An Unexpected Journey

Hello folks!  Welcome to my blog where I am going to be giving you a peek into my fitness journey.  

The past 2-3 years I have been on a journey of self improvement. You see, unlike most, I actually seem to be predisposed to happiness. While this predisposition to happiness is a gift more than it is a curse, there is a negative side to it.  I was so caught up with living in the moment that the future really held no relevance to me. Unfortunately, that is not a helpful attitude when aspiring to build a fitness empire. I was forced to accept that the way I was living my life would not get me where I wanted to go. This was a hard pill to swallow and even harder course to correct.  But hard is exactly what I needed.  For too long I had just coasted and all the clever excuses in the world couldn’t hide the fact that I was falling behind.  Not only among my peers but in how I saw myself. 

The first thing I did was prioritize what I wanted.  I knew that what I wanted was achievable, it was just a matter of cultivating determination and patience, which was difficult for me since I was so used to leaping from one thing to the next without much thought.  In order to get through this period of growth, I had to begin setting some goals.  Not just “I want to be better goals” but S.M.A.R.T. goals, and this is what I want to share with you.  S.M.A.R.T. stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. This is the structure with which I began to craft my goals, and the structure with which I will help you craft goals within your own fitness journey.  Example: if my goal is to gain 5 pounds of lean muscle mass via strength training in the next 3 months then there should be objectives or mini process goals to hit along the way. An example objective for this would be to work out four days a week for one hour per weight lifting session.  Even that objective can get more specific.  Your goals should help you not hinder you so if you are getting bogged down with the specifics just remember that your goal should be measurable so if you are measuring progress then you are on the right path.

Once I had my priorities sorted and my goals established I noticed an immediate change in my behavior.  More importantly I started accomplishing the goals I had set for myself and I fell in love with the concept of discipline.  I realized that this was something I could learn and improve on throughout the rest of my life.  Sometimes the grind seemed monotonous especially when working on something for weeks, months, and now years. Sometimes I lost sight of what I was doing.  Sometimes I would get caught up in the process and question the point only to remember that today I am better than I was yesterday.  Do I always succeed? No. I most certainly do not.  However, everytime I wander off the path I hop back on.  It’s easy to think of failure as an excuse to quit. Instead, one must begin to think of it as an opportunity to get better; to recommit yourself, and press forward. Always forward.

It has been a rewarding journey thus far but now I search for another way to push myself and competition is calling.  I have been an avid runner for 11 years and I have been on and off weight lifting since I was a boy but the past 6 years I have taken it seriously.  As a boy my father competed in the Arnold Pump and Run a couple of times and I always thought that was so cool.  The Arnold Pump and Run has two components.  The first is a bench press.  You are weighed the day of and then you are required to bench whatever you weigh on the day.  You are able to bench this weight up to 30 repetitions and no more.  Afterwards you run a 5k.  Each rep on the bench press knocks 30 seconds off of your 5k time.  Someone could run a 15 minute 5k but if they only bench their weight 17 times they could lose the competition to someone who runs a 17 minute 5k but benches their weight 23 times.  The goal of the race is to be the most well rounded athlete.  This is what I will be doing in March of 2021.  The sign up is on November 1st of 2020.  

Currently I am 5ft 7in at 159 pounds.  I have never bench pressed 300lbs and I am training to achieve that goal because setting goals and working towards them is what I do, and what I would love to help you do.  I am set to complete that goal by the end of November but things are going well and I will probably move the time line up on that because I want to switch gears and begin training for the pump and run in early November.

That’s it. That’s the background to the start of Fowler-Fit.  A long winded explanation to help you understand why I will show up here to track my fitness journey.  Moving forward the blog posts will be as follows:  A list of my workouts for the week, what I felt I did well, what I could have done better, and any changes I feel like I need to make going forward.  You can look for a new post every Monday, recapping the previous week of exercise.  Thanks for reading this and I’ll see you next week.