Why I’m trying to be Like a Fictional Serial Killer

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In my teens there was. a great movie called The Hitcher.

It played into the indoctrination of living a fear-filled life. My generation was the recipient of the indoctrination in the 80’s.

One day we were latchkey kids, and the next we were calling the police on the new mailman.

The Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, Jon Benet Ramsey. If-it-bleeds-it-leads media coverage was king, and Hollywood followed soon after.

Rutger Hauer played a murderous hitchhiker. Remember those?

He got thrown from a car at 60 miles per hour, propelled through windshields, shot, etc.

He just wouldn’t die.

Along with a psychotic need to murder and maim, he had something we should all be striving for:

Durability.

I’ve found myself using the term “durability” more and more in my classes, with my PT clients and during intros.

It speaks to me more than any other descriptor or definition of what we are trying to achieve in our fitness, life, and business.

I’ve come to grips with the fact that I need and want to be around for a long time.

I don’t just want to BE. I want to be viable. I want to be an option. I want to be needed.

To have a purpose.

For that, I need my brain and body to function properly.

During the first few months of the pandemic, I was all of the above, and at the same time, it sort of sometimes felt like I was falling apart..

Stress about all of the things had me struggling physically and mentally.

Booze didn’t help.

I recently watched some of the videos I had made in those early pandemic days for classes and clients, and I literally had a hard time doing lunges and squats.

You could see the instability in my knees and back. I couldn’t stand up off the ground without grabbing hold of something, and the grimace on my face was a dead giveaway that I was in pain.

The road to recovery was holistic. Not the woo-woo kind, but the global kind.

It took nutrition, mindset, movement patterns, workout strategies, and most of all, time to fix myself.

I’m back to feeling good, but I’m not trying to feel good.

I want to feel like The Hitcher.

Discomfort, pain, dark days, and pandemics are all pretty much on the table at this point.

So what do I have to offer my business, family, and community when these less-than-ideal situations arise?

Being present, healthy, and hearty are great.

Being un-killable is better.

I don’t train for reps or sets. I don’t eat for six packs or bathing suits.

I push, pull, bend, and squat so that my commitments of being a husband, father, son, brother, and community leader are paid in full every day.

I go to sleep early and wake up early, so that everyone benefits from it.

I eat protein, fruit, vegetables, and some fat, so that when the next Zombie Apocalypse comes, I am ready.

As we flew to NY this week, there was an obese young man sitting in front of me, across the aisle.

He sat like overweight people do: grabbing himself across his body trying not to be a burden to the row and aisle on either side.

Through out the flight, he dropped his phone three times, as he had little precious space around him to put anything down.

All three times, he couldn’t reach it on the ground.

He had to get out of his chair and grab hold of seats on either side of him to slowly get down on one knee and look underneath seats for the phone.

He then needed to hoist himself back to a standing position, which took tremendous effort.

I would have leapt up and helped him if I didn’t think that would have brought even more unwanted attention.

I felt terrible for him.

His durability is low. Things will be even harder for him in the future if he doesn’t change now.

The bottom line of being in my industry is wanting to help people.

The bottom line of the participant should be the desire for durability.

Along with those will come the health, performance, and aesthetic of a fictional psychopath.

Don’t try to be fit.

Be the Hitcher. Without the bad parts, of course.

Have a great week,

TJ