Why 4am: by Leif Nilsen
Welcome to our weekly guest blog! Each Sunday I will be featuring an article written by one of my closely respected colleagues. There is so much to learn, do and say when it comes to fitness & life I couldn’t possibly come close to covering it all. Now you’ll be able to learn a wide variety of information; and meet knew trainers to learn from as well. Enjoy!
A year and a half ago I made the decision to step up and out of my comfort zone and start going to Old School Gym instead of my YMCA and college gym I had trained from the previous 5 years. This pushed me on several different levels:
Switching my morning alarms from 4am to 3am to workout with the 4am crew
With waking up earlier came going to sleep earlier, forcing me to make decisions about what is important to my evening life: family, girlfriend, work, and much less tv just because I was “bored”
Driving 20 extra minutes round trip every morning, a monetary investment in the gas that it takes 5-6x a week
Training with 20ish other people after being a lone wolf in the gym the majority of the last 5 years, and a natural introvert
Why would I change so many things in my life just because of a gym?
The people and environment. Those 20 other people pushing each other every day to get better. Not playing a high school sport, I never lifted with my teammates or anything like that, so getting that feeling for the first time with like minded people was awesome. And listening to waka flocks flame or heavy metal over a loud speaker instead of having to mess with my tangled headphone cords was a great change
The equipment at the gym. Hard for some people to understand because Old School is literally Old School with some of their equipment but for my strength building training style the different barbells, weird machines not in commercial gyms, etc makes a huge difference
My main exercise mentor Cory Gregory. I had followed Cory’s workouts since my freahman year is college and saw some of his stuff back in high school with his supplement company MusclePharm. He’s the crazy guy that got my to do heavy barbells squats every day for 2 years and got my squat from 250 to 365 and I was sold from there. (I plan on making an article on mentors in the near future, stay tuned for more about Cory)
Continue to start my day off the right way. To be able to do something I love like working out for 2 hours, get home and shower, have plenty of time to eat, and be ready for 8am class during school was great. And now to train for two hours, and then personal train one or two people before 8, it starts every day off the right way for me.
4am is an extreme time to do anything but sleep, especially to be at the gym and training hard by 4am, but for me that’s a switch, and an investment in myself, that I had to made to progress in that area of my life. What is that big, or smaller, intentional move in your life that will change it for the better? This can either be in your family life, work life, and especially your fitness life, make that move to put yourself on the path to self improvement in your life!
Article by: Leif Nilsen
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