Gym Therapy

 You know, I do jiujitsu and go to a seperate gym from jiujitsu to lift weights. I probably could have said that better. I go to Fight to Win Jiujitsu and I lift weights at Norse Fitness. For the 8 people who look at this my gyms get one hell of a shout out! Right.

So you know, I do jiujitsu at Fight to Win and I lift weights at Norse Fitness and when you do that stuff you tend to visit a lot of Instagram pages about that stuff and you then get fed in the old algorithm stuff that Instagram thinks you're interested in (and want to give money to, because of COURSE) and then you get to start seeing gym bro culture. That is, assuming you're literally like me. Shout out to you weirdos!

A part of that gym culture are a few adages you start seeing over and over. One would be: lifting made the sad man go away or lifting heavy round circles make the sad thoughts go away or something like that. If you're literally like me you'll give me some slack.

I always saw that and kind of smiled. I smiled because I do get it but I also smiled because I didn't think that it necessarily applied to me...

...Yeahhhh

I'm an idiot sometimes. It's best to admit these things so you can work on these things. I remember a few years back I hosted my 3 other podcast buddies at my house. Don't get me wrong, the visit went well. The event they were there for, Heroescon, was a smash. We met up with other podcast friends all throughout the weekend, that was dope. But having 3 extra humans in your house and making sure they're fed, happy, and entertained takes a bit of a toll if it's not something that you do usually. And I don't.

I remember that Sunday telling them to go to the Con without me. I was going to jiujitsu open mat. I came through the door, my friend Jeff was on the mats. I said hey, we slap bumped, and started rolling and when I tell you stress came off of me in waves instantaneously I couldn't mean it more. 

How could I ever think gym WASN'T therapy for me? Of course it is.

I like to think I'm a bit of a contradiction in that I grew up a bookworm but have always enjoyed physical contact through sports. I played basketball, flag football, softball, other random sports. I love that nowadays a guy like me really ain't that much of a contradiction at all; most guys were either hiding it or just didn't have a community to share it with. Score one for the internet bringing people together in a positive way!

I could go on more but time draws short today. I'll mention that lifting thosse round circles have helped me through a lot of things. Especially recently. One of the biggest triumphs I've had in waking up on a weekend or getting in the house late on a weekday with no desire to go anywhere, much less the gym...and I still go and get in a workout and push myself. The mental gains that gives your far outweigh the physical. But then you start seeing a physical change so you want to see more and get better...or maybe you see that guy in the gym who looks better than you do but you know you can catch 'em (that ain't the case with me and Norse Fitness...there are some MONSTERS in that gym)...

Since you're like me you know my people run long even when they say they're gonna be short. But know that for me I couldn't imagine a life without those gyms. It's kept me mentally prepared and just...willing to pursue the idea that I can continue to improve on myself. That makes me happy.

That is the point.