Striving Towards The Ideal Body — Part VIII
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The last time I wrote a part in this series, I was about to stop lifting weights. Of course, I didn’t know this at the time.
I was doing Crossfit a few times a week when one day I dislocated my shoulder. I was pretty distraught as the next few weeks were filled with recovery exercises. I have been active all my life and being limited due to injury (which has happened many times) has a negative effect on my mental state. So the next few weeks were tough.
It has been 5 years since, and I am proud to say that I feel stronger. I may not be as strong as I was in 2014 when I did a competitive power lifting meet with great numbers all around. However, at 35 years of age; I can still do dips and pull-ups. I can run up to 3km and hike up a mountain without getting wrecked.
Evolution of the Fitness Mindset
As I have gotten older, the meaning of fitness has changed. When I was 27, fitness just meant being the strongest possible version of myself. I was lifting weights 3–4 times a week. I was doing absolutely no cardio because cardio was “evil”. Basically anything that could get in the way of strength gains was pushed to the side. I was watching lifting technique videos in my spare time and finishing up the queue of my World’s Strongest Man competition playlist on YouTube.
It was 2013 when I had first gone to an EliteFTS conference. It was a great experience all around with the athletes and pro lifters speaking and sharing tips. However, the real learning which I didn’t even think of came from an unexpected source. There was a lifter in his 40s who had started equipped weight lifting. For the uninitiated, equipped lifting is weightlifting where lifters wear a device which aids in the concentric motion (motion where the force is required to lift the weight from a low point). He told me that as you get older, it gets harder to lift without assistance. In a way he was right.
After dislocating my shoulder, I decided that I wanted to train with just my bodyweight. I trained with convict conditioning for a little while. And then I came across the Recommended Routine of Bodyweightfitness on Reddit. I have now been doing this routine for over 4 years on and off.
