The Summer of Beast-Mode

As the summer comes to an end, I like to reflect on things I’ve learned and done. This summer I took the opportunity to teach summer school. For the month of August, I worked out with my buddy Carlos. He’s wanted to work out together for some time. The guy is buffed out and I told him that I wasn’t interested in getting totally yoked out. Remember, I’m a basketball player who needs to be lean and agile. Carlos replied, “You’ll be alright.” I figured that it’s only for a month and I could use him to push me during the workouts (this is one of those “be careful for what you ask for” moments).

Normally, my routine is working out between four to five days a week. However, for the month of August I had three total days where I didn’t run, lift weights, or play basketball or some combination of two out of the three in a day. It was going 9.0 on the Beast-Mode scale for the entire month.

Carlos was helpful in telling me what body part to isolate each day and gave me effective lifting techniques for each workout. He also pushed me further than I thought I could’ve gone. The wife even noticed my additional muscular tone and my perpetual state of soreness.

There are two things that I’ve taken from this experience with Carlos. First, I thought I was a beast in the weight room. I was wrong. Carlos is a beast in the weight room. He also pushed me to do things that I wouldn’t have done on my own. When I was ready to call it a workout we went an additional 45 minutes. As a result, I realize that my body was capable of going farther than I thought I could go.

Second, if you’ve read my weight room blog you’ll realize my no non-sense attitude while working out. Sometimes I can get lost in my music and have that, “I’m too busy doing work to talk to anyone” attitude. Since I was working out with Carlos, I didn’t have headphones and neither did he. Throughout our workouts he would frequently say “hello” to several people that he knew in the gym. He met them just by going to the gym often and simply being friendly. I thought to myself, “Here’s a guy who works out twice as hard as I do but yet has time to love people.” It was convicting and challenging.

Furthermore, Carlos isn’t a basketball player but was willing to shoot some hoops with me after some workouts. He even playfully challenged me to a game of one-on-one. We played a game to 21 and the final score was 21-1. He boasts in the fact that he scored on me. I told him that even a blind squirrel could find a nut from time to time. What stood out to me is that he didn’t have an ego to maintain. He was kind to people at the gym while putting in some serious work, he asked questions about things I was more knowledgeable in, and he was constantly encouraging me to push myself to get better.

I really feel that the Lord put him in my life to show me that we could still make an impact on the people around us even at the gym. I’ve always thought that gym-time was “me-time” and that I didn’t really need to be kind and caring to anyone while I was working out because, . . . well . . . I was working out. Christianity doesn’t take time off and I’m happy that I have brothers around me to remind me of that fact.