Fitness as a Passion and a Study

I have never been someone anyone would have viewed as having any athletic ability. At all. I remember a stand off with a teacher in grade three, she was upset with me that during gym she had everyone running the soccer field and I was walking. She said I had to run. I told her I would walk all day but I will never run (to be fair, I have had bad knees since I was basically a toddler). She said my parents would be upset about my behavior and I said she should ask them because I seriously doubted that.

I got my first gym membership at 18 when I began college. It was my first time really trying anything like a plan or program for fitness. But between the ages of 18 and 35 I was basically just exercising because I knew I should, with very little purpose and no plan. I had various periods during this time where I was in decent shape, my endurance was good but I didn’t look fit and I still hadn’t figured out what worked versus when I was just stumbling into luck.

In 2019, I decided that I was going to pursue weight lifting. That I wasn’t going to just wing it. That I was going to study, understand the science, follow a program and set goals in blocks of 4-6 months to monitor progress. I was lucky that I found some quality content on social media for how to start since I basically had no idea what I was doing.

I had no one to help me. I didn’t know anyone really into weight lifting. I read articles. I found quality YouTube content and watched videos. I recorded myself and compared my form to what I saw in the YouTube videos.

I read studies to understand which exercises worked which muscles and how. I was extremely interested in getting the most bang for my buck on a lift (working compound moves versus accessories). I became passionate about becoming strong and I decided I wanted to be as strong as I was capable of becoming.

My first two years I made a lot of progress in terms of my strength, physique and mindset and I credit that to my appetite for studying weight lifting, reading articles and clinical studies. I wasn’t goofing around aimlessly, I was a student of the process.

Strength training is a hobby of mine, but it’s more than that. I’ve invested myself in the learning. I’ve helped others build plans and programs to get started. I’ve since met others, including my husband, who I’ve been able to learn so much from because my husband is like me. He studied. He pursued the knowledge and became a master. He wasn’t just interested in becoming muscular or fit. He was interested in mastering whatever style of training he was doing, in understanding why things work.

Together we have experimented with different programs, nutrtion plans, we have spent countless hours watching content to educate ourselves.

I follow content and see my husband who have had different levels of strength and different styles of physique over the years and I understand that for most people it takes many years to build the strength or physique they have. My husband is 20 years in.

I think about my education in this area now and how far I’ve come. This year will be 6 years since I embarked on this journey, investing not only my time and physical energy in this but becoming a student of the process. I’m not where I want to be. But I’m curious and excited about where I’ll be when I hit 10 years and beyond!

I’m in it for the long game!