Turn around...Sometimes it is useful

Most of the time I try not to look back too much.
Simply because my challenges are right here, now, the present time of my life.
Sometimes I indulge myself in looking forward, into the future, dreaming what may come.

In the past I was looking back a lot, the things I had done, some of them seemed to haunt me.
So nowadays I learn my lessons and let the past be.


About 40 minutes ago my computer crashed...Since I wanted to continue watching "The Jackal" I rebooted it.
It took some time and I somehow decided to pick up my current training-log which goes back to the 27th of October 2009.

I browsed through the pages, reviewed the workouts, the weeks and months going by...


If someone would be coming to me, showing me such a detailed log, all the notes of where the pain begun and where it spread to...How personal records where broken on a regular basis (sometimes 2 times a week) and at the same time how joints first got sore, then painful, then almost not moveable...
How the weights went up effortlessly, how numbers became bigger(be it the time worked or the weights lifted), how sleep spread thinner and the mood hit rock bottom.
How the spirit soared during the workouts, how it crashed when pain visited the following day...

I´d tell that person he/she is in way over her/his head. I´d tell that person it is time to slow down. Time to take a week off, no training at all, re- evaluate her/his personal goals again and be honest about her/his true capacity.


As a child I was quite fat.
So i got no good base considering my joints, tendons, ligaments, muscles...
One thing I have always been: stubborn.

Thank god one day my stubbornness turned against my lazy life, my eating habits, my movement patterns, my weaknesses.
I started to get back in shape, although I have never been there...

The problem was the real training, away from all the bullshit machines in the commercial gyms, away from all the people who use the narcissistic upper- and lower body split:
-day 1: train all the muscles you can see in the mirror above your belly
-day 2: train all the muscles you can see in the mirror beneath your belly.

When I started improving my physique, I unknowingly started to improve my mind as well.
I became stronger, faster, more competitive, mentally tougher.

I suffered through my workouts and reaped rewards. Some of the guys like Dominik Feischl (), who know me since I first touched a kettlebell and when I still struggled with 2 pullups, know how much stronger I became.

Still, I know now I was in way over my head.
I reaped rewards, simply because my body had to adapt in order to survive in some way.

I was stubborn enough to go on and on and on, push harder, farther and higher, but I was too dumb to realize my will, the pure power of mind could only outrun some aspects of biochemistry, some aspects of life.
Regeneration was not one of them.

When I start something I want everything at once. It took me years and lots of set- backs to develop ways to control myself in this matter.


Another thing it took was the words of Steve Maxwell.
When we were sitting at the end of the workshop in July, Steve talked to us about regeneration.

When a Coach with an experience of over 30 years is telling you, you are working too much, one is starting to think.
I even took one whole week off after the workshop.
Several months ago I would have went to the workshop, had come back with a minor injury, taped it and got back under the weights.


This time the advice stuck with me.
I shifted 2 gears back since then.
Do not get me worng, my workouts are still hard as hell, that´s a given. YOu need hard work to get results.
But the time between workouts is more and spent more relaxed. The food got more. Sleep got more.

And know what?
I´m happy.

Enough said?


I lost nothing of my strength, conditioning, I gained zero fat and gained about 3kg of muscle since July.
My sleep is great, I actually like waking up some days now and go to work. ;-)


Sometimes it is a good thing to turn around and look at your footsteps in the snow. Because when we do we can stop running in circles and continue on our way ... to the next circle.


Train hard and enjoy life!
All the best,
Harry