Friday, May 11, 2012
I've been having some not so pleasant interactions with a family member lately.
My family member is new to fitness and is in a program that includes a dietician and a gym trainer.
My family member says that the dietician stated that women after menopause can NOT build muscle. That is just patently untrue. There are so many scientific studies showing that seniors CAN develop muscle. Can, and should.
Somehow my family member has also gotten the idea that lifting weights destroys muscle. READ THAT AGAIN!
What?
That lifting weights destroys muscle, but using stretchy bands and bodyweight exercise builds muscle.
That makes no sense. Your body cannot tell if you're lifing a handweight or a band or doing a pushup.
In fact, a pushup is going to be MORE weight than a usual handweight that someone new to fitness would use, because when you do a pushup, you are lifting 65% of your bodyweight.
I try to ignore all these statements but it is difficult.
Then, this past week, a friend asked on Facebook what people thought about P90X. I have two middle aged women friends, late 40s...probably 48 years old, staring down the barrel of 50 who are doing P90X and ROCKING it. I mean KILLING it! They have totally transformed themselves.
So I asked them to share their experience with P90X with my friend who is curious.
My relative joined the conversation and said her trainer (who no doubt is some young guy, and I've probably been exercising for half his life on this planet), her trainer says that P90X is "hard" and that guys he knows can't do it all and they pick and choose the exercises they want to do rather than doing the program as it is.
??? If I just did the exercises I "want" to do, that are easy for me, I would not have worked hard on burpees and now be able to them. I love burpees now! I can kill me some burpees! Im also 3/4 of the way down now in full man pushups, any day now I'll be rocking the full pushup. YES it is hard. SO WHAT?
I just do not see the point, when someone is asking about an exercise program, to talk them out of it. Especially when it is someone you don't know, you don't know what their determination level is and what they can achieve.
I will never forget when I was in marathon training and this guy I know looked at me extremely dubiously and said this: "Do you really think you can do that?" Well YES I DO and I now have the medal to prove it.
My relative commented for 2 days about how hard P90X is, for young guys. Meanwhile my almost 50 year old women friends are doing it every day and doing their pullups like someone spring loaded.
Finally I said that I think the trainer and his guy friends are wimping out on their fitness if they only do things that are easy and skip anything that is hard.
Well, THAT did not go over well. Now I'm "mean" and "name calling".
I really do not understand why people limit themselves. We can do so much more than we give ourselves credit for, especially in the fitness arena.
Do you tell yourself, "I can't do that" or do you tell yourself "I'm going to work towards doing that"? And if you do want to tell yourself you can't, all well and good. But why tell someone ELSE something is too hard for them?
You know what my next exercise program is going to be after I finish Turbo Fire, don't you? Oh yeah baby, P90X2. Bwahaha! Whatever motivation you can get, USE IT. Use it for your own aims.
BRING IT! Check out this P90X2 trailer:
youtu.be/OTOu7AwlNC8
Member Comments About This Blog Post:
& you are gonna kick booty!
