By Michael Krueger
Given my profession, I am often asked how long I’ve been working out. The answer is that I’ve been training most of my adult life, with very few gaps. The only breaks in my activities have been from injuries, and I’ve only had two that sidelined me for more than a week or so. I had one running injury early on that took me off the road for a full year and a sports injury that took me out for six weeks. I’ve never had an extended period where I didn’t work out just because it wasn’t convenient.
I’ve been thinking about this lately because I have a number of clients who are taking sabbaticals from training, and I just don’t understand why.
Commitment
A lifelong commitment to what used to be known as “physical culture” is looked on with equal parts admiration and distain. Some people are amazed that anyone is willing to train week after week, month after month, year after year, and decade after decade, while others think people who do that are just crazy.
Way back when I first began running seriously, I was in the Coast Guard in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. On my morning runs, I would occasionally meet up with an older guy (about my age now!) who was running too. He would slow his pace slightly to match mine, and we would run along together for a few blocks, chatting about the weather and running in general until our routes took opposing turns. About a year later, when I was getting out of the service, I went in for my separation physical and, to my surprise, in walked this older runner. We had never discussed what our line of work was; we were just kindred runners.
We spent most of my appointment talking about running. I mentioned that at that moment I was in a bit of a running funk and he just smiled. He said that he had been running for nearly 40 years and he had learned that you have good days and bad days, good months and bad months, good years and bad years, and even good decades and bad decades. The look on my face made him laugh out loud. “Good decades and bad decades?” In my innocence and ignorance, I wasn’t able to properly process the wisdom of his statement. Now, more than 30 years of running later, I truly understand.
Stay the Course
I talk with a lot of people about fitness. Most people don’t have a clue as to the difference between dedicating oneself to the fitness life and simply exercising. I always ask about their exercise history and generally I get vague talk of walking, jogging, classes, videos, races, sports, and gardening. Some people will tell me that they go to the gym regularly and do weights and cardio. I will then ask about what their program goals are and about the progress they have made, and that’s when I usually get the blank stare.
My experience tells me that few people will stay on track beyond eight weeks. The next group will continue until something disrupts their routine and they rarely go back. Another group will tough it out for a year before losing focus. Then there are the few who make it to two years.
The two-year people stand at the edge of really understanding. If during those years they were consistent and followed a plan, progressing and resting according to the construct of their program, they have an excellent chance of long-term success. There is one last hurdle they must clear and, unfortunately, that hurdle takes out a great many people.
The final test is the four-year life reassessment (at least that’s what I call it). At this point, many people seem to subconsciously remember all the things that they have done in approximate four-year blocks. There was high school and college, their first job, maybe even their first marriage. This four-year junction is often the point where the wheels fall off their seemingly successful training program.
What Happens
If I knew precisely why this happens I would write a book, get wealthy, and retire. The fact is there are many reasons, and while they are all related, they are as unique as each individual. It would take many pages to go over each of the reasons I have heard from former clients for this four-year phenomenon, but one factor always seems to be a part of each scenario and that is a basic misunderstanding of how fitness works.
After four years of training, it’s easy to lose focus. It just seems to them that by this time they should be “there,” wherever “there” is. If they are relatively young and they feel good, they want to do other things, and fitness seems to be a time suck. If they have recently gotten involved in a relationship, fitness takes time from that as well. Sometimes it’s a new job or an addition to their family that preempts their fitness program.
If the person is older and more settled in a career and/or family, it may seem that progressing in fitness isn’t that important anymore; besides, it’s brutal hard work to continue to get better as you age. Some feel like they just aren’t accomplishing anything “big” anymore and they attribute it to age rather than a lack of effort. The idea of maintenance is not particularly inspiring when it includes hard work and all you get is to keep what you already have. Some folks think they have earned the right to slow down and kick back; after all, isn’t that what older successful people do?
Both of the above scenarios, while common and well within the normal realm of experience, are the roadmap to failure. The pursuit of fitness and well-being doesn’t stop because something else comes up or because you had a particular birthday or even if you’ve had a modicum of success. It may seem a bit morbid, but the pursuit of physical goals ends only when you die.
What To Do About It
The only solution I have found for this problem is conscious progression toward both short- and long-term goals. If you can look back on your logs (there it is again, you need to maintain a good log) and see how far you’ve come, it is much easier to set goals that will keep you focused. Being fit and strong in general is nice, but quantifiable fitness improvement is essential to long-term progress.
Some trainees will gravitate toward competition to validate their progress, while others are content to see the improvement in their health, in the mirror, in their log, or on their spreadsheet. There are many different ways to keep motivated after the early years of fitness, but you have to want it.
Some people will simply keep doing exactly what they have done at precisely the same intensity year after year after year. These people are the long-term exercisers who keep getting a little fatter, a little softer, a little slower, and a little weaker and older. They don’t challenge themselves, so they stop growing, stop improving. They never worked hard so now they work even less and, unfortunately, they don’t understand why all their exercise isn’t helping.
These people have never actually progressively trained, and in a way they give exercise a bad name. They tell everyone how much they do, and yet they have little energy and look soft and unhealthy. Their only goal has been to “do something,” and that is all they have accomplished. How far would you have gotten in school or your career if your only goal was to show up and do “something”?
Staying Power
What it takes to make it is to focus on some goals; progress toward them; and, once they are accomplished, celebrate and set some new ones. It doesn’t matter what else comes along in your life. Keep your physical goals on track and everything else in life, both the good and bad, will be easier to take.
Age is not a barrier to setting and achieving fitness goals either. Trainees in their 70s and 80s are still setting personal records, and you can too.
If you continually challenge yourself and work hard, you’ll achieve things you never thought possible; you will see that nothing is outside of the realm of possibility.
Michael Krueger is an NSCA-certified personal trainer. He got his start in fitness training while serving in the United States Coast Guard. He works with firefighters and others in and around Madison, Wisconsin. He is available to fire departments, civic organizations, and athletic teams for training, consulting, and speaking engagements. He has published numerous articles on fitness, health, and the mind-body connection and was a featured speaker at the IAFC’s FRI 2009 Health Day in Dallas, Texas. E-mail him at MKPTLLC@gmail.com.
