...just to keep your mind right...

I once met a marine working out at my YMCA back home. This guy was a real roughneck, he probably liked to have a beer with his beer for breakfast by the looks of him. However, his strength was surprisingly very good, I sometimes attribute that partly to the mental strength he gained form being in the service. This guy had been in Iraq and ...yes... seen men under his command die, and needless to ask out of common decency, I assume he killed a few of the enemy as well. All this to say he knew the definition of stress and as we got to talking, he told me how when he was in Iraq, no matter how many hours of sleep he got, be it 3, be it 8, he and his crew worked out. This is interesting because in today's society so many people blame "fatigue" on why they never exercise with excuses such as "its been a long day at work *sitting at a desk*" or "I just want some time to myself". So why would this guy on 3 hours of sleep while carrying stress that most of the population can not relate too still go and workout? One quote he said sticks out to me that says it all, "When your in the military, you workout just to keep your mind right, because when you have men your responsible for that are dying, it can get to you." Or something along those lines. That really hit home to me, I came to realize that lifting weights no longer had to be just a physical therapy for me, but an emotional therapy as well. Something about the iron is always right, constant, you get what you put into it and there's no worry, no unknown factor "X" to be concerned about. So in a way, in a world that is unstable, especially in a war zone such as Iraq, weightlifting can be a sort of relief from the world , if only for a moment , into another world where Hardwork + Nutrition = Results ....PERIOD

Until next time