Slow and Steady

Two years or so I started going to the gym. It started in the dead of winter in Chicago. I was new in town. Knew next to nobody. So I decided to pay for a friend to talk to. He also happened to be a trainer and Olympic lifter.

Over those two years I began to learn the importance of range of motion. Doing the movements slow. Controlling the negative. Letting the muscle stretch and contract. Basically, doing every exercise right and making every rep count.

Sounds like meathead speak. I know.

At this point, I'm starting to know what I'm doing. I've gone out on my own and started working at this gym near the office.

Every morning at 6am I'm there. And so is this guy.

Middle-aged, like me. Average in every way, like me. A little disheveled, like me. He looks like he just started getting into this thing some call fitness, like me.

But he's different.

Every morning, every exercise, every rep — he moves like a snail. Slow, deliberate and painstaking. Now, most guys you see in gyms are hapless. Throwing around sixty-pound dumbells, slamming plates around like idiots. There's no form. Just weight.

The guy though. He takes goes light and slow and careful. And I know, he's getting more out of it. He's feeling it more. He's learning more. And in the long run, he'll benefit from it more.

And I appreciate it him for that. More than the two hundred pound bench pressers who clearly don't know what they're doing.

Slow and steady.

I'm sure there's something be learned in there somewhere.