Musings of a Crazed Gym Rat!

I saw a documentary last night about the passengers (a soccer team) of an airplane that crashed in the Andes mountains in 1972. Most of the survivors were about 19 years old at the time, several passengers died in the crash, others succumbed to injuries and the elements. Of approximately 45 passengers 14 survived. These people survived out in the snow waiting for rescue for 72 days, no food, no water except for melted snow. Eventually two guys decided to go and find help, they had little clothing for that kind of journey, soccer shoes and jeans, layers of other stuff taken from the wreckage of the airplane and the deceased passengers. During their trek to find help they were so weak and cold it was a miracle that they made it. One survivor (now in his 60’s) interviewed in the documentary said he remembers thinking he couldn’t go on any further, he was cold, exhausted, but he knew if he stopped none of them would survive, so he said "you just take one more step, you go another 10 feet, you just keep going no matter what". What this man said really hit a chord with me.

I remember when I started loosing weight and I wanted to give up that’s how I managed it. I knew if I quit I’d never reach my goal. I wanted to stop running on the treadmill, stop lifting weights, indulge myself in excessive food, stop the constant struggle. I would say to myself, just do 5 more minutes of cardio until you reach 20 minutes. After 20 minutes I would say you’re two thirds away to getting to 30 minutes, you can’t quit now, just get to 30 minutes. In weight training it was the same thing, just do one more set, just add some more weight and do as many reps as you can to see if you can get a whole set, just see if you can.  Just see if you can get through one day sticking with your diet, just today, same thing the next day, now see if you can get through until the weekend. Just try the diet, give it 10 days, just try it, you don’t have to stick with it, 10 days, then adding another 4 days to make it 2 weeks. Always take another step, push yourself, always try to add one more than you think you can possibly manage. You know what I discovered, YOU CAN! You can add one more set, one more rep, 5 more minutes, one more day and with those little steps you start to notice change and you are bouyed by this change and you start to reach your goals.  When you want to quit and you are crying and disheartened, don’t give up! You can’t or you won’t reach or goals. For some people it is survival, it affects their lives, their happiness and the lives of people who love them.

This struggle to reach our fitness goals is nowhere near to what the poor plane crash survivors endured, but it is the same mentality. Its a determination to reach a goal, to succeed, not to quit when it seems impossible and in some cases, to survive. Because of the determination to survive and to persevere against all odds, these two young men found civilization and all survivors were rescued.

Be like a survivor. Never let anything stop you, age, lack of support, lack of time….never give up, never quit, NEVER!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 11:32 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.