The Best Part About Being Wrong

This is a guest post by Sara Lassig.

I am a hardworking, passionate, dedicated individual who attempts to give 110% in all realms of my life; from my jobs, my relationships, my family, and my athletic and training endeavors. I work hard and I expect results. I can be stubborn, and assume that the way I had been doing things was the “best” way or getting the best results. Yet, I’m also an individual that thrives on learning new ideas, perspectives, and skills. While most of us don’t like to indulge in the use of the phrase, “I was wrong,” today, I am elated to report that indeed, I WAS WRONG.

Sara in November 2010

With a long history of athletic involvement, from 18 years of gymnastics, track and field, volleyball, and softball, I had dabbled in lifting weights from the age of 17. However, it wasn’t until I was 22 that I really started lifting weights more consistently and began to love the changes I could see in my body. Adding strength training to my activities made me stronger both physically and mentally. Two and a half years ago I decided to enter my first figure competition. Since that time, I regularly lifted weights 5-6 days a week, along with a couple cardio sessions. My lifting schedule was organized into days consisting of “back, arms, legs, chest,” etc. In prepping for a figure show, I would spend no less than 1.5 hours lifting weights and 1 hour doing cardio during the last weeks of training. I had decent results – I looked pretty fit, and did well in the sport of figure and fitness (sub classes of bodybuilding). However, I paid a price. My body hurt most days; I had many muscle strains and pulls along the way, and a shoulder labrum tear.

While in the gym, and surrounded by weightlifters, trainers, and other competitive bodybuilders, I encountered countless training “tips” being offered to myself and others, and witnessed ridiculous acts of foolish, dangerous training. One of the most interesting phenomena’s was the act of lifting a body part “so heavy” that a person said they “couldn’t walk for days” or “was throwing up during the workout.” I also found humor in the many acts of individuals lifting “new personal records,” and “huge lifts.” Often times, these PR’s consisted of a 6 inch bench press, a squat that went down 1 foot, or a deadlift that looked like the individual might throw his/her back out at any moment.
While I wasn’t into these sorts of antics in the weight room, I certainly was guilty of lifting heavy weights, slow, to “build muscle.” Over the years of doing this, my body transitioned from that of an athlete to that of a weight lifter. I lost flexibility, I added joint pain, my natural body posturing and movement declined, and worst of all – I hadn’t even paid attention to these signs. Indeed, I was “strong,” but at what cost? And, what was it doing to my body?

In November of 2010, I was just coming off a series of figure shows, was having a horrible time with post competition weight gain (from yo-yo dieting “on” and “off” seasons of competing). I walked into The Movement Minneapolis at 166 pounds and 22.5% bf.

I spent several sessions training with Dave and Adam, and being re-taught how to work with my body, versus hurting my body. Among other things, I learned:

• To see how my body is reacting to what I am doing — to test the movements I am performing before continuing on blindly. For example, previously, I would lie on the bench, knowing I was going to do “3 sets of 12″ at 130 pounds. I learned to perform a movement, test that movement, and then decide what movement comes next. This makes sense. If you had a medication and you were supposed to take 4 pills for 12 days, but you were getting worse on day 3, you wouldn’t just keep taking the same prescribed medication at the same prescribed dosage without questioning the effects on your body. Why do this with training?

• To get rid of the “body part” training day schedule – just because it’s Tuesday, doesn’t mean it’s a good day to “lift shoulders.” I learned to train MY BODY each time I was in the gym, doing the movements that test well on that day. I learned that it wasn’t either impressive or “strong” to “push through” pain and poor performance just to accomplish a preconceived plan for what I was going to lift that day. At work, most of us cannot plan what will happen each day – things come up, things change. So do our bodies – we don’t know on a Sunday what movements our body could perform on the following Friday.

• That I could work for half the time and get twice the results. Training in a fashion where I performed quicker, more functional body movements raised my heart rate and accomplished both “lifting” and “cardio,” instead of spending countless hours on a treadmill or elliptical machine.

• To incorporate kettle bells, ropes, boxes, and more into my workouts. I began to perform movements that allowed my body to perform functional, versus, awkward and debilitating motions. I taught the countless movements that can be performed with kettle bells and incorporated these into my daily workouts.

Because I was working 75 hours a week and didn’t live near The Movement Minneapolis, I wasn’t often able to train on location. I took what I learned from Dave and Adam and brought it with me to where I trained at Lifetime Fitness. I cannot tell you how many times I got stares, questionable looks, and words of advice from people in the gym as changed the way I worked out. They told me I would lose muscle and strength by using kettle bells for many of my movements, often performing high rep timed sets. They told me I wouldn’t get stronger if I didn’t “push through” and continue workouts that made me physically ill or unable to walk right for days. They told me I needed to make sure to “get all the body parts in each week.” They asked me if I wanted to lift with them “next Wednesday for legs.” Most of the time, I just smiled, and said I was happy with what I was doing and wasn’t looking for feedback. Sometimes, when I felt a bit sassier, I’d ask them how much their bench press or dead lift had improved in the last few months.

Today, 6 months later, I weigh 143 pounds at 13% BF. I was a size 10 the day I walked into the Movement Minneapolis. Today I am comfortably wearing a size 5. My bench press 1 rep PR has improved from 135 to 160 and I set the state record for my weight class in March at my first Powerlifting meet. I had never deadlifted more than 135 pounds 6 months ago. I can easily and quickly rep out sets at 195 and set a state deadlifting record at the same March meet, for pulling 293 pounds. My PR for squatting, prior to November 2010 was 145. Today I perform reps at 185 without pain, and have a single rep PR of 225. I went from being able to do 1 unassisted pull-up in November to 5 today. As far as I can tell, contrary to the warnings I received, my strength has not decreased with my new style of training. In fact, it has increased dramatically. Most importantly, not once have I gotten hurt training this way, nor have I had a situation where I was in pain for days after a workout.

Sara, June 4 2011

So, yes, I admit it – I was training WRONG for years. I like things that make sense to me. This training and the accompanying results make sense to me. What doesn’t make sense to me is the idea that we have to cause our body so much pain in order to get results. In my professional life, I work with families who are dealing with death and loss. I would never tell one of these individuals that the more they hurt the better off they will be later. I would never encourage them to push themselves to do stressful things to their bodies when they are grieving to “make them stronger.” I encourage them to grieve on their own timeline, without setting preconceived timelines or plans of how they should feel or white they should do. Pushing ones self to and through pain does not equal coming out better or stronger on the other side. Why would we do that to our bodies if better results can be obtained in more functional and less damaging ways?

If you bought a new car and it looked great, but it barely ran, my guess is you wouldn’t consider that a good buy. Six months ago, to the average person, I might have looked like I was “in good shape.” I wasn’t – I wasn’t practicing good training. Today, I feel much better about how I look, but more importantly, my body feels better and I have reached goals that I wouldn’t even have thought to set a year ago.

This training works, and I am so grateful for that day last November when I decided to pop in and check out The Movement Minneapolis. The things that I learned from Dave and Adam changed the way I workout, the way I spend my time, and the way I look and feel. Now I know that I am training the RIGHT way for me.

You would be hard pressed to find someone who works harder and gives more of her self than Sara.  Sara has a PhD in Pyschology and works full time at the Veteran’s Administration with grieving vets and families.  She also is a professor at the University of Minnesota and makes time to volunteer.  Despite a workload that few people could handle, she finds the time to train for figure shows and powerlifting meets.  Sara took 2nd in Figure E at the NPC Minnesota State on June 4th.  -ddn