There is a book I have been reading called Born To Run.

It was penned by Christopher McDougall, and is a fantastic book.

The trouble for me though is not with the way the book was written but with what it covers.

The book is about the Tarahumara Indians that live it the Copper Canyons in Mexico.

The run tons of miles and never get hurt and the trouble with all of this is this.

We try to take what they do and copy it.

But there is a big problem with this approach.

The Tarahumara grow up in the Canyons, that is where they live, and run over those Canyons their whole lives.

The way they run, what they do, and how they live, is not some kind of fad.

It is their life.

There is a saying; the body becomes its function.

And to me, this is what happens with them.

They grow up there and their bodies adjust, and get used to living there.

But as I said above, we come along and try and copy the way they run and all that, but you just cannot try and do stuff like that.

O.K.

I know what people will say, well, you do not have to go crazy with it, but you can try and integrate some of their stuff into your current running program.

Sure, and I totally agree with this approach.

But who has the patience for this.

I know I don’t.

I would plunge right in and pay the price for it.

Rant Over.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

DON’T STOP

Don’t worry I am not going to get all mushy on you.

The love I am referring to is your love for your chosen sport and how this can positively affect it.

I’ve been reading a book called Born To Run by Christopher McDougall.

As an aside; it is a fantastic book, so if you get chance to read it, I would recommend it.

Also, I will be reviewing it in an upcoming blog post.

But, my point is, that the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s Copper Canyons, never lost their love of running.

In the book Mr. McDougall also talks about the American runners of the seventies like, Frank Shorter.

These guys had the kind of camaraderie that the Tarahumara Indians still have to this day.

They didn’t know that they were overtraining or that they shouldn’t be doing what they were doing training wise.

What they KNEW however, was that they loved running and that was that.

The same can be said of Michael Jordan and Larry Bird, both of these guys loved basketball so much that they probably would have played it for free.

Funny thing, when you love something you never seem to get tired, you can play all day and still want to keep going.

SOME POINTS

You might be asking,

So how does this relate to bodybuilding?

Well,

How many of us, when we got started in bodybuilding, couldn’t get enough of it.

We would train for hours, six days per week.

And still want more.

And it is this exact love that can lead to tremendous gains.

So if you feel yourself losing that fire, that deep down desire to train, do whatever-it-takes to get that spark back again.

Switch gyms.

Or better yet, go back to the place where it all started, your basement, and lift the way you did when you didn’t know how to lift.

A barbell, maybe some dumbbells and a whole mess of plates and some loud rock music (if that is your thing) and just go at it.

You don’t want to get too crazy of course, and to be honest, I am not talking about training with the reckless abandon we all did when we were teenagers.

What I am talking about is trying to re-capture some of the love of just lifting for-the-sake-of-lifting that we used to have.

CONCLUSION

Sometimes I think that with all of our advancements we have forgotten how to live.

How to just be and be happy.

So the next time you are just dreading going to the gym, break with tradition and go back to the beginning.

Who knows, you may reclaim some of your lost childlike enthusiasm for lifting, and some of your teenage like gains as well.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

KEEP WORKING