Brian still trained after 10 years away!

PJ,

I am back from vacation and things are going great in the XGYM world I’m in!

I had an intense workout with Allen yesterday and he really pushed (encouraged) me through some challenging sessions.  One that was really great was doing my normal seated 45 degree pulling rows with the green band he added a yellow to push me to fatigue.  Then when out of gas dropped the yellow off for just green to complete the TUT.  Best of all was after that rather than standing on the band he had me lay back and do the curls on the floor pulling from a 45 degree angle off the wall.  Holy Cow, since the rows had secondarily worked my biceps already then to a concentrated row I’ve never worked my biceps so well!

But, coming back reminded me of something encountered on vacation making me doubt if I could complete my next session without offloading.

I was determined to workout Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday adding that extra day since I was guessing the workouts would not be as intense with me guiding myself.  Saturday and Tuesday went better than expected, staying in tension for the 3 minutes as planned.  But, during Thursday workout I offloaded on my first exercise, the left single-legged squat.  That surprised me since I hadn’t offloaded since starting XGYM this time.  Then my mind declared that offloading was OK and the next exercise I had troubles completing.

I knew that not training to completion was training to fail and this was a good reminder for me and has made me better.

So, now I have achieved the mindset that helped me lose that 45 pounds 10 years ago at XGYM.  It carries over in everything I do and is a motivation to eat right and not cheat on the eat.  To stop myself from eating the wrong things I just ask myself, “am I training my eating habits toward or away from my goals?”  It works every time because it proposes a question to my mind instead of acting on an urge.

In summation after 10 years away from XGYM the guiding principles are still strongly rooted in my thinking.  It’s quite a testament to how strong this program really is and how much staying power it has.  Coming back after 10 years, my mind and body still knew that offloading was not acceptable, having a positive attitude toward the struggles of the workout are energizing, and the results are huge and fast!

Thank you for this,

Bill S.