Suffering Fron a Case of Pride

[jasonmartin1967]

Hello Everyone ,
I have been suffering from a case of pride . After reducing my GUTS routines by half for my working week exercise session i started back on the full blown GUTS routine for my week off . I noticed within 48 hrs that I had to force myself to exercise and would often have tremors for some minutes after the routine . After one such episode I came to the realization that even though my mind could drive by body to do the routine. My muscles and nervous system were rebelling .I realize now that I am 42 not 22 and have let myself get out of shape and need to build up again . My goals are to add 15 sec to the upper body routine per week till the full minute is reached and 1 min to the tbs/ step routine till the time limit is reached . an add 1rep per week upper body , 5 reps to the lower body till reps are met . Thanks to all on the Forum for their various posts that accumulated and finally jogged my tiny brain . Don't be like me and suffer from your pride .
MERRY CHRISTMAS !!
Jason Martin:alien:

[MikeNY]

Jason sounds like your trainer (you) has a plan, soon you'll be doing GUTS at a level that a 22 year old could not even try without working out and getting ready for months!

[stingray]

Been there, done that. Keep in mind that you goals are just that goals, not mandates. You still need to listen to your body and back off when you need to. You might consider building in active rest days when you only do a smaller percentage of your normal numbers. That way, you'll still be doing the workout, but giving yourself a recovery day.

[Greg Newton]

Hey Jason,

Your experience tallies mine. I've had valleys and peaks. The two big stumbling blocks for me are time on the sit-ups and reps in the deep knee bend. I can get the latter, but like with you, it takes a mental toll.

The best thing to do to keep your mind fresh is to rotate your exercises around. In other words step-ups one day and deep knee bends the next. Atlas III pushups one day and Atlas I the next. Or the routine for military pushups alternated with the routine with Tiger Stretch pushups. See what I mean?

You can tweak G.U.T.S. to suit your capablities and focus to increment your progress. Periodically test yourself on the standard G.U.T.S. template to see where you are at.

That is a very good post you made. I hope others see it and learn from it.

[Andy62]

Jason, Your post reminds me of a great quote that I heard years ago by baseball legend Hank Aaron," I can do everything at 40 that I could do at 20 it just takes me longer to recover." As we go through the aging process there are adjustments that we have to make as far as rep totals, speeds, and other metrics. The mind/body exercises that we are taught with Transformetrics are different from the normal muscular exercises that are taught by other instructors. With these exercises we are taught to develop our strength from within - from the inside out and from our mind to our body. There is a great quote from the book "Tendon Nei Kung" which when referring to this same type of exercise says that practice of this type of exercise "will yield a substantial strength that will serve us even into the last years of our lives. Muscle power, on the other hand, can be built up in a matter of days, but muscles are apt to lose their power in a very short time if they are not continually stimulated". This type of exercise will develop you to your peak regardless of what stage of life you are at and it will develop strength that you can use productively in every part of your life until the end of your days.

[John Peterson]

Hey Jason1967,

Great post and it's all part of the gaining of personal wisdom. Believe me, if you go about it the right way with patience and perseverance you may find yourself out performing what you ever imagined doing when you were 25. I know that in terms of enduring strength I can out perform my best as a 25 year old in great shape(at certain things) and I am now 57. So hang in there, modify and adjust to your own best advantage and I am sure that you will be amazed at what you might accomplish.

---John Peterson

[duff]

I recently sucked up my own pride and came back to this forum and this method of exercise after not doing much moving of my body for 2 or 3 years. Working with our feelings of pride is part of the path to sustainable health and strength for life, or success in any area of self-mastery.

I started again recently with three sets of 3-5 reps of Atlas Pushups, squats, etc. I used to do far more, but I decided that it doesn't really matter whether I get fit in 12 weeks or 12 months, because what I really want is sustainable health and strength for life.

[blackbelt]

It's been quite a while since I've chimed in on a thread. For some reason, I thought it necessary to do so here.

I don’t think it can be emphasized enough that each individual has to “ease” into new exercises, routines or protocols. That “easing” isn’t always going slower, or with fewer reps. It can just be a matter of NOT going “all out” during the first run at something new.

Some people may be able to do their “max” within a week, or a month. But, others may need longer to reach their fullest potential at that moment in time.

Taking something new in chunks can go a loooong way towards getting the MOST benefit out of it.