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Why train?
In the world of fitness it’s common to hear that you should find a “why” for your training. The idea behind this practice is to find an emotional connection to some part of your identity to use as motivation whenever you feel like you want to throw in the towel, or not get out of bed for your morning workout. Although this can be very useful, it is also the source of a plethora of cheesy motivational memes and worse, it comes with the assumption that exercise is inherently good for our health and all we need is more motivation and willpower. This seems like an innocent idea but it is NOT. This way of thinking takes from us the opportunity to question the physiological purpose of our training, and in doing so set us up for failure before we even start, regardless of how many hours of sweat we put in. I believe that this is the kind of “why” we should identify. Let me explain.
What we are up against - Part 1
Let’s start today with a grounding idea: we are fortunate enough to live in an age in which we can actually think about how to optimize our personal nutrition. When I was growing up, everyday I saw people in the streets who did not have enough food--I don’t mean they didn’t have high quality food, they didn’t have any kind of food. Luckily things have changed in most parts of the world. And to be sure, if you are reading this you are just trying to improve your health by tweaking your nutrition. This is a privilege of our times: the great access we have to food, to nutritional information, and to sophisticated metrics.
- Close the Gap | Coaching | Finding What Works for You | Fitness | How to be a learner? | Mindset | Smart Practices
Banzo's sword and metric fixations
Are you a victim of your metrics? Are you constantly trying to better your metrics, just to feel frustrated and unaccomplished? I have been there, it is awful. In this post I present to you a set of principles that will help you use metrics to serve you and not the other way around.
- Close the Gap | Coaching | Fitness | Mindset
What I have learned from coaching ... so far
I arrived to coaching after teaching at the college level for fourteen years. I am a voracious learner. I loved (and still do love) universities, and I loved the idea of getting paid to create knowledge and help others learn. However, during all those years in academia, I always felt there was something missing. Despite being surrounded by amazing people, both good students and brilliant colleagues, I always felt lonely. Teaching in a university and academic research are solitary tasks. The whole building -the physical and the institution- is founded on medieval and early modern ideas. Books, authors, and teachers are the main players of the game, and everything revolves around them. It took me years of research to understand that universities by conception are not made for students, universities are made for authors. It was when I started coaching that I understood all this. It was really after spending thousands of hours within the walls of my garage teaching people the basics a human movement literacy that I saw what I felt was missing.
Slay you should and Slay you must
There is this feeling you get when you go to the gym and everything goes your way. I call it The Slayer, because it feels as if Beyonce did a Metal Song: fucking EPIC. You get it in one of those days when the warm up feels light and easy. Your technique sets are a display of grace and control. When you hit your workout the weights move as if they were feathers, your breathing matches your movement in perfect harmony, your transitions are smooth and short, and the only time you trip in the whole workout you stay composed AF and correct immediately with a smile on your face. You fucking slay like Queen-B. Heck! Even your hair game is on point! You finish on the ground exhausted but proud: I am so motherfucking fit, you think to yourself.
