1.14.2012

A rude awakening

Happy New Year! To friends, family, and my muscles (or lack thereof). Hope everyone's holidays were as enjoyable as my own.
Don't you just love getting back into the gym after a couple weeks of diminished workload? The first day is always great, your body  feels fresh and you're excited to get started again.You feel like you should push extra hard because you can. You think, What a great start to the year, this season is gonna be a breeze. 


Then comes day 2.
Your whole body aches, if you hadn't already scheduled your gym time for the next few months you would spend the next week in an ice bath. Stairs seem taller, walks seem longer, lifting your arms is a brutal chore. You think, - scratch that, you don't think, it's too hard.

Maybe I exaggerate slightly, but after working muscles that haven't been used in a while it's always quite the wake up call that training isn't all fun and games. With the new year, my sand training has resumed, so don't get me wrong, it is fun, and there are games. But through the first week of sand and physical training together, I'll just say it was no picnic taking that first step out of bed on the morning of day two.

As tight as my muscles get though, I don't despair because of a few aches and pains. If I did, what kind of athlete would I be? In fact, I actually take solace in the fact that the more sore I get, the more I will benefit in the future. No pain, no gain, right? I've already almost passed out and thrown up in the gym this year, and I still came in the next day to do it all over again. On the stiffness front, the first week is always the worst, so it's all downhill from here. But that won't stop me from pushing to my limit, day after day. There will undoubtedly be more pain to overcome, and to grow from.

On a side note, my physical trainer, Thomas Lam, has been bugging me about posting another "Cooking with Ben Jammin" video. So I'm gonna let people get involved here. If you have a favorite recipe, that you'd like to see me cook, or at least attempt to, then you can send it to me. I'll give my best attempt to the recipe that most catches my eye, but also looks delicious. I probably won't be making peanut butter and kraft dinner or add 18 layers of bacon and Jack Daniels or anything like that. Something unique, or a different sort of cooking process, or if your friend made something that you thought was amazing, ask if I can use their recipe. Heck, if I get enough idea's, maybe I'll make it into a little series.  Email meal idea's to: bsaxto@gmail.com with the subject: Recipe.