If I handed you a check right now for $1 million, would you suddenly consider yourself successful?
I would say no, and I think most people would agree. You would be suddenly very wealthy, sure, but being given a check with a big number on it doesn’t make you successful. As a society, we outwardly admire things like hard work, dedication, and drive. Everyone loves a good rags-to-riches story, and we feel a healthy dose of pride when we hear stories of someone else's squandered wealth and wasted inheritance, and reflect on our own honest work. We respect those who have earned their success, and tend to dismiss those who were handed their fortunes (see, derogatory term: “trust fund baby”).

Yet, despite all of this posturing about how important it is to hustle hard and earn the life you live, many of us approach fitness looking to be handed our million-dollar check. People hunt far and wide for the “easy way.” We want our fitness, but we want to steer clear of suffering, struggle, and discomfort to get it.
You want me to sweat and breathe hard? Icky. I’ll take that check instead.

The funny thing is, in a way, many of us are handed a million-dollar check of health and fitness. Youthful energy and health are handed to the majority of the population from day one; but, like monetary inheritance, it doesn't take long for so many of us to neglect and squander it. (And unsurprisingly, it is often those who were not handed youthful energy and health from day one ⏤ those who faced early-life adversity to their health ⏤ that you find earning it every day.) You can blame it on whatever you want ⏤ video games, junk food, convenience society, it doesn’t matter. At some point, most people have a moment of realization in which they see that their fortune ⏤ their health and vigor ⏤ has “suddenly” disappeared. They look and feel unwell, weak, tired. You would think that this would lead most people to a place of understanding that they must earn it back: that they spent the last 30 years “spending” their health and fitness, and that now they must work hard to even get themselves back to where they started. Some do reach this understanding, but most do not.

Fitness, in my view, is something that is earned. It is earned through suffering and struggle and discomfort. It is a physiological truth that fitness comes from discomfort. Fitness is achieved through adaptation to stress. We stress our bodies, go beyond what we are comfortable with, and we push capacities, and the adaptation to this discomfort (stress) is what leads to increased fitness. In other words, there is no easy way. There is no million dollar fitness check.

Regardless of what fortune you are given (fitness, monetary, or otherwise), the fortune that you earn is the one that truly belongs to you.

- Preston Sprimont

11/17/16

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  Sandbag squat - 3x60s max reps (¾ / ⅔ bw) (rest 3 min between each set)

  
  

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  3x for reps

  
  




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  30s max log clean and press (150/100)

  
  


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  30s max burpees

  
  


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  Rest 4 mins