What, me worry?

How's everybody out there in the mad, mad world? Just the other day I was crossing a busy Milwaukee intersection minding my own business when I caught a sudden glimpse of myself in a storefront window. Urp! The reflection of the sun blazing off my shiny and ever-increasing forehead blinded me for a second and I stumbled into the curb losing my balance. In trying to regain my stride I took four or five giant, ungainly steps forward and came up just short of the same window that caused the fiery reflection in the first place. I stood there for a red-faced moment in nose-to-nose self-confrontation (my mirror image and me almost getting into a brawl), set my jaw and tried to look cool -- who cares? I turned on my heel and went on my way, strutting like a bad bodybuilder with spread lats and slightly flexed tris -- the insecure 16-year-old deep within followed me to the Central States. I think I need a shrink, or maybe a good workout complete with endorphins... a dog... some chocolate, perhaps.

THE QUINTESENTIAL QUESTION

The question on the minds, if not on the lips, of most everyone with whom I speak is an indissoluble concoction of six. They ask, "How do I get in shape?" and they mean, "How do I lose bodyfat, gain muscle shape, size and strength the easiest and fastest way." The question comes from everyone, is approached in various ways, takes on an assortment of forms, but is finally the same.

The answer is, also, a concoction, and, finally, the same: Exercise, or more appropriately, train hard, eat right and be happy. The latter-most precept of the one-line summation has to do with attitude, which has to do with commitment, which has to do with discipline, which has to do with perseverance, which has to do with courage -- all of which have to do with success. Hardly an admonition, "Be happy" is the state of mind I encourage which, more than training facts and nutrition data, determines fitness and health and longevity.

Knowing exactly what to do and how to do it... and not doing it leads nowhere. Knowing what and how, and performing it unhappily -- begrudgingly -- is troublesome. Knowing a little and doing it with joy and regularity is enlightening and sure.

The theme of my conversation with the folks generous enough to visit me at the bookstores is, 1) the basics in training and eating boldly lead the way, and 2) the application is not cold labor and sacrifice, but an affectionate and uplifting way of life.

Free yourself from the negative conditioning ignorantly dumped on us by a lazy and debauched society looking for the easy way to gold and external beauty. Don't be emasculated by the TV, mankind's favorite pastime, and its commercial lies and cunning; don't be fattened for the slaughter at the corner fast-food depot where loads of sugar and lard are wholesaled -- from gleaming counter to mouth to ever-growing layers of fat across... by this time the small crowd has thinned to a few diehards with wrinkled up faces, while the bookseller is on her toes in the rear isle waving her arms like a coach in a frantic little league game calling a foul.

I exaggerate. I'm conservative and smoothly slip in a needed abrasion or two when they're not really listening, yet their unconscious minds are supple. Sneak attacks. Gratefully, no one has asked me a difficult question requiring book-learned knowledge: What's the relationship between the release of adrenalin and the onset of cortisol production in the trainee whose bodyfat is lower than eight percent; is it different in men and women and how would you control it; is it true if you isolate the omega 9s and omega 6s and blend them with HMB, creatine, vanadyl sulphate and l-isoleucine, you will mimic the activity of DHEA in pigs?

A lot of the audience interest surrounds the age 40 and over: What happens; what can one expect to happen on down the line and how does one prevent it? Actually, the subject is always uplifting and the fears are allayed as we talk about the bounteous years ahead. Consequences if we don't exercise, eat well and smile and benefits if we do are the motivators for all of us.

On that single note I will ready myself for the gym and my last workout before tomorrow's departure for the East Coast, my former stomping grounds, where I will proceed to get lost, found and lost again... as predictable as the heat and humidity.

NOT SO FAST, BOMBERS

He's back again.

Just did squats like a good muscle builder should, mixing high reps with some heavy sets to move the blood, feel the iron, suck up the oxygen, excite the heart and lungs, burn some fat, expand the tissues, stir the entire system and stimulate the release of GH (growth hormone). I feel swell.

I'm going... I'm going... I'm gone... DD

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