My Crush!

OMG I don't know if I have talked about him....but...he...is AMAZING! AND HE IS NOW ON FACEBOOK! I have a huge crush on GYM JONES!!!! I don't even know if I have talked about Gym before but Gym Jones isn't a real person Gym is a gym...in Utah... lol yup it aint cute that's for sure!

"Gym Jones is not a cozy place. There are no televisions, no machines, no comfortable spot to sit (just plywood and diamond-plate), and there are no mirrors. The training is difficult. There are no shortcuts. Physical and psychological breakdowns occur. Our culture, dedicated to The Art of Suffering, is both safety net and inspiration. Individuals push hard and risk more alongside trustworthy peers."

My lust for Gym began after the movie The 300! If you missed it, its the movie about King Leonidas and his army of 300 men who fought the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. The amazing thing was they went to TOWN on thousands battle after battle and it was only 300 of them hence the name! Anyway that movie moved me I dunno maybe something about a small group of hot hard bodied men willing to leave their land to protect their women and children and be total bad azzez to change the world. Yeah I can dig it! But I bought the DVD set and DUDE I still quote that movie! "This is Sparta!" So much for not killing the messenger! Ha!

Well the movie came out in 2006 and I was really working out HARD CORE like 6 sometimes 7 days a week 2-3 hours of Les Mills classes and on my "down" time in between class I would hop on the treadmill or elliptical! Oh yeah and that's the year I did the Baltimore Half marathon without training...yeah bad azz... so anyway I was in awe! And there was all of this buzz around how the actors had to go to some crazy gym to train to look the way they looked in the movie! I mean there is method acting and there is method acting. Anyway I thought that was all smoke and mirrors but notttt ma'am that was their bodies! They went to Gym Jones and under the "guidance" of Mark Twight (the owner) they turned into amazing works of art!

The idea that one could transform themselves like that was amazing and inspiring to me on a lot of levels. It reinforced my belief that exercise was the way to go. A/w I learned more about the gym in the video and I fell in love! It is HARD CORE I googled it and found my love Gym Jones and I said one day I will go and train there. There was in Utah :-/  I mean I hear it beautiful and all but wow!

Butttt I was like so what? I still wanna go! And get the tshirt! See like pledging you can go wearing a Gym Jones Tshirt all willy nilly! You gotta EARN it! SOLD! Then I found out it wasn't an "open" gym like that! You had to apply! Write an essay! Pledge? Say what? Well something like that anyway. I was hurt but licked my wounds and sat on the sidelines and read their website often over the years. Pearls of sweat, blood, tears, AND wisdom! There are essays on all sorts of topics and I found such motivation there. There are too many to copy over so read them for yourself under the section called KNOWLEDGE but this is one to give you a taste:

PRIVATE

Private Does Not Mean Closed

BY MARK TWIGHT

Acquiring the spirit necessary to win, which includes a positive acceptance of pain, is difficult in a society where comfort is more highly regarded than capacity. When genuine physical fitness is the norm for so few it is hard to avoid being dragged into the morass. You become what you do. How and what you become depends on environmental influence so you become who you hang around. Raise the standard your peers must meet and you'll raise your expectations of yourself. If your environment is not making you better, change it. We did.

*tear*

Ok so I don't know about you but I get a lil verklempt reading stuff like this and at the time I was working soooo hard and I was hearing from sooo many people "You are working out too much"  "You will hurt yourself" "That's not normal" Well they may have been right I did suffer some injuries in 06-07 but at least I felt like there was a place that GOT ME! Got it! Got the drive I have to exercise until exhaustion and feel good about it.

A/w eventually Gym Jones began to really open themselves up to week long, month long and 2 day seminars to people. I was excited but the cost was a little steep. I missed my chance in 2008 when my Mom had to go to Utah for work so at least the hotel would have been free BUT to be honest I wasn't ready for Gym Jones in 2008 but as I began to think about putting together my 2011 Fitness Vision Board and I dunno what made me google my old crush Gym but I did and I saw they were on FACEBOOK! Huge!!! B/c Gym Jones does not conform (ok I stole that from an Omega Psi Phi step team lol) but there they were!

I went to the website and there is a session in July-SOLD OUT! But one in November is still open. I am scared lol but excited. I think Imma go! Anybody else down ?!

From this came a goal of actually doing what has become known a The 300 gansta!

"300"
25x Pull-up +
50x Deadlift @ 135# +
50x Push-up +
50x Box Jump @ 24" box +
50x Floor Wiper @ 135# (one-count) +
50x KB Clean and Press @ 36# (KB must touch floor between reps) +
25x Pull-up
300 reps total


Anyway I had a personal training session planned for tomorrow and its a family affair so it will be me, Mom & my sister! Pictures & jokes to follow! lol I also plan to hit up a different WW location since my site is closed this weekend for Christmas. I was up again on the scale! Talk about frustrating but I am still playing games! But I can say I was craving the butter popcorn again but finding Gym Jones website made me grab my EAS myoplex lite protein shake and some almonds instead! Today is a new day and another chance to get it right! Its so important to fill your mind & spirit with good and encouraging things I been slipping on that! Game on! Oh and its date night with old, new guy or shoudl i call im new, old guy? lol :-) A/w he sent a cute text this morning...Ahhh I think I like him, like him :-)

Anyway later peeps!