Consistency Over Programs: Work Outs for Normies

 

Stick To a Program and See the Gains

I’ve been poking around on YouTube to find some fitness gurus and running coaches. I’ll spare you the surprise, there are millions. My query was about jogging and weightlifting together. Normally you have to pick one. The two disciplines work at cross purposes. Running is about endurance, slow twitch muscle fibers and oxygen for energy. Weigh lifting is about size, fast twitch muscle fibers and anaerobic energy.

Motivations

Long distance running is newer for me. Not that I’m a dedicated gym bro with a massive frame and trophies in a clear case, but lifting has been a regular part of my life for years. I started in earnest while in college. I’d tried to get a routine going in the Army but I was too lazy. I ran short, timed distances in the Army. Once I got out however, jogging meant going hard for two miles at the end of a workout. Nothing wrong with that of course. But the older I got the more I wanted to keep the pounds off and stay lean. I never imagined I’d be running marathons or studying up on heart rate zones. The more time I spent improving my pace the less I spent building strength. Today though, I’m back in the gym working on the physique again and jogging in between. That calls for a different kind of training.

I’m not sure it’s a great idea to do both but I’m on this course anyway.

Inspirations

I found a guy on YouTube who looks like a body builder and runs marathons. He’s not a giant but he does have a lot more muscle than your average runner. I’m sure he takes a lot of substances and dials his food in to the calorie. The primary piece of information I got from him is to train hard in season and back off when out of season. This “season” term is mine and not his. The idea is to focus hard on running before a race and fill in some gaps with heavy lifting. After the race, switch it up. Do heavy weights more frequently when no race is in sight. It’s basically the hybrid model I’ve used without his orderly schedule. I’m sure he has a detailed workout plan. Mine is more general but the idea is the same. I stopped doing legs at the gym almost a month before my race. 

My legs were tired and sore after a crushing leg workout, not ideal for marathon training. This made running a miserable task.

My race was a month ago and I’ve since started doing a leg set again once per week. I don’t think I’ll incorporate more than one day for legs but I won’t promise anything. I’m hoping that my exhaustion after a long run is connected to my weak lower half. If strength training can bulk up my hamstrings and calves and make a 16 mile run feel more like 8 miles I can make serious gains in my time. This will be the year to find out how well it works. Right now I’m in for squats or deadlifts every Monday.

In addition to heavier weights, I’m running at least one less day per week. That works out to 3 days and not 4. This way I can increase muscle strength in what is basically an off season for me. The summer mornings mean I can run outdoors before work at least once a week. Obviously, I can run outdoors during the winter too but I enjoy the early sunlight even with the hot temperatures. It’s manageable even in the heat of July if I run early enough.

Conclusion

I get discouraged when I hear about the gains from some of these YouTube guys. It feels like I could do more, or should be getting better. 

My improvements come in slow, methodical steps. I’m not the guy that’s going to go drop an hour off his time in a year. I have a friend who did. Some of us have to find value in the small wins or we’ll get frustrated. The particular work out program is less important than if you’re still improving years from now. I measure success by how long I stick with something. The gains will come if you stick with it. Whether you run or lift, find a sport or exercise you like and build on it. Make it a goal to look back in a year on the progress no matter how small. Then do it again in 5 years. It’s hard enough to commit to exercise of any kind for more than a season. But if you do, the gains will be there. That’s what I’ve learned.

I John 4: The Spirit of Truth and The Spirit of Error

 

How to Recognize Truth and Error

The New Testament letters must be read with an understanding of the urgency with which they were written. Christianity, this new belief, was constantly under attack from both the Romans and from false doctrines. John takes such care to explain the nature of this spiritual reality in which new believers find themselves. The truth is as easy to recognize today as it was in John’s time.   

 “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.” (verse 2-3) This might seem confusing if you have no exposure to scripture. With all the cultures around the world and all their spiritual history, how can all spirits be either Christ or Antichrist—truth or error?

We Can Know the Truth

Every region of the world has its own history of gods, idols, traditions and pieties. It’s human creativity that gives these ‘gods’ their characteristics. We assign stories and personalities to deities that exist in the spirit realm. Ancient Greece had Zeus, Apollo and Aphrodite, China and India had Buddhism and its beliefs. Others had monotheistic religions like Islam. I could write an entire book on world religions and not begin to cover all the particulars. You’d think John would leave room for such variety. After all, most of these deities had a presence in the cultures, thousands of years before Christ.

But the variety of spirits doesn’t change their origin or nature. It doesn’t matter how many different weeds cover your lawn, they’re all infectious and designed to kill off healthy grass. It’s in their nature. They seek to take over the whole yard. If you want healthy green grass that chokes out weeds you have to spread good seed. You can use fertilizer to kill the invaders but eventually they’ll come back. The most effective way is to keep the healthy grass full. So too, when the gospel spreads in earnest it pushes out false spirits.  

The best news from John is that it’s possible to tell spiritual truth from error. We don’t have to fumble around this life like a man in a dark cave, searching for truth. We recognize it through its confession. We see its plain truth because it pushes out error and illuminates our steps in an unfamiliar place.

“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” (verse 14-15)

We Can Spread the Gospel

I’ve been watching the series Shogun on Hulu. I’m only a few episodes in but a few things are clear right away. TV shows and movies are essentially atheistic in their spiritual messaging. Anything dealing with power politics will argue that money and control drive the vehicle of history. It treats spiritual/religious belief as either cultural decoration or political manipulation. Christianity is usually shown as an occupying force, a foreign weed that chokes out native soil. The history of European conquest is certainly bloody and reckless. Missionaries were often used by their host nations as tools of imperialism. This is the situation in Shogun during the late 17^th century. But the spread of Christianity has less to do with the people spreading it, and more to do with its undeniable truth.

We’ve been hearing the same cynical story about Christ and colonization for too long. Partly it’s because of our ‘everyone was racist before about the year 2000’ kind of ethics. But Christianity brought civilizing aspects to cultures that had no experience with it. Science, medicine and literacy were introduced with missionaries. Translating the Bible into the local languages, the centrality of the family and planting new churches were hallmarks of Christian missions.

But people are flawed and their message is often drowned out by the politics of the day. Shogun shows the ugly side of Christians and their sociopolitical interests. But it’s only after the Spanish have gained a foothold through territorial ambition. There is little difference between a pirate and priest, both are Christian in the national sense and foreigners. But it’s not likely the first few missionaries were anything but accommodating to the Japanese. They couldn’t afford to be reckless or arrogant in such a strict, brutal culture. The early Jesuits eventually started ordaining local priests, recognizing the importance of engagement.

But the gospel makes an impact despite the mission or the missionaries. It wouldn’t work any other way. It’s a universal truth.

We Can Rescue Culture

The biggest difference in America is our lack of state sponsored missionary work. Churches still take on the burden of training up and sending out, but America is effectively a place where Christianity is consumed with infighting. Its distracted by institutional corruption and doctrinal disagreement. People as different as Rob Bell and Eric Metaxas both claim to be Christians. Their beliefs couldn’t be further apart. Bell teaches a ‘good feeling’ doctrine with biblical language, Metaxas a traditional scholarly approach.

  Political realities have started to overwhelm the underlying truth of scripture. Those who profess an orthodox view are held out of large spheres of life, whether government or business. Denominational loyalty shifts with hot button cultural issues like abortion and homosexuality. We’re on the cusp of an upheaval.

Come to think of it, maybe we do resemble feudal Japan right before the Tokugawa Shogunate.

 It’s easy to get consumed with the sturm and drang of modern Christianity and its shaky future. The weeds are growing rapidly and threatening to takeover the lawn. It’s in this type of environment that John writes his letter to the early church. It’s loaded with the language of hope, love and peace. But crucially in this chaotic time, he separates truth from error and reminds us that we can recognize it. The message of the gospel has survived and thrived in tougher circumstances. During the time of the apostles’ ministry (AD 40 to AD 80) this new religion was nearly crushed in the Roman Empire. It’s the reason for the letters of encouragement and the missionary zeal of spreading the gospel.

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.” (verse 18-19)

Conclusion

The spirit of truth shows up in love and casts out fear. If we are in Christ we shouldn’t fear the future. Love, in the person of Christ, did the redeeming work a long time ago. We recognize the spirit of truth when we abide in Him.