This may appear to be an unlikely story, but its really quite true.
A couple years back, I made an arrangement with one of the largest Gold Gyms in the world to swap some professional photography services for a membership in a gym that normally I would simply not have been able to afford. Several others did that too, and it was in this gym of movie stars, CEO's, vice presidents etc., that I met a massive but quiet unassuming gentleman who was studiously pretending to be a janitor.
As massive as he was, this gentleman had a way of pulling his aura in real close, so unless you bumped into him, most times you even wouldn't notice he was even there. But he was the talk of the gym because he was consistently winning regional body building awards.
The odd thing was that no one had ever seen him workout. I was working my magic with the camera there on a near daily basis and I saw him lift weights only when he was putting them back on their respective stands.
There was a buzz around the gym that he was on steroids or taking some kind of drugs and quite honestly, I have to say that it really did take me more than a few weeks to even catch him lifting weights late one night.
Curious as I was, in my head I had already asked him for his secret.
"How can you continue to win regional and even place nationally in such a consistent manner if you don't lift weights?, I blurted out
He looked at me oddly and asked me why I thought he never worked out. I told him about the rumours that he might be on muscle building drugs or steroids etc. He laughed quietly and remarked, quite truthfully that drugs don't build muscles they only help one to work out more strenuously.
Thinking that this was the beginning of some kind of story, I waited, but he went back to picking up a stray weight on the floor almost as if i wasn't there. Four weeks passed before we could resume the topic.
On that occasion, he wasn't simply finishing a set, he was in the middle of a strenuous one armed preacher curl. Gathering my lagging courage, i approached him and waited. When he had finished his set, in an odd kind of time bending way he continued the conversation of a month before without even saying hello.
Seeing that he was a little more talkative than before, I again asked him what was his secret.
The story him told me then was simplicity itself. He revealed that his training was based on his resting heart rate. So while others concentrated on working different body parts on different days or alternate days that his was based on this one major difference. I stood there a little shell shocked and waited for more.
He continued that the real pivotal difference was simply the exact time period or signal used to start working out again.
This athlete knows his 'At rest' heart rate. After a strenuous workout his heart rate goes up and stays up even as torn muscle is being rebuilt. He says if it takes days for the heart rate to normalize, then so be it. He won't even work out another body part until the heart rate is back 'At rest'
Does this work for everyone? I can't say, but when I left Asia, this unassuming body building janitor was continuing to un-reluctantly body slam contest after contest to the near complete befuddlement of his competition training in the exact same gym. Gold's gym in this particular Asian country produces more body builder champions than most of the other Gyms combined.
So what? Was this just another jock story of Cinderella being found by Hollywood producers? or is there some deeper thread hiding in here somewhere? Truly the morale of the story was not really not about the weight lifting ( or lack thereof so don't sweat that ). It is really about how through learned tunnel vision we can sometimes forget that there can be more than one way to "skin the cat".
Perhaps if you are doing the same thing you have always been doing and planning on doing more of that "same thing", the change that you are looking for is simply never going to happen. A real change in results, most times requires a real change in the methodology.
A couple years back, I made an arrangement with one of the largest Gold Gyms in the world to swap some professional photography services for a membership in a gym that normally I would simply not have been able to afford. Several others did that too, and it was in this gym of movie stars, CEO's, vice presidents etc., that I met a massive but quiet unassuming gentleman who was studiously pretending to be a janitor.
As massive as he was, this gentleman had a way of pulling his aura in real close, so unless you bumped into him, most times you even wouldn't notice he was even there. But he was the talk of the gym because he was consistently winning regional body building awards.
The odd thing was that no one had ever seen him workout. I was working my magic with the camera there on a near daily basis and I saw him lift weights only when he was putting them back on their respective stands.
There was a buzz around the gym that he was on steroids or taking some kind of drugs and quite honestly, I have to say that it really did take me more than a few weeks to even catch him lifting weights late one night.
Curious as I was, in my head I had already asked him for his secret.
"How can you continue to win regional and even place nationally in such a consistent manner if you don't lift weights?, I blurted out
He looked at me oddly and asked me why I thought he never worked out. I told him about the rumours that he might be on muscle building drugs or steroids etc. He laughed quietly and remarked, quite truthfully that drugs don't build muscles they only help one to work out more strenuously.
Thinking that this was the beginning of some kind of story, I waited, but he went back to picking up a stray weight on the floor almost as if i wasn't there. Four weeks passed before we could resume the topic.
On that occasion, he wasn't simply finishing a set, he was in the middle of a strenuous one armed preacher curl. Gathering my lagging courage, i approached him and waited. When he had finished his set, in an odd kind of time bending way he continued the conversation of a month before without even saying hello.
Seeing that he was a little more talkative than before, I again asked him what was his secret.
The story him told me then was simplicity itself. He revealed that his training was based on his resting heart rate. So while others concentrated on working different body parts on different days or alternate days that his was based on this one major difference. I stood there a little shell shocked and waited for more.
He continued that the real pivotal difference was simply the exact time period or signal used to start working out again.
This athlete knows his 'At rest' heart rate. After a strenuous workout his heart rate goes up and stays up even as torn muscle is being rebuilt. He says if it takes days for the heart rate to normalize, then so be it. He won't even work out another body part until the heart rate is back 'At rest'
Does this work for everyone? I can't say, but when I left Asia, this unassuming body building janitor was continuing to un-reluctantly body slam contest after contest to the near complete befuddlement of his competition training in the exact same gym. Gold's gym in this particular Asian country produces more body builder champions than most of the other Gyms combined.
So what? Was this just another jock story of Cinderella being found by Hollywood producers? or is there some deeper thread hiding in here somewhere? Truly the morale of the story was not really not about the weight lifting ( or lack thereof so don't sweat that ). It is really about how through learned tunnel vision we can sometimes forget that there can be more than one way to "skin the cat".
Perhaps if you are doing the same thing you have always been doing and planning on doing more of that "same thing", the change that you are looking for is simply never going to happen. A real change in results, most times requires a real change in the methodology.
About the Author:
A trillion exotic stories under the night sky. Visit trevorweir.com for just half of them, lol. Discover the secrets of Affiliate niche marketing from a professional.
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