Busting My Ass In The Gym To Get Critics On The Baseball Field To Shut Up - Success Is My Only Option

I don't do freewrites, but today's an exception.

This is about why I'm hitting the gym with a vengeance.

Yes, Michael Jordan played basketball, and this post is about baseball. Many people don't know that he also played minor league baseball.

A baseball teammate called me out for losing my range in the infield last year.

I hit another in the hip with a fastball during batting practice and he said he didn't feel it.

For anyone who doesn't play competitive sports, this is like calling your wife fat when she asks if she gained weight.

Truth be told, over a decade of catching double headers all Spring and Summer (with some Falls) has taken a toll on my speed by wearing my knees down. I'm no longer the deer I used to be. I'm much slower now and it's infuriating to think about how I let it happen. I also partially tore my rotator cuff and UCL at two different points, so pitching velocity loss is understandable, but unacceptable. Regardless, I should've worked harder to counter the wear and tear.

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Problems identified, time to fix them and exceed expectations.

After 714 days of paying for a gym membership 3 blocks away, but not going once, it's game time. The war has just begun.

It's not a New Year's Resolution that'll fade. The fire is burning and will not be put out.

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My Mom is finally healthy after her accident so I can focus on myself. The left shoulder/biceps tendon I hurt badly by swinging my damn SteemFest suitcase is tolerable enough to work through now. It's no coincidence that my home business skyrocketed last month when I turned my focus back on myself for the first time in 3+ years (after my Dad's prior brain cancer battle). My shoulder will take 3-4 more months, but I've rehabbed it enough to the point I can push though it and avoid most of the popping.

In the past, I worked out in my apartment with moderate results. I ran a daily fitness challenge on Steemit for 158 days and did well, but I didn't go hard. I was incredibly out of shape when that started. It was cringeworthy for me from where I'd been before, but a good start.

I usually did the bare minimum of ~100 reps per day to check the box because I took no days off and was often sore. I had good results, but they were nowhere where they could've been if I really pushed myself. I should've been doing 500+ reps with ease but I got complacent. I was training in a lazy way because my standards were low. I gained power and bulk, but not speed and lower body fat. I forgot what it was like to really push myself.

Forget that weak introverted phase...

What I forgot about the gym, is that my fierce competitive nature erupts when I'm around other people doing the same stuff. I want to be the best, in the best shape, and the most determined to push through hard reps. That's my standard when I see clearly again.

Seeing some of these people in their trendy metro workout clothes acting like they're Arnold pisses me off. They make me want to run laps around them as they scroll through Instagram or swipe between slow sets, and that's exactly what I'm on track to do.

Working out at home was comfortable and at my own pace. The gym's environment has me fired up far more than I can get myself at home, so it's better for me now. Prior pet peeves about the lame music or girls in skimpy fitness clothes filming themselves for their blogs (and not cleaning up their weights) are irrelevant now. Hearing girls having phone calls on the stairclimbers while I'm trying to burn out my traps makes me want to finish them faster to move far the heck away from them.

Examples:

After my Steemit fitness challenge last year, I came into the baseball season 15+ pounds heavier with the home run power that used to be natural. I started off the year hitting .680 in the first 8 games and was demolishing the baseball. I was hitting the ball hard and far with great bat speed and control. Then my Mom's accident in May changed everything and I didn't touch a weight until September. I have to make up for this lost time and the lost gains, plus some.

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Today, Actions Speak Louder.

In the first 10 days of January, I've been to the gym 8 times and did one workout at home. That's 9/10 days of hard work. I plan on going 6 days a week for a while, then down to 5. Anything less is slacking when I have my season starting in late March and a chip on my shoulder.

When I go to the gym, it's not to coast or check people out. It's to grow stronger, faster, healthier, and better. It's to respect my body and take care of it. It's to sweat and see daily progress that keeps me moving forward.

I've been taking pictures just about every day in the same spot/pose and see noticeable changes already. I'm excited to see what happens over the next week. My shirts are fitting better. Walking up my the flights of my building are a breeze now. It doesn't take much when I push hard, I just need to have the switch flipped. Think Sylvester Stallone's hat being turned backwards in "Over The Top" - a great movie!!

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When I get into this zone, which I've been in before many times in the past, nothing can stop me that's in my control. I eat beyond properly, sleep better, and carry myself much better. The only sugar I have is in the form of raw honey. My body adapts quickly because of muscle memory from my days when I'd be in the gym 5 days a week for 2 hours each clip. It rewards me for taking care of it how I used to. I don't want anything unhealthy to eat. I don't have a sweet tooth, but have even less of one now. Extra calories are easy to turn away. My priorities are in order.

Fun facts: aside from some mixed drinks of alcohol that are hard to avoid, I haven't had any other soda in 5 years. I've also never had any coffee in my life outside of an accidental sip when they messed up my hot chocolate order years ago.

The point is that all of my drive comes from within. No energy drinks, caffeine, pre-workouts, supplements, or shortcuts. Aside from protein (which I'm not supplementing now), everything is done naturally because that's how I want it to be. I don't want any assistance. When I succeed, I want to know it was entirely from my heart and willpower. This is the same force that drives me with my home business, besides needing to prove my Dad wrong for doubting me.

So far, I've lost 3.5-4 pounds. I'm not trying to lose weight, but need to trim down on body fat to not be too heavy with the new muscle I'll put on. Standard stuff. It's not a hard process when I'm in this zone.

I'm doing a lot of baseball exercises, and a ton of shoulder/rotator cuff work. I want to be the elite pitcher I can be in my league (yes, as a knuckleballer). I want to hit more home runs. I want to throw faster and farther from the start of the season, versus getting there two months in. I want to steal bases again. Most importantly, I want those teammates who said something about my range or speed to royally eat their words.

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An unexpected way SteemFest influences me during this:

From a talk with @flauwy about the magic of numbers, every set I do is of either 11, 22, 33 reps/seconds. If I do a timed rope pull or speed bag session, it's 1:11, 2:22 or 3:33, etc.. I'm sticking to this because it's forced me to commit to more work than I'd normally do. These small goals have driven me to do far more reps or time than I normally would have done, and I think this is why results are taking shape so quickly. In 1-2 months, I want people's jaws to drop. Not pushing myself at every chance feels like a wasted opportunity to excel and succeed.

A Leap Of Faith:

I was doing box jumps for a few days on this blue box and doing well. Jumping isn't a strength of mine, but I'd like to change that. I'd hold weights in my hands with straight arms to make sure I wasn't rocking to cheat. After a while, I decided to try to jump on the red one to see if I could do it (no weights). No one was around. Maybe I'd fall. I'll try it though, just once...

Well, it was pretty easy and I couldn't believe it. I then did 10 more and wasn't done. I added the gray box on top to try to do just one, and did it! Then I did 10 more... It was a very simple yet powerful/lesson moment for me.

...I didn't know I could until I tried. Now I'm confident I can nail them and aim higher.

I was initially sure my toes were going to clip the top and I'd fall (they did on some last reps on the blue one already), but I visualized success and just jumped. A leap of faith.

Plenty of reps and sets later, I'm on a new level. I think these will help me so much with my range and speed on the baseball field and am excited.

UPDATE: I did 22 jumps after adding another 3" pad to the stack on the right today!!

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Being a drummer and pretty good at the speed bag (even after 2 years away), I make it look like a blur with ease with one simple thought: shoulder strength for pitching. I now wear bandaids on the knuckles that are raw so I have no excuses. I will be the best I can be and shut my teammates up. I'll be the team MVP again and an All-Star, but at a higher level than I am naturally, or from falling back on previous training that wasn't that intense.

I'm going to continue this pace up until baseball season.

Maybe I'll post some pictures of the progress, maybe I won't.

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For anyone who needs some motivation to take care of their bodies, I hope this was inspiring or helpful in some way. If not, thanks for taking the time to read any or all of this.

@steemmatt