Themes sometimes run through my mind and because of that, they also end up on this blog. The post I had from Friday was all about the Global Corporate Challenge and how, despite my initial snobbery at the notion of 10,000 steps a day making any kind of difference to super-fantastic and ridiculously awesome ME… well, I am finding benefits in spite of myself. Go figure. Well, that theme of steps continues today on this beautiful Sunday over the Memorial Day weekend.
It’s obvious that my interest in health, fitness, exercise and diet exceeds being just a hobby for me – it’s something I feel strongly about both from the standpoint that far too many people seem to neglect the gift of their health and also because of the unbelievable carry-over to other parts of your life you get from being active and healthy. That’s one of the biggest themes of this blog – how the elements of mind, body and spirit interplay with each other and bring transformative benefits to each other. A strong body can give you confidence. A determined spirit can push you through in the gym. A sharp mind will allow you to think through problems that would otherwise stress you into a bad physical state. You get the idea.
So yesterday I decided to take a leap, the length of which I leave to you, gentle reader, to decide upon. I dropped a decent chunk of cash for all of the study materials I would need to prepare for the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) certification from the National Strength and Conditioning Association. The CSCS is considered one of the most respected certifications if you are interested in working with and training athletes. There are equivalents for personal training as well, but this was the one that jumped out at me most because of its reputation and because of my own personal belief that you can taking the specialized training of an athlete and adapt it to the general population (provided you don’t act like a complete lunkhead and assume a 53 year old business executive wants to play middle linebacker for a NCAA Division 1 football program).
All of this was a bit inspired by some e-mails and comments I’ve been going back and forth with the author of the blog, SlackerMom. Jessica has recently take the leap from the big law firm world into being a massage therapist and has been documenting a lot of her process of working through that on her blog (which is very good – I recommend). In one of our notes back and forth, she talked about how she needed to make some firm steps in order to get herself going towards her own goals – they didn’t need to be massive steps, but there had to be some definitive action with sacrifice and consequences.
I had been thinking over ordering the CSCS study materials for quite a while decided to get off my lazy behind to do it yesterday. So I dropped a bit of a chunk of cash and the training manual, audio CDs, practice tests and all of that good, happy fun should be arriving soon.
The larger question is what I will end up doing with all of this… well, besides the obvious of studying for and, hopefully, gaining my CSCS certification. Assuming I get it… then what? Truthfully, I don’t have an answer to that just yet, but it feels like the right step for me on a few levels. First, I just find this stuff interesting and want to truly learn it. Back in college, I was so freaking grade focused, I occasionally wonder what I would have really learned if I was a little more concerned about the process of understanding and absorbing what I studied as opposed to a jazzy report card with lots of A’s all over it. Second, maybe I will end up training people one day in some context. I can’t tell you the date or time of this, but it feels like something I will explore soon. It might only be to help along some friends and family and that really may be more than enough, but I’ll never know how much I like it until I start doing it in earnest… so why not be as best-prepared for that as possible?
So, yet again, my own personal ego is foiled and that’s probably a good thing. Friday was about admitting via YouTube that I don’t have all the answers and even counting your daily steps has unexpected benefits. Yesterday and today were about thinking through how to continue the steps and movement towards something positive and having a chance to learn and grow a bit (God forbid). And that’s my “leap” of the weekend. It’s not exactly some kind of massive sea change… but as I keep coming to realize… the small, but consistent steps, truly do add up.