The Rebuilding Phase

If you’ve ever taken a few weeks off, or a few dozen months in a row, and you’re trying to get back into fitness, I suggest taking some time to re-evaluate your body’s strengths and weaknesses before going wild in your next workout. This is a process called rebuilding. It doesn’t feel like much fun, but it is key to keeping yourself healthy while you work up to your former levels of fitness.

Why the need to rebuild?

Anytime the body disconnects from a regular workout routine, it begins to settle. This means your cardio will slowly disappear, then your strength and finally your image in the mirror. While your body is changing, your mind remembers the good old days. The next time you workout your mind will tell you, “I can do this” and then your body will later tell you, if not immediately, whether or not that was a good idea. Your mind hasn’t recognized the settling changes, and it can seriously hurt your body by holding it to a too high standard. Or your mind is convinced you can’t do what your crazy friend has recruited you into, you need to try whatever that exercise is at your own pace on your own terms before jumping in with both feet.

How do you know where to start?

Since you want to evaluate your total condition, you can start just about anywhere, but always start at low intensities, with low weights, medium repetitions and medium sets. Remember, your body has changed: it could be in worse condition than you know, or it could be in much better shape and just needs a little fine tuning. You won’t know until you start training. Going slow gives your body a chance to wake-up. Your mind remembers how to do the perfect squat, but your body might not. You might think that a warm-up set is harmless, and then find that you’ve pulled your inner thigh. It’s not like that happens to people. Okay so it might have happened… to a friend of mine…

What’s low intensity and medium supposed to mean?

Go slow and think about form. If you don’t know what good form is, ask for help. Most gyms and sports teams have people who are licensed professionals who know what good form looks like. Most gyms and sports teams also have people who don’t use good form, so don’t take a look around the gym and emulate the guy in the corner, he may not be a good example. Also, your body might have limitations you’re unaware of that will effect your exercise. A professional will be able to help you identify how to healthfully exercise, preventing future injuries and keeping you healthy longer.

Form?

Form is a difficult thing to describe. Great form makes specific movements look effortless. Period. Performing an exercise with proper form keeps your body in alignment and also uses principles of stacking. Your body is made to move, and made to make compound movements. When you stack your body in a proper movement, the movement becomes much easier. When you’re not stacking properly movements become very difficult and feel impossible. Everything is possible, with the right form. Eighty percent of what you do as an exercise should be done in proper form. Ten percent should be experimenting to find that form and the other ten percent of the time when you’re pushing your limits to extend your fitness.

Rebuilding is ninety percent of the equation.

It’s taking time to get comfortable and establish a solid foundation for your fitness. Building the foundation allows you to safely push yourself as you discover what your body can do. It takes a great deal of humility to start low and go slow. It takes even more humility to recognize when you’ve overdone an exercise and need to stop for the day. That’s the least fun part about rebuilding, uncovering the foundational flaws in your movements.

Rebuilding is an attitude.

It looks at your long term goals and weighs them as more important than your short term goals. AKA looking like you’re the most awesome person in your particular style of fitness. By going slow you’ll outpace the competition: keeping your fitness longer, with less injuries and setbacks, which means you’ll be able to do more of what you enjoy without having to worry whether or not you’re doing it as good as anyone else. That is the key beating the competition.

Competition!

Working with others is a great way to motivate yourself. It’s a great way to motivate others. It’s a great way to grow, but it can function as a two-edged sword. While exercising with others is undoubtedly the best way to improve your fitness; however, focusing on what others see is a formula for burnout. No one else knows your body but you. Only you know your limits. You may not have more you can give in a workout. You might be holding back. Until you are ready to push your limits, don’t let someone else push you around. Only when you feel the time is right should you push yourself.

How do I know when the time is right?

There’s not a timetable for this. It’s an internal thing that develops over time. When you’re ready you will know because your body and your mind will say, “Yes, I can do this!” When your body and your mind agree about what you can do, that’s when you’re ready. Afterwards your body and mind will feel good, even if you are a little sore. Your mind will be at peace and your body will be at rest. This is how you will know you’ve rebuilt your fitness.

Paul wrote to the Romans, “… we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Rebuilding means something has been lost, otherwise this article would have been entitled, “The building phase”. Rebuilding means something has been broken, and while the practical side of this article is light, rebuilding often comes from a place of deep pain, or in some cases, deep lack of pain called numbness. Rebuilding is about righting what has become wrong. About moving what has been frozen. About healing what has been broken.

Rebuilding sounds very, very simple and easy, but it is not always so. It takes time and continuous effort. Suffering is the recognition that something is wrong. Perseverance is the effort required to make it right. Perseverance often sucks. It’s slow, can feel like nothing is moving or changing, and can be a major grind. Perseverance is the desire and effort to be made whole. Perseverance is as much a mental attitude as it is a physical force.

Out of the desire to be made whole, our character also changes. Where once pride and arrogance reigned, humility and patience take their place. Compassion for others often grows as character takes shape. We recognize that many others have been hurt and injured. That there are some who will never have the opportunity to be made whole again because of their living arrangements. Character is not only about our attitudes toward ourselves, it’s also about our attitudes towards each other. Character is not selfish, nor is it completely selfless, it is somewhere in between. It recognizes when it can make a difference and moves on when it cannot, but it never gives up hope.

Hope. The enduring form and piece upon which this entire article rests. If we have no hope, we will never start rebuilding. If our hope dies, so does our journey. Hope believes that even in the darkest, hardest, and most painful experiences something can be redeemed. Hope says it’s not over. Hope says there is life.

Paul also wrote, “… hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” Hope, that suffering can be redeemed. That a dark angry and frustrated world can be melted through love. Not partial love, but total love. Effused into every part of our body and soul until it comes out with every breath. In every motion. This is what it means to hope in God. To be filled with his Holy Breath, to breathe life into a world of misalignment, dysfunction and disappointment. It is this hope that gives us the courage to persevere, and to start rebuilding each and every day. Until there is nothing left to rebuild, because everything is as it should be: healthy and whole.

Good Health

Trying to recruit friends into a workout is like trying to convince someone they should eat vegetables. It’s unusually difficult. Workouts and vegetables get a yes under the following conditions: there’s an acquired taste, someone has explained the benefits, they’ve been badgered into trying it and finally have given in, or they’ve observed someone who partakes of those things and they want what that person has. Even though working out and eating vegetables is good for everyone’s health, we’re often reluctant to make them a regular part of our life. It’s so much easier to choose the good tasting foods and not exercise, than to choose the more difficult things and be healthier.

Why?

If you look at marketing for the latest fitness equipment, you’ll see a few different answers why people don’t exercise: time, money, energy, difficulty, fear of not knowing what to do, pain from previous injuries, etc. Marketing for the latest cooking appliance is very similar: its saves you time, money, tastes great, will help you lose weight, increase your energy levels, and its simple and easy to use. The simplicity of the marketing campaigns isn’t a coincidence. We all want to be healthier without the hassle. Which tells me there’s something about the hassle that needs to be investigated.

In his last night with his disciples, Jesus makes a reference to a woman in childbirth. “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy; a child has been born into the world.” Jesus points out that giving birth to a child is anguish. Thank you Jesus, for pointing out the obvious. But he adds that after a child is born there is joy. Having spoken with a few mothers I would say great joy. One of the most hideously painful experiences on earth also creates one of the deepest joys. There’s something about pain that makes joy that much sweeter.

As a trainer and coach, I don’t start with the most painful and difficult exercises. I start with the basics and work my way towards the pain. I don’t push people to the pain. In fact I encourage them to hold back until they’ve formed a stable foundational base, only then do I let go of the reigns and let them have at it. It’s a wonder to watch. People who I once could only have motivated by yelling and screaming, an external form of motivation, suddenly find a deep well of lasting internal power. They understand I am not going to externally motivate them in that way. Instead, I teach them internal motivation: to work hard through self-knowledge, determining intensity from knowing their own body and mind. This system works, although it’s slow. I’ve seen once timid basketball players dominate defensively on the court. I’ve seen ‘lazy’ players rise up and own the leadership of their team, asking everyone to give just a little bit more effort. I’ve seen men determinedly run with all their might, over distances and under a time we once thought a distant dream. The joy in these moments, of watching people bloom because they are ready and they want it, is indescribable. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it; it’s one of the most beautiful sights in the world.

This week, many around the globe will be celebrating ‘good’ Friday. It’s not good because it’s happy, it’s good because it’s painful. It’s the day of the week Jesus was willingly crucified. Jesus had an internal motivation to move towards the cross. No one pushed or drove him to it. He chose it. The graphic nature of what he experienced in a short period of time would make most of us turn away and say no. Without understanding that Jesus was moving to the cross, his disciples fled and abandoned him. Friday’s not good because it’s quick and easy without hassle, it’s good because it’s excruciating and full of anguish. It’s the penultimate step leading to joy.

What joy is that? That a man might die for someone else’s sins? Not completely. It’s the ultimate act of reconciliation, of the Father desiring to bring back all his children. Children he made and created, which makes the Father a very mother-figure, and Jesus reference to a woman in childbirth a pointed and accurate metaphor. Jesus died on Good Friday. But he rose again, showing that even death on a cross, one of the most graphic deaths ever imagined, couldn’t stop him. Death wasn’t an intense enough workout for Jesus. Jesus conquered death, and opened the door for us to enter in to his joy.

When we learn to live like Jesus died, we learn to embrace the hassle. To step into moments of pain because they bring moments of lasting joy. This is what makes Friday good, this is what brings lasting good health. Stepping into the pain, frustration, and hassle and coming out victorious.

Growth

Restarting fitness can be a daunting task, primarily because we try to do too much too fast. The fast approach to fitness often leads to failure. We get too tired and sore, dreading our upcoming workouts, until we give up because working out is too hard. This is what happens to many people who join gyms in January. They begin with high hopes, go hard for 6-8 weeks and then lose the desire to continue, mostly out of frustration. Frustration usually falls into one of three categories: they don’t see the results they were hoping to have 6 weeks ago, their bodies hurt too much from past injuries or they can’t think of any new workouts. This boom bust cycle can be prevented. When we take a slower approach to fitness our bodies have ample time to adjust to our new routines. When we go slow we can feel the changes in our body taking place. We have time to notice these subtle changes because we aren’t looking for a quick external change. Our measure of fitness becomes how our body feels versus how our body looks. When we focus on how our body feels, and give our body time to adapt and change, our external appearance takes care of itself. The key to external fitness is internal fitness. Try to sell that in an infomercial J

We live in an externally driven world. We have the perception that our external appearance shows our internal qualities. To some degree this is true, who we are manifests itself in our physical bodies and our internal struggles have external results. But the sum total of a person is not in their external appearance or visible qualities, it’s on the inside, a place most of us will never see. Man looks at external appearances, but God looks at the heart.

Too often we get caught up in appearances and never get to a place where we can see someone’s heart. Looking at a heart is difficult; we don’t often get a clear picture. Looking at a heart requires listening, discernment and dialogue. We need to listen so we can understand how and why someone behaves the way they do. We need to discern whether or not that person is telling the truth and is taking responsibility for their decisions. We need to stay in dialogue to notice changes in someone’s heart, for healthy hearts are not static.

Imagine looking at someone’s heart is like a workout routine. When we listen, that’s one workout. We get a decent picture of what that person is capable of at that point in time. Discernment would be the process and experience of a trainer evaluating the workout, deciding how much effort the athlete gave, pointing out any weaknesses, recommending adjustments or modifications. Dialogue is evaluating multiple workouts over time, adjusting training tips and methods as the athlete grows. Multiple evaluations give us a clearer picture of an athlete’s true fitness. It helps us recognize and compensate for unfavorable results. When we train with someone long enough we can recognize physical factors like sore muscles, lack of sleep, not enough food, life stress and illness. Without the experience of multiple workouts, we can’t give an honest evaluation. An athlete’s 100% while they are sick isn’t the same as 100% while they are healthy. If we evaluated an athlete when they were sick, and used that evaluation to make judgments about their fitness, we would be wrong about what that person is capable of. We would have accurately assessed them for one day, but have missed out on their potential and their heart.

In my quiet time I’ve finished reading three of the four gospels. I’ve been evaluating Jesus parables about spiritual growth and comparing them with the growth of the disciples. In the gospels the disciples aren’t very talented; their spiritual results are pretty anemic; it’s clear that although they spent time with Jesus, they didn’t understand his message. The gospels paint a weak picture of the disciples. They fear and worry, they ask Jesus to bless what shouldn’t be blessed, they try to steer him to more important people, etc. They miss the kingdom of God, even though it’s right under their noses. The Pharisees and teachers of the law also fit in the same boat. They don’t understand the kingdom of God and actively plan against it. If I were to make an evaluation of both the disciples and the Pharisees, they both get spiritual F’s. But the story doesn’t end with the gospels, it continues on.

There is an amazing transformation that happens in the disciples. They go from spiritual weaklings to spiritual greats. They go from failure after failure to unbelievable success. They suddenly get what the gospels are about, who Jesus is, what he came for and how that’s supposed to transform their lives. When they understand who Jesus is their actions transform as well; they had to understand who Jesus is before they could change. They had to understand him before they could experience success.

In contrast to the disciples, the Pharisees don’t change. They still oppose the gospel because it threatens the world they’ve created in their own image. They maintain where they are at because it’s too challenging to give everything up and start over. Even though they work out their spiritual muscles every day, they’ve reached a plateau, one they cannot break by their continuous routines. They needed the change only realizing Jesus can bring.

Changing our spiritual attitudes is just as difficult as changing our physical bodies. It takes effort to change. We have to be willing participants in our own change; it’s not a passive process. When we internally change our focus, our externals dramatically and drastically change. Not just for ourselves, but for the people around us. When we internally change, there are visible external changes. If there are no external changes, then it’s possible there have been no internal changes as well. It’s easy to get bogged down in poor workout routines and be overcome by our own state of unhealthiness. But when we focus on where we want to go, and don’t let any amount of failure get between us and where we want to be, God can change our hearts, spirits and bodies, just as he changed the disciples. This supernatural change occurs in an instant. It can be the product of years of research and study, but it culminates in the realization of a moment, deciding we no longer want to live by an external set of rules, but allowing God to govern and guide our internal mindsets. Make no mistake, internal changes have external results. There must be physical manifestations of change or there has been no change at all. Some of these changes may be instantaneous, others will take more effort. But when the deep internal change takes place, the externals will never be the same.