If anyone ever tells you that working out is all about fat loss or muscle building, they have a very limited scope of thinking on the subject of fitness.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a blast from the past, literally.
I used to be a body builder and they were some of the most incredible times of my life… I love the community, I loved building muscle, I love the comradery amongst my friends at the gym.
I owned Olympia Fitness Center back then and it was a blast!
Then I broadened my horizons and learned all about health and fitness… yes I said fitness, because bodybuilding is about neither. I suppose you could say that you are healthier than a large section of the population as a bodybuilder, which you are, but you are anything but "healthy" and shapely, yes… fit… not quite.
As you may know bodybuilding is about building muscles, it’s not about fitness, at least not the kind of fitness we are talking about when you’re Fit for Power, and engage in the basic training plan for the Performance Lifestyle.
For a while I really got down on bodybuilding because as I learned more about health and fitness and the real purpose in thinking, living and training as a Healthy High Achiever, I saw all the bad things in bodybuilding and really beat it up over the years.
What I forget was all the other great things about body building and the community that I was apart of for so long added to my life. First, I loved the hard core environment and when I left it. I left a piece of me behind.
It was nearly 15 years I let that happen and now I know it really affected me.
While I’m not saying "train at a hardcore bodybuilding gym", I am saying that there is more to training than fat loss and muscle building. Both are great, but there is still more…
Two months ago, I met up with a friend I haven’t seen in years to train at a Diamond Gym in Maplewood NJ and I can’t tell you how much of a full circle experience it was as a 40 year old (birthday, October 5th, 2008) to come back to my roots. It changed my life in a good way. It awakened the hard core part of me, that I had been missing for some time, and it enabled me to experience the comradery, that exists in a gym like this, unlike any other gym type can deliver.
Bodybuilders are really there. They are fully present and loving their gym experience. It’s high intensity training, it’s committed, it’s fully engaged and I love it!
Where and how you train and with whom, all the dynamics involved affect your personal growth, awareness and social life. I really value that and I trust you will too.
When you are Fit for Power, you can train anywhere and build in many types of training into your lifestyle. That’s part of what makes it so exciting, so practical and exciting. I did that that two months ago, by adding in a handful of workouts each month at Diamond Gym.
And yes, I experienced some fat loss, and building building, because when you put on muscle, the after burn affect is incredible. And you feel amazing.
In my next post I will be putting up some photos of my bodybuilding days of old.
Till then,
Live Like a Pro,
~JAM,
John Allen Mollenhauer is the creator of Fit For Power a Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever – Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!
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