Progression

What do you do when you can do 20 push-ups no problem? You might put your feet up on something or put your hand on a medicine ball and do traveling push-ups. They could be plyometric push-ups with a clap. When those plyos get easy, you can start clapping above the head or behind the back. My spell check does not recognize the word plyometric, which is indicative of the typical person's lack of knowledge about exercise.

I am a personal trainer. In my line of work, these adjustments to an exercise are called progressions. a push-up is a push-up whether is is on a wall by an old lady or if it  is done with your feet in a set of rings and each of your hands on its own stability ball because you are a TOTAL BEAST. A good trainer will progress you through variations of the same exercise as your ability grows.

As a recovering addict, I have picked up a lot of mantras and sayings along the way. At some point, I realized that a lot of my problems were because I had failed to look into the future and figure out what was about to be happening in my life. I'm not talking about any wierdo crystal-ball-tarot-card stuff. Just putting pieces together and and figuring out what I was looking at. I developed a method of being a focused person and called it preparing for what's next.

I was 27 when I learned a basic life skill. It felt like the clouds opened up and Jesus himself came down from heaven and told me about it! It was a total epiphany – for real!

All I had to do was figure out my next step and make sure everything was in place to make it happen. I knew I wanted to have a normal life and spend it with the insanely amazing woman I was lucky enough to be dating. I put this into practice by starting a savings account, just in case I lost my job or something. So I wouldn't be completely screwed. I knew I wanted an education and began (slowly) digging myself out of a HUGE pile of debt so I could eventually go back to school.

That was six years ago. Now I am married to that woman, we have all that married people stuff like a  cool house with a dishwasher and a yard that I get to mow and hate doing. I have been a personal trainer for 3 years and though still chipping away at my old debts, I have been also chipping away credits at school!

I am one of the most fortunate people you will ever meet. How does a strung-out 115-pound heroin addict, hustling for dope on the streets of Memphis (Ranked one of the most unhealthy cities in the U.S.) that had given up any hope for a regular middle-class life (which sounds really stupid, but that is what I wanted when I was a kid) make such a huge comeback? How does that same guy reinvent himself into someone who helps other people reinvent themselves? Who does that? How am I not dead or in jail?

Preparing for what is next – progression. A little bit at a time.

A few months ago, I started working at a new gym. Although it was hard for me to leave my clients and my co-workers, it was time for the next part of my life. I have grown my knowledge and skill at my new gym and I am starting to see my business take off!

I want to change more lives and help people to make these positive changes. Because of the nature of our business, we can only help those who can afford out time, or who consider personal training to be important enough to go without certain things so they can work with one.

So much of being a trainer is teaching people to make healthy choices. In my opinion, the workouts are pretty much secondary to the diet and lifestyle coaching that is given during a session. Sure, there are those people that just want their butt kicked so they can justify eating half of Panera for lunch. They will get a butt-kicking workout, burn hundreds of calories and not lose a pound. Anyone can make somebody sweat.

What's next for me is finding a way to to give back. I want to find a way to bring the fitness lifestyle mainstream and make words like plyometric something everyone knows. I am up super late writing this, and I might be very tired tomorrow, but if you see me ask me about the idea that my wife and I came up with today. I will be making steps toward it, and soon it will be a reality!

Life has been good to me, and now it is time to give back.
I don't want to be just a personal trainer anymore – I want to make Memphis a healthy city!

Hey, I liked your story

Although up until now I write this blog anonymously, and since about 5 people read it anyway, it seems like a good idea to share my story on my blog.

The local paper wrote one of those success stories about how I got into fitness and it changed my life. For the past two days people have been coming up to me telling me "Hey, was that you in the paper? I liked your story."

It is very humbling and strange at the same time. As I have mentioned before I was addicted to heroin for several years. Right now I have been totally winning (not in the Charlie Sheen way) for  approximately 6 years, 5 months and 28 days. Not that I'm counting. I just did the math right now in my head.

I'm not a big 12-step person. Meetings tend to make me feel negative about myself and get me in the frame of mind that I have some sort of disease. I do not believe addiction is and actual disease. I think it is a symptom of something else that is wrong in your life, the same way overeating is.
Sure the brain gets hooked on the release of serotonin and different chemical things that go on when you binge eat or get high.
The thing that I found most helpful was figuring out why I needed that feeling so bad in the first place. What was I trying to fix?
That is figured out now (for the most part) and I try to confront those issues every day so I won't end up in the same place. That's how I did it. With counseling and positive people around me.

I didn't realize that real people contact you after you put something like this out there. It is really cool and very new to me. People are e-mailing me and approaching me at work telling me their stories and wanting to be listened to. I was not prepared for this, and it makes me a little nervous, but I'm going to do my best to rise to the situation.

I totally used a bunch of Oprah language and I apologize for that. I saw an episode of Oprah where they had this junkie family in Ohio and they were trying to get them to get clean and it was so depressing to see. My wife was the one watching it (I was just there because I don't watch lady shows) and she was crying. I was in rehab at the time on methadone (which saved my life).

So maybe Ellen will run a less depressing episode about addicts. I would watch that lady TV show.

Here's a link to my article:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/mar/05/success-story-gary-berglund/

If you need to share your story with someone, you can send it to me.

gberglund@lifetimefitness.com

Gimme some PT

I have been going to physical therapy for about a month or so. My PT is a total mom. The way she talks reminds me of a special-ed kindergarten teacher. It is pretty funny because I am a grown man and she is saying things like "OK, now we're going to roll over on our tummy!" I might end up making a macaroni necklace for her when my program is complete.
The exercises are as painful as shitting out a chain mace. And make me feel super dignified, like waking up naked in a puddle of vomit on the bare hardwood floor of the hallway in an old, unheated house.

But they are working, and soon I will be lifting again.

So yeah, I'm getting totally ripped

One of my lifting buddies who moved to Omaha to freeze his ass off used to randomly say "Gary, you are one vascular man!" That stopped happening so much when I started gaining weight, and after a while, it stopped. That is because I was no longer a vascular man., I was getting kind of fat.
I have noticed that I am seeing more veins in my arms lately, which means my body fat is dropping.
Today one of my clients got a little creeped out by seeing a vein in my arm. She said something like "Oh my got what is that on your arm, is that cancer?" I was like "It's a vein. Thanks for noticing, I'm about to get totally shredded."

Today I did 3 separate workouts. It snowed, and people freaked out. They cancelled their training sessions, so I literally was stuck at the gym with nothing to do all day.  This is what happens when you have nothing to do:

Workout #1 (supersets)

• Pulldowns 4 X 15 reps @ 120
• Seated close-grip row 4 X 15 @ 105
• 
  
• Straight-arm pulldown 4 X 15 @ 100
• Underhand pulldown 4 X fail @ 105
• 
  
• Inverted row 3 X 15 @ BW
• DB Romanian deadlift 3 X 20 @ 10

No, that's not a typo on the last one. I'm still recovering from my injury, so SUPER LIGHT is what I have to do. We'll see how my back feels tomorrow after the deadlifts.


Workout #2

• Stepmill Interval 3 min at 80 SPM 1 min 60 SPM 30 minutes
• Treadmill Incline 8 Speed 3.5 mph 20 min.

Workout #3 (superset plus cardio interval)

• Wall inverted shoulder press 4 X 6, 6, 8, 8
• Lateral front raise combo 4 X 15 @5
• 2 Minutes elliptical at 12 resistance

During workout #3 I felt a little twinge in the lower back. It was during the inverted shoulder press.
check out this link: http://youtu.be/FknaOcjTQAM That's not me.

Disc error

If my back injury could be a movie, It would be narrated by Ray Liotta, have the above title, and start like this:

I had been thin all my life. As awesome as that might sound to some, for me it sucked. I can't sit there and tell a a 500 pound lady that being skinny can really blow and not feel like a complete a-hole complete with a hair gel faux-hawk and an orange tan, but the fact is if you are a short guy AND you are skinny on top of that, it makes you always feel inadequate around pretty much any other dude, except maybe the guy who was Frodo in Lord of the Rings, but even he is not as scrawny as you are, you girl.

I once read an article in a magazine that was talking about indicators of success. I don't know why I was reading this particular issue of Forbes magazine or whatever. I was like sixteen at the time and should have been doing something else that was not as lame, but instead I was a big fat nerd reading a magazine for rich yuppie types, in a public library. Kill me now.

The author mentioned that in researching the article, they found that among non-obese individuals there was a direct relationship between height and/or weight to success and respect from others.
This may have totally contributed to the now glaringly obvious short-guy complex.

When I was a freshman in college, my weight was bout 110 pounds. I am five feet, six inches tall. For a long time I accepted what was handed to me by that nature (what a bitch) and used it as an excuse for being unsuccessful in life.
If my boss at work was a dude and also a moron, I told myself and other people that he only got the job because he is tall. Yes I am that crazy.

It meant that people respect you if you take up more space. As long as you are not totally fat.

When I was younger I used to skateboard, but I was terrible at it. I fell a lot and one time I hit the ground so hard I had pain shooting down my leg for weeks.
I went to a chiropractor, who treated me for a slipped disc (this is what they called disc herniations in the 1970s). That happened in 1997, but they still called it that.

I still had a big chip on my shoulder about my height, until I figured out that there was something I could do to get bigger. I could gain weight.


I have to tell you something right now: I haven't always been healthy even though I was thin.


To gain weight I went on what I called a fat diet. I was going to get fat like a sumo wrestler. I was playing bass in a punk rock band and thought it would be awesome to be a fat punk rocker. So in addition to my very punk rock diet of cigarettes, Pabst Blue Ribbon, heroin and ramen noodles I was also eating at least a pint of ice cream a day.

I didn't get fat, mostly because I puked up everything when I got high. So yeah. I gave up on the weight gain since I was no good at that and concentrated on being a drug addict, since the only thing I seemed to be good at was drugs. I was awesome at that.

When I decided to get my act cleaned up, fitness was a huge part of that. I learned how to lift weights and run and eat to fuel my body and ended up putting on 30 pounds!
For some reason, it is way easier to put on mass when you are not vomiting three times a day. It is also much easier to have teeth that are not rotted. I liked the way I felt all the time.

I like lifting weights better that skateboarding and better than pretty much every other sport or exercise I have tried. It makes me feel in control. It turns out that in addition to having a raging napoleon complex, I am a total control freak!

I loved being in the gym so much that I wanted to work in the fitness industry. I like how everyone is at the gym because they want to be the best version of themselves, and not always just on the outside. Dedication to and consistency carry over into everyday life and are behaviors of successful people. That is fact.

After I started working at the gym I put on about 10 more pounds of muscle, then I hit a wall (figuratively, that time). I needed motivation and a goal. I was just under 150 pounds and that hadn't changed in a while. I wanted at least 20 more pounds.

This past March I decided to train for a bodybuilding competition that was taking place in October. This was a thing that I could use toward my quest to put on some more muscle. I love deadlines because they make me get the work done.

From March to July I busted my ass in the gym and drank liquefied chicken breasts and put on almost 20 pounds. Some of it was body fat, which really didn't bother me because I knew I could get rid of it, right? I'm a trainer with three certifications, a support system at home and a whole lot to prove to myself.

In late June I notice it was difficult to balance on my left leg and By early July I was walking with a limp. There was pain down my left leg and in my lower back. It turns out after an MRI and a visit to a spine specialist (who tried to sell me a surgery I don't need. I will write about that d-bag later.) that I have a herniated L4-5 disc and a bulging L2-3 disc. It hurt to bend and I spent most of the summer laying on an ice pack. It was one of the hardest summers of my life. Even chilled out things like swimming and yoga aggravated my injury, so I didn't work out for over 2 months.

On top of that, when I was training my clients and it came time to show a new exercise, it bothered my back. Total gimp mode. My job sucked because it was taking cake from a fat girl. I was the fat girl and working out was my cake. I was one angry fat girl.

Unable to train with weights, I lost a lot of muscle and as body hung on to its new fat stores.  Somehow I had gotten into the worst shape of my life.

By now things are getting better with my back. I have been going to an amazing chiropractor who uses mechanical traction to create a vacuum in the disc space. An that's how I got the clever name of this post, because I call that machine a disc-sucker. Not corny at all.

I am finally able to lift weights again, although I have not been cleared to run or jump or lift heavy. That's OK, I am still a beast.

As of a few weeks ago, my body fat was the highest it had ever been (17%). What was I going to do about it?
 So I came up with and idea that I think is going to be very interesting.

A lot of my clients are using the My Fitness Pal app and website to keep track of calories. I figured if I can ask you to do it, I might as well be doing it, too. We will get shredded together, like fitness pals do!

So for a little while this blog will be about my experiment with this method of accountability. If you would like to follow me on My Fitness Pal, my username is Garyberglund. I think you might have to friend me, so don't feel weird if we haven't met, I'll still think you're creepy.

I think that man over there is drowning

Summer has been super hot. I have gone outside exactly three times since the last weekend of May, one of which was to cover my house in tinfoil to deflect the sun's hateful rays away from my cooccon of air-conditioned slothiness.

That is maybe a little exaggerated. But the first time I have exercised outside since May was Sunday afternoon and I was almost run over while I was riding my super-sweet road and wearing my spandex tri-suit (which is like an old-timey pair of swim trunks had a baby with a zip-up vest). God, if you are listening  please don't let me die in spandex unless I wake up one day as Batman.

I must correct myself though. I have been to the pool like EVERY DAY this summer. I have lost about ten pounds from this excessive overuse of cardio, and as a result I can swim like a dolphin.
I have noticed that when I exhale underwater I am engaging my vocal cords and making this retard-screaming sound during my stroke. It's like that sound that a little kid makes when they have been crying for a while but have kind of forgotten exactly what they are crying about.

UUUUUUUUUUUUhhhh! Gulp air. UUUUUUUUUUUUUhhh!

I wonder if the other swimmers can hear me. In the lane next to me is a fat old guy with a moustache that makes him look a lot like a walrus. On the other side is a lean, very tan, man who looks about five years older than me, and he swims very fast. I want him to think I'm cool, because in my head he knows people that I need to meet. He swims like successful people do and I want to be successful like him.

UUUUUUUUUUUUhhhh! Gulp. (pay attention to proper form) UUUUUUUUUUHHhhnnhh!

My wife and I took a master swim class together last summer. She told me she could hear my retard-screaming while sharing a lane. People the next lane over can probably hear it, too. I am sure walrus-man and successful-tan-fast-swimmer-guy have heard my labored breathing and have alerted the life guards to my distress. I'm pretty sure the old ladies in the water-robics class at the other end of the pool can hear me, too. It's only a matter of time before some fourteen-year-old lifeguard tries to drag me out of the pool with one of those hook things they keep on the side.

I realize at some point that I will not drown if I don't scream underwater, so I try it. I hear bubbles. Just bubbles until I get near the end of my breath out. Then I hear a whale sound. Almost like the sound a dog makes when he's scolded. A whistle.

The only explanation for this wale whistle is that somewhere in my family tree, way back in time, off the coast of Scandinavia, a mother whale gave birth to a human-whale abomination. Which would explain why when I was a young man, a woman once looked into my eyes and told me I was most likely the Antichrist. Or maybe she was a nutcase. Whatever.

I continue by new breathing for a while until I see that my pool neighbors have left. Now that they are gone I will scream underwater in peace.

As I finish my laps, I start to think about how if I was shipwrecked would sharks be attracted to or scared of my screaming. I have read that human swimming looks like the way an injured sea creature swims, that's why sharks attack.
So I wonder to myself do I want to sound like a whale or do I want to sound vicious. Should I try to growl?

You can bet your ass the next time I meet a marine biologist I will be asking nothing but hard-hitting questions like those. Nothing but the truth.

Have a great summer.

Awesome grocery store finds

Here is some cool stuff you can find at the grocery store and how to use it.

Buchi brand kombucha  (Fire flavor)- find it in the cold case at Whole Foods. Brewed with ginger and cayenne it is the most delicious kombucha I have tasted yet. Apparently two hippie ladies is Ashville, NC make it and in my opinion have mastered the craft. There is another flavor, Limited Edition or something like that, but it tastes a litle venegar-y. Stick to the spicy flavors, granola faces!
You can use kombucha as a tasty beverage. In fact, if you use it in some other way, you might not want to tell anyone about that. A few weeks ago a man started talking to me about having a coffee enema. It was weird. I kept trying to change the subject, but it was like a train wreck and there was nothing I could do.
Some people say it (kombucha, not the coffee enema) has a weight loss benefit when consumed before or during a meal. The main reason to use it is to restore balance to the digestive system, the same way you might use yogurt.

Anywhoo, here's some other stuff that is perhaps a bit underrated:

Kale
Sweet potatoes
Apples
Clementines
Tomato
Shiitake mushrooms
Goat cheese
Kefir
Coconut oil - I just found out about a coconut oil spray but have not used it.
Grapes
Blueberries
Peaches

I realize this looks like a grocery list because that's kind of what it is. Put some of these items on yours.