Unleash the Monkey Army

A couple of conversations I’ve had recently have started me thinking about strength and its importance to me. I list it as one of my core values and my social media feed would suggest obsession at almost dangerous levels. And yet, I don’t really think I look like it. Sure, I’m large but that’s easily dismissed as desk jockey/all-you-can-eat-buffet-fan. I have this bad habit of writing these blog posts without a plan, so I have no idea where this might end up, but I’d like to try to explain. The weights room is my happy place. Not in a nip-slip, Gym Shark vest, mirror-posing, cheat-curling-in-the-squat-rack, Brozilla kind of way. It’s also not about ego. I’m only moderately strong and body composition is not my target. I say moderately strong on an objective basis rather than any self-deprecation. I’m stronger than a lot of people but in a strong gym or even a college weights room there are plenty stronger. I enjoy the lifting. So much that normally occupies my mind falls a...

126 days down 18 weeks have passed. 8260 burpees performed (thanks in part to an inclination to round up) Over the last couple of weeks this post has started and drifted away again in my head, several times. Not altogether unlike my love affair with burpees over the same time really! At one point this piece was going to be titled "Because...". I decided against that, partly because I doubt anybody really wants to read me wrestling with angst (again) and partly because "because" is the answer to the question "why?". I know and accept that disappointment takes preparation. For newcomers to the concept, let me explain. In order to be disappointed about something you need two conditions: first, an idea or an image however vague and cloudy, of how you thought it would be. Second, what you are actually facing to be different to that expectation.  Often we have the bitter taste of disappointment in our mouth without ever having been conscious of what we were expe...