Vanity 101: All About Me

Who am I and why does it even matter what I have to say about getting in the best shape of your life?

I’m glad you asked. You’re skeptical, as you should be, and need to see proven facts before you blindly follow. Kudos my friends, you’re 5 steps ahead of the rest of the human race.

Well I’m Mike (duh) and I’m a meat head. Literally obsessed with finding out how the body works with and against any type of resistance.

My goal is to get into the best physical condition possible while doing the absolute least work possible. Let’s face it, as humans we are inherently lazy and always want to find the easy way out.

It all started in 1st grade when my friend asked me if I was playing football that year. At that point I really had no idea what football was or how it was different from any other sport. All I knew at that time was that I loved running around, being out of breath and messing around in the woods in ways that could seriously injure me.

Looking back on all that it really is no surprise why I immediately fell in love with football after the first hit. Let’s just say when I broke my teammates arm in practice (IT WAS AN ACCIDENT OK!) I was hooked forever.

Fast forward to the end of my 7th grade season. I had been moved to every single position until it was decided I was a linebacker and fullback. Perfect fits for a kid who was wildly reckless and could run for days. The only problem was that I was 148 pounds. If you know anything about American Football, you know that 148 lbs is not ideal for a linebacker/fullback going into a Junior Varsity/Varsity program.

Introducing Mr. Hober. The JV football coach, health teacher, pays. ed teacher and a meathead in every sense of the word. He in turn introduced me to the weight room (basically an old shack with no heat/AC and filled with with old, rusty essentials of strength training). That place was heaven.

After 18 months I had beefed up to a paltry 178 lbs. This was much more acceptable for a freshmen linebacker/fullback on JV. That strength and weight gain, along with my accomplishments on the field earned me a promotion to varsity two years ahead of schedule. Boom, right back to being the little fish in a big pond. I vividly remember 3 separate times during my first game where I was hit so hard that the bright blue autumn sky became the backdrop for my feet as I flew threw the air.

But I could run, fast. And I could hit, hard. So they kept me in and soon enough I was the one making people see how beautiful their cleats looked set against an autumn sky.

The essential contributing factor to all of that was the time I invested in the weight room with Mr. Hober. Countless hours everyday after school, in between practices and even in the morning before school sometimes. Call it hustling or call it grinding, but it worked and I kept on doing it because it was working.

Fast forward to senior year. After 4 years on varsity football, 5 years on varsity track, numerous MVP awards, player of the game honors, a player of the year award, state title appearance in the 4x100m as a sophomore and two more trips to the state qualifier in individual events, it was time to move on to bigger things.

Hello Army and college football. It’s obviously apparent that I needed to keeping moving forward physically. But now with the equivalent of three full course loads (BS in Sport Management, ROTC and football) there was literally not enough hours in the day to pass and excel at all of those at the same time.

Here you’re probably thinking, “But dude, you’re in the Army AND playing collegiate football? What do you need to workout for? Your needs should be covered.”

Dude, I agree 100%, my needs were covered. But on an individual basis. The type of shape required for the Army (as in you get barred from promotion or kicked out for not meeting the standards) is as different from playing linebacker as you can get. If I were to stick with the football approach, I’d lose out in the Army side. If I stuck with the Army approach, I’d get no playing time. If I did them both at 100% I’d literally die (ok, maybe more like figuratively). And if I did them both half-assed I’d end up screwing myself over in both.

So what did I do?

I tried doing both half-assed and screwed myself over.

At the time I thought it was a great approach. It wasn’t until years later when I realized how flawed that approach was. After being out of that grind for a few solid months, and while randomly reading up on how the body adapts, I saw where I had gone wrong. More does not equal better. You hear it all of the time about random subjects, and it’s just as true when it comes to building the body.

Call it maturity. Call it clarity of the mind. Or just call it not being a dumb kid anymore. But I finally feel I’ve gotten to the point where I know what works (the result of countless self “experiments”) and this weird combination of patience (changes in your body take time) and impatience (knowing the prime of my life can end at any second).