Stryka’s BodyBlog

This week I have taken a week of work for absolutely no reason at all except to take a week where I don’t have to worry about much else except eating, sleeping and training

As the title of this blog suggests this week it is all about me.

You see I firmly believe that to have longterm success at your fitness goals, they need to be selfish goals. You need to do this for yourself.

It’s great to have support, in fact we couldn’t get by all by ourselves but we all know that even the most supportive well intentioned friend or family member will become a crap pusher right when you need them to not bring any cheat foods anywhere near you. "just have one, it won’t hurt you"!

Your willpower needs to come from your own motivation because you want it, not because someone else wants you to. Because when it gets hard, a champions mind is focussed on victory not on what someone else thinks.

If you don’t wan’t it for yourself then you can’t take ownership of it.

If you don’t take ownership of it who will drive you to your goals? If you aren’t driving towards clear goals then you float around aimlessly. In 10 years time you will still be where you are today (if not worse).

Like I said over the weekend, take some personal responsibility, take control and own your world.

Be selfish, your life is all about you

Yesterday I witnessed a display of courage, of fight, of never giving up against the odds. Yesterday was Anzac day here in Australia, a day in which we remember the courage and sacrifice first displayed by Australian soldiers in the landing at Gallipoli on the 25th April back in 1915.

It has become a tradition that the Australian Football League honours Anzac day with a match between the two clubs that lost the most players to the world wars. One of these happens to be my team

Yesterday barely two minutes into the game our only ruckman (think basketball centre for you non Australians) landed awkrawdly on his knee and is likely to miss the rest of the season. This meant that the ruck duties fell squarely on a young man by the name of paddy ryder who whilst has a phenomal vertical leap is about 30-40pds lighter to the strength required for the job.

Not only this but because their was no one else out of 44 players for the two teams Paddy was one of two that spent the entire 122 minutes of game time on the field.

Apparently the television commentators wrote him off straight away. Apparently he wouldn’t be strong enough, apparently the task would be too big, too long , too hard.

But on a day where the sacrifices made by our soldiers are honoured Paddy decided that the least that he could do to honour them would be to display a little bit of intestinal fortitude and stand and fight. And fight he did, all day long.

Paddy decided that he couldn’t bulk up 40pds instantly, he couldn’t control anything how big the other guy was or that the other guy had a backup and was getting more rest than he was.

But what he could control was how long he was prepared to work and how hard he was going to fight, through sheer guts and determination he was going to impose his will on the game, he decided he was going take personal responsibility for the job because their simply was no one else, he was going to own his world…. So he did, and his team won because in the dying minutes of the game they were still fighting when others had given up.

We cant control so many things in our lifes. We can either take ownership of the situation and deal with it and come out the other side as a champion or give up and live in mediocrity.

here is the last 10 minutes of the game. Right when the commentors have written off the Bombers. Ryder is number 30 (in the red and black)

Following on from my last blog about excuses I wanted to write about something else that really gets to me.

And that is cutting down someone who has worked their ass off to get where they are.

My last posting when I was in the army was working with civilians, and one of them in particular would whinge about everything we did - "nice for some, us workers don’t get to go to the gym in work hours" (as if he would set foot in a gym ever!) or "knocking off already" after starting 2 hours earlier than they did. We use to say to him that if it was so good to be a soldier why didn’t he ever join?

The reality is of course that life as a soldier is hard work but all he could see where the benefits.

Same goes for the gym "you have it easy with your metabolism, you don’t how hard it is for me, it is easy for you, your fit"

WRONG! you obviously don’t see me in the gym most days of the week. You don’t see me out on the road either running or on my bike, you don’t see what I eat, you don’t see that I very rarely go out on the weekends and have a drink let alone drink myself into a stupor.

If you were prepared to pull your finger out of your ass and work instead of always looking for a quick fix then maybe you could understand why we do what we do.

What we do isn’t easy. There is no magic pill, there is no big secret. I don’t know how often I say it but consistantly brings inevitability. Nobody’s perfect. I certainly am not. I cheat, more than I would like. But most nights I get home from work, eat my chicken breast and sweet potato and about an hour later I go to the gym and lift as heavy as I can.

This is my routine. This is what I consistantly do, and this is why I look the way I do. I could do better of course. But the results of my consistancy are why I am where I am.

If your routine is to get home from work and order takeout then sit on the couch don’t be surprised that you are overweight.

If on the other hand you are prepared to push yourself, you are welcome to join me, anytime you like, just be prepared to work :)