tabatas.

I have tried every type possible of HIIT training and low-intensity cardiovascular exercise. I've tried ab-machines, done crazy cleanses, even had one shake of Shake Weight. To impress a girl once, I even used pink dumbbells. It didn't work.