Winter is coming

              The days are getting longer. Winter is on its way spreading the need for artificial lighting where summer’s golden rays can no longer reach. A funny thing comes with colder weather; less people have the need to work out. Personally I find nothing more rewarding than a brisk chill after a long work out but I think I may be one of the few in this category. I see more and more people arriving to the gym with winter clothing (I use the term “more” very loosely here). These are the jewels of the gym to say the least. This is where hard work truly shines. Winters grip will not hold these people back. It also shows how seasonal changes will unintentionally restrict some former patrons from attending the gym on a routine basis.

                From where we left off in our last entry was the use of supplements in the gym environment such as 13 dimethylamylamine which is banned in the U.S. and Ephedra which wasn’t mentioned but is used as a weight loss supplement. Ephedra is a potent product though; a few gym patrons have died from the abuse of the substance with their current health condition. The sad fact of life in the gym is that people do not want to put time into their work; instead they want something that is fast and easy. The experienced gym goers usually will not take products such as these because they have seen first-hand the horrors these products can bring. It reminds me of myself after taking a product known as “Craze” which is similar to Methamphetamine in its chemical makeup. When I ingested this product it was new and had not been linked to failed urinary tests or heart attacks yet. My work outs went from 45 minutes to 2 hours (I could have worked out longer but I had other matters to attend to). The product was amazing but as with most things like this it was bound to be too good to last. Last year the product was found to be too dangerous for human consumption and promptly banned.  The reason I wanted to touch on this subject is that I am seeing more and more people taking these ‘flavor-of-the-month’ products in efforts to bypass the hard grinding work needed to truly and honestly gain muscle mass.

                When one enters the gym, one should make certain that they are entering the gym not to do a small amount of work but to enter with full knowledge of the hours upon days’ worth of time it takes to make even the slightest change to ones physique.  The ones who enter with this mind are engulfed by the culture that surrounds the gym. They are feed knowledge from experienced individuals but the recipient of the knowledge needs to question it and never take “because it worked for me” as an answer as it shows the lack of effort they want to put into the process of change.