A Workout To Frighten The Beach-Goers

Appeared July 21, 2006

God bless you all.

One of the things often lamented about the hard core lifting community is that it is “frightening” to the average fitness person or lay person. Lots of talk about how to make sports like Strongman and Powerlifting more acceptable to the general public by making them less intimidating. Or make the participants more mainstream looking. Yet also within this exists an odd dichotomy. To get more publicity the events need to be as freakishly heavy and bizarre as possible, but to get more “acceptance,” the athletes need to look less large and intimidating.

All hogwash!

I believe that we as strength athletes need to make a move for our own independence. To do what we want to do and be how we want to be regardless of sport or the mainstream. I never want to intentionally intimidate anyone who is in a gym environment or seeking fitness for strength or whatever, however I refuse to water-down the manliness of the challenges I put before myself to make it more acceptable to anyone’s idea of what is mainstream. The mainstream should be looking to man-up and get strong and in shape and not be so easily intimidated by any minor expression of physical intensity or passion.

You don’t get to be exceptional by caving to mass opinion. If you’re not finding your own expression of strength, health and fitness regardless of what anyone else thinks you ought to look or act like then you’re not being true to yourself. In fact I’m a little glad that the average fitness person is intimidated by a hard workout. Not the idiocy that steroids has brought or lame histrionics or people who are intentionally, personally intimidating to other people in a gym setting. I’m talking about effort that bleeds though your skin. Weights that bend bars, objects that people don’t think can be lifted and feats that people don’t think are possible.

I want to do the thing that requires the effort that separates me from the mass of the fitness world. If you refuse to be separated then you choose to have their results, which is mostly pathetic and for show. Higher results require higher effort and that is what separates us from them. Not some imaginary disquieting presence that they choose to assume.

Intimidation for intimidation’s sake is idiocy. Just like being intimidated by someone’s effort in the gym is idiocy. Most people don’t ever see themselves as having the ability to produce that kind of strength and they realize what a person who can produce that kind of effort is capable of. That’s why they’re intimidated. However most of the truly tough people I’ve ever met are also quite nice and are generally the exact opposite of the assumption of the mainstream. In fact they are an asset to the world because of their strength instead of a detraction. They help to preserve the abilities of strength, effort and heroism in a world that tries to water everything down and looks down on them for it. Be one of these people and be your own man.


Now that we’ve fired our volley in defense of strength, personal choice and standing up for yourself I’ll tell you a story about the title of today’s newsletter.

We spent the last couple of days at the beach taking a little family time. Had a wonderful time at a very nice little, secluded beach. I always enjoy the water and the time with my family away from other distractions.

Caught a little workout while we were there. Nothing fancy, brought a kettlebell with me. It’s just inspirational to have that type of setting. On the sand and surf, it’s one of those places that drives you to enjoyable effort. So I did a couple of hundred swings, finished the workout by doing sprints from the water up onto the beach, back to the kettlebell for another set of swings. I did five sets. It’s a workout you should definitely try because the water really adds to the effort. Believe me you’ll huff and puff like a steam engine.

Now I tend to be oblivious to other people when I’m doing something like that. I’m wrapped up in my own little world of the workout and nobody else is really effecting it. My wife was telling me later about watching people’s reactions when I came sprinting out of the water. Everybody on the beach, particularly those in the water would suddenly jump and start searching the water as if there were a shark. The really funny thing is they did it every time I ran a sprint out of the water, not just the first time. As if there were a new shark every time I ventured back into the water. My wife and son were there swimming along with me. She said they kept looking back at her like, “Why is the big guy running and the woman and the boy are staying in the water?!”

All in all except for the slight moments of shark-induced fear, I think everyone had a good time watching the 350lb guy run out of the water and swing the cannonball with the handle around. No one was intentionally intimidated, but I had a great time and improved my fitness along the way. You should try this workout. Do things to make your workout tougher to separate you from the weak and frightened masses.