Behold my basement gym, the dreaded #DeathSpa.
Even though it’s 2021 and I could’ve used it back when the lockdowns started, I’m still pumped to attack the New Year with this bad boy behind me.
But it’s less about a home gym and more about an attitude: taking ownership, overcoming adversity and moving forward.
Taking ownership is obvious. The government closed my gym several times. We alone are responsible for our health and fitness. If you don’t think this will ever happen again then you aren’t paying attention, so I consider a gym like this an important investment. Now, I’m pretty full-time with this fitness thing — it’s my job — so, yeah, I’ve gone for the whole hog. Certainly more than most. But even if it weren’t my job, I’d invest in something even if it’s just a start (a set of powerblocks, bands, a bench).
As for overcoming adversity, I didn’t have to go through anything nearly as bad as what others went through in 2020, but it’s not a year I’d ever want to repeat. I was able to manage the business side of the Covid thing and the lockdowns pretty well, but yeah, there were challenges, and not having access to a gym to burn off stress wasn’t fun—and then tearing my damn Achilles so that even walking was off the table didn’t help.
Finally, the big one: moving forward. I’ve said for months that 2021 will be no better than 2020 unless we take tangible steps to make it better AND learn lessons from it.
For me, building a gym was a good step, but other lessons are far more important:
- that with body composition everything is connected, inside and outside the gym;
- that the best practices for a client are what’s best for THEM as individuals;
- that the simplest patterns alone don’t do much by themselves, but they’re indispensable as a framework to “hang” other more impactful measures;
- how the angry muscle meathead or nitpicky “evidenced based” trainer are just two sides of the same insecurity — and neither help anybody, especially not themselves.
2021 will be challenging for everybody. For many it might be their worst year yet. My goal is to have a very good year by helping others do the same.
But it starts by doing the work. Same deal for you. If I can be of any help, don’t hesitate to send me a message.
– Bryan