Yet, if you’re trying to get in shape, and really want to tackle some tough workouts, here are some tips to keep you with it ’til the end. *PLUS!! As a bonus, read to the end to learn a new word for softness that I just invented!*

A Soft and Delicious Destructor. You're just soft.

1. Go Somewhere

Guess what? That collection of gym equipment in your basement is now a collection of cobwebs and abandoned dreams for a reason: your domicile is too distracting to get real work done. Get a gym membership or go to the local park just because it will specifically dedicate your time to working out – and not answering the phone, playing with the dog, or appeasing the spouse.

2. Go Somewhere

Ever do an interval running workout? It’s hard. So hard that you’ll want to quit about 20% of the way through. How do you prevent this? Get away from your starting (and quitting) point.

When I want to get the most out of my interval running, or locomotive workouts in general, I make them either on a huge, workout-encompassing loop or two separate starting and finishing points. That way, every step you run away is one step you’ll have to run back. If every time you finish an interval you’re right back at your car, it’ll be way too easy to just call it a day. Run away from pansydom!

3. Bring an Equal

Bring someone who is at your level, is equally motivated, and will push you both toward your goals. Accountability to another person is huge, and I always look for a partner when I really want to do something outside the box and difficult. If neither of you wants to be the quitter, then you’ll both avoid sissification and get it all done.

4. Bring a Newbie

This might even be better than having a hardcore equal as a partner. If you can find a newbie who wants to get started on what you have been already doing, then you have a lot to live up to. A motivated (though these can sometimes be difficult to find) newbie will want to work hard both for their own goals and to impress you, oh seasoned vet, which will require you to step up your game. When showing someone the ropes, you are undoubtedly going to want to look impressive and avoid losing face, which will keep you moving at top speed and perfect form, and DEFINITELY not quitting before they do or before you’ve done what you said you would.

5. Change Surroundings

I walked in the newly renovated weight room of my alma mater and left wanting to go back and pump serious iron there. Why? It was new, shiny and fancy. Sure, the equipment I had been using was good, but the change of venue put a little pep in my step.

6. Get Hopped Up

Could be emotion. Could be supplements. Could be caffeine. There are lots of things that can get you feeling amped that won’t put you behind bars, but will get your ass up that hill or under the squat rack rack one more time.  I’m not a big supplement guy or energy drink or drugs guy, but every now and again a big ‘ol dose of caffeine will get me in gear with some extra fight. Just make sure you don’t take so much that you can’t get down from that gear.

7. Chop Your Goals

Reality is, you can take one more step, do one more rep, or keep going for another second. You might not think you can, but you can. Piece together all those individual reps, sets and seconds and you’ll eventually put together a mosaic you can call a decent workout.

So if you’re solo with no one to push you, push yourself by calling yourself out in small increments. Ultimately those 5 more miles you have to run are run one step at a time, so chop it up and tell yourself that. You can do one more of anything.

8. Distract Thyself

Be one of those retards rocking out to music while working out, if it will help you work out. Sometimes tricking ourselves or just having a distraction is the best way to divert attention from the pain we are enduring. Tool (watch singer Maynard choke out an unruly fan in the above video) and Rage Against the Machine are pretty awesome tools for amplifying aggression and suppressing all those feelings of uncookedbiscuitism (yes, that’s the word that you’ve been waiting for!).

We’re all a little Pillsbury on the inside…

but take some preventive measures to ward it off, and get the most from your time in search of improved athletic prowess, health or whole-body hardness. Don’t be soft, and don’t quit.

Today at the Athletic Edge we had a nice little workout.  Our day consisted of deadlifting, flexibility and mobility, weighted push up and rotator cuff work.  We capped it all off with a Tabata Interval set of Front Squats @ 65 pounds.  What is a Tabata Interval, you ask?

20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated for 4 straight minutes. In other words, hard work with virtually no rest for way too long.  You won’t see any of us high level athletes lose our composure in battle, but believe me, when the camera turned off Steve, my workout partner for the day, and I were both hurting.

Our spotting method worked flawlessly – instead of racking and re-racking (which takes precious seconds) we had two spotters (trainers Steve Evans and Matt Acevedo) take the weight for the 10 second rest periods.  This interval was brutal, even with only 65 pounds on the bar.  The fact that we did a lot of high-rep deadlifting beforehand probably didn’t help either. Enjoy!

I think the modern athlete, bodybuilder and dieter forget this. Often supplements are misused as “replacements.”  These come in the form of shakes to replace whole meals, powdered “superfoods” and “greens” to replace vegetables, multivitamins to replace vitamins and minerals, etc., etc.

The supplement industry is founded on nutritionism, which is the reduction of the value of food to its nutrient parts. Michael Pollan, in his book In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,  discourages this reductionist view of food, and instead suggests that we all revert to what our ancestors did: eat whole foods.  It’s a book that was an easy and intelligent read, and it changed my view on the manufactured health food products that I was guilty of eating.  I eat more “food” now.

I just don’t relate to the whole, “have a shake for lunch,” attitude that “healthy” eaters today often exhibit.  There are so many products out there that claim to have the nutritional punch of a dozen servings of fruits and vegetables in a 5 gram servings (Biotest Superfood, I am calling you out).  Maybe they do and maybe they don’t, but they absolutely don’t have the satiety factor of a dozen servings of anything.  Plus there is just no way any blend of extracts and powders  can replace all of the compounds founds in natural foods.  A short time ago we didn’t know that vitamins existed; for us to say now that we can completely duplicate the benefits of, and replace whole foods with engineered foods is arrogant and misguided.

Food needs to make us feel full because when we don’t, we can’t resist our evolutionary urge to seek and destroy more of it, until our bodies signal that they are nourished. Satiety can’t be supplemented by supplements – compare the fullness factor of a tablespoon of greens to 2 bananas, 2 apples, 2 oranges, 2 cups of broccoli, a carrot, a kiwi, and a big slice of watermelon.  Besides the obvious calorie difference, there’s a lot more food and a lot less hunger in the real 12 servings of fruits and vegetables.

My ideas about eating have changed over the years, and I have come to depend on supplements as supplements, not replacements, and only use them as aids when a meal would be otherwise incomplete.  If I have chicken, I leave the protein on the shelf.  Misuse occurs when one takes a spoonful of Superfood or Greens+ and doesn’t otherwise even look at a vegetable.  To think we can replace vegetables and fruit from our diet with a mere multivitamin or tablespoon of powder is absolute hubris.

A multivitamin, serving of Superfood or Greens+ in addition to an already whole foods-centered diet? Fantastic, if you have the extra money.  I don’t, so I stick with broccoli, sweet potatoes, and seasonal produce.

The bottom line is just that there is more to food than just the nutrient parts, much of which scientists are yet to discover, and basing one’s diet on powders and pills for quality nutrition is a mistake.

So set some goals.  If you don’t, it will be much harder to stay on track this winter as the weather turns sour, school starts to wear on you, and your comfy bed calls your name.

Get there.

I like to set my goals at the upper limit of what’s realistic, and I don’t worry too much if I don’t reach them, as long as I come close.  Many people need to do the opposite, and set many smaller, more manageable goals to act as stepping stones toward a final, better product.  To each his own.  But, no matter your method, there needs to be a finish line somewhere and the vision to reach it.

So for my winter, which lasts from now until March, my strength goals are the following:

-Reach 195 pounds while staying below 8% bodyfat.

-Deadlift 450×5

-8 Reps Rock Ring Chin-Ups with 45lb added

-Develop the core of a gymnast

My assault on these milestones is going to be pretty complex, so brace yourself: I’m going to:

-Deadlift, chin-up, and lift my ass off

-Eat like a man twice my size

-Only eat carbs for breakfast, and pre and post-workout

-Eat more vegetables than a vegan hippy

I also have pitching-specific goals, but they are more broad, not worth sharing, and really just sum up to: be the most polished, healthy and powerful pitcher I can be. That’s every pitcher’s goal, anyway.

The following are two of my favorite exercises that aren’t very well known, both of which, ironically, start with a Z.  These were introduced to me by my strength and conditioning coach at UMBC, Fred Cantor.  

The Zercher Squat

The Zercher Squat is a front squat in which you carry the bar in the crux of your elbows.  Yeah, you could put a pad or towel there, but that takes the fun out of it.

It’s a great exercise because it easily allows proper and deep squatting form, and it requires more core recruitment to prevent forward lean.

And, it is fun to do with a partner because you can laugh as you both grimace in pain.  You can also compare pain tolerances and find out which one of you is the soft one.  

The Dreaded Zercher Squat

The Zottman Curl

This is a cool exercise because it combines a concentric bicep curl with an eccentric reverse curl.  Gives a nice blast to the brachioradialis and the forearm extensors.

A special thanks goes out to Andrew Sacks, the bad mofo demonstrating in the video.  Without an intact ACL or a working pancreas, he still had the courage to do the video .  Commitment.