Perception Neutralized

There’s a certain neutralizing quality of performance, isn’t there? It cuts ruthlessly through the ‘bull crap,’ if you will. Depending on your disposition, the black and white messages that the stopwatch or the barbell tell can be good news or bad news.

I’m thankful, personally. Even though I’ve practiced formal strength and conditioning for over a decade, the barbell owns me. The stopwatch owns me. Furthermore, it will always be that way. Getting stronger is going to get harder. Getting faster is going to get harder.

Three hundred pounds weighs three hundred pounds. It doesn’t have emotions and it doesn’t care what you want, when you want it, or why you think you should be able to move it. In the same way, time moves forward whether you need a water break or not. Performance shows no mercy. Thank God.

We’re all kept honest by performance. I’m afraid of every single workout. I’m not afraid because of injury or that I wont feel well or that something could happen to me. I get anxious because my best effort, just like your best effort, is always a challenge.

You’d never imagine how many fitness fanatics, tenured fitness professionals, and self-proclaimed ‘badasses,’ come down to Earth with the harsh reality that strong is strong and fast is fast, and that neither of those are one’s opinion when the barbell and the stopwatch are involved. We try to soften the blow sometimes with, “I totally could do this, but…”

But, nothing. 

You can’t trade in a photo of your beach body for seconds off of your baseline. Looking fit doesn’t add pounds to your back squat, either.

Luckily, the harsh reality of performance is a wonderful place to learn, grow, and evaluate, because it’s honest. Actually, it’s arguably as honest as it gets. In addition, everything you earn at DEUCE Gym is yours in the truest sense. Imagine the horror of having to crack the code of figuring out all the tricks of the trade to convince yourself and everyone around that you’re fit… without ever really getting fit. Now that is tough and, in fact, that is the game that most people are playing oddly enough.

“What’s the best/fastest/cheapest/most fun way to look like a strong, fit, athletic person? Oh, other than actually getting strong, fit, or athletic by the way…”

In our world, we don’t have the stress of posturing as something that you aren’t. It’s all laid out there. I’d argue that there’s nothing more egalitarian than acquiring basic fitness. Earlier I said this is all good news or bad news depending on your disposition. To be clear, this is only bad news if you think how your perceived outweighs who you really are.

 

 

Logan Gelbrich

@functionalcoach