Health & Fitness from a college kid’s perspective

Childhood

When I was young, I was always a little tubby. Not the point where my parents or others were concerned but enough to get fun of by my friends. I was picked towards the end when we played sports at school, was always second-rate at the sports I played (soccer & basketball), and looking back those years with some low self esteem had a pretty big impact on me as I got into high school.

High school

Starting in probably 7th grade I began to do some working out. Push ups, sit ups, the occasional run, and a few kettlebell exercises. I remember waking up early each day to do the workouts, and by the time it was 8th grade, I had somewhat gotten into better shape. No longer a little round.

Through high school I spent a lot of time on fitness. I would say that relatively consistently I would workout 3–4 times weekly in the gym, would try and run a few times and then had soccer practices every day in the fall and 3 times a week in the spring.

Nobody ever told me, and I’m not a person that likes to have regrets, but looking back, I definitely wish I had known to be more deliberate with my fitness.

I wanted to be the star of the soccer team, have a six pack, be super fast, and so on. So despite my efforts, I think it was the fact that I started behind and that I wasn’t so deliberate that I didn’t start on my high school team until I was a senior.

These experiences of waking up early, or staying after school late to exercise have shaped me in a lot of ways. I’d like to think I’m still pretty healthy, I love to workout, and there isn’t too much more that pushes and establishes work ethic than going on a run and pushing yourself beyond exhaustion.

Make goals

I had never really had goals in relation to my workouts until pretty late in the game. I never said “I want to run a 6:00 mile” or “I want to be able to bench press 200 lbs.” My issue wasn’t not setting goals, by itself, but rather that without goals, you aren’t as thoughtful about what you’re doing. Sophomore year I was probably going off of the same workout routine that my friend’s older brother showed me when I was in middle school. I was trying to bench press every time I was in the gym, and I’d go for long runs, but the primary motive was to become a good soccer player.

So instead, I should have focused more on leg workouts and interval running, two things that are much more applicable to a soccer player.

Post State Championship

After senior fall, when our high school team won state, I was at some sort of plateau. I played a part in our success but was definitely not the guy on the team. I still loved the sport, though, and decided that I’d play soccer in the spring for my club team and as I heard back from colleges look into the chance to try and walk on at a D3 school.

I ended up getting into a D3 school with a pretty good soccer program and I went to work. I talked with the coach, he said that I could try to walk on to the team in the fall but that I’d have to run a 5 minute mile and do an intense footwork drill.

I wanted to be on the team badly, though. In hindsight a lot of that was the fact that I wanted to enter college and instantly have a community of friends (which I was lucky to find anyways). But the summer before my freshman year I was working 40 hours a week, going on 6:30 AM runs on three of those days, and lifting the rest, while continuing to play soccer most days. I gave it everything in my body to make that team, and when I got to WashU in the fall I ran a 4:59 mile (a fitness goal). Despite the fact that most players on the team didn’t actually beat 5 minutes, I was still cut from the team, I think largely due to my lack of pure soccer skills and speed on the ball (as opposed to physical fitness).

Soccer lessons

When I was setting goals for myself my senior year, I then proceeded by figuring out what I needed to do to accomplish them, which is the key to goal setting. “I want to make a college soccer team” or “I want to be able to bench press 225 pounds (which I decided to aim for after getting cut).” From there, it’s “okay, what do I need to do to make that happen.”

Even something like “I want to have a six pack and people to see my bicep veins,” (albeit a little more external of a goal) requires you to think about what is needed to make that happen. And despite the fact that I gave it everything that I had to make that soccer team, and in a lot of ways it hit me hard when I was cut, it was one of the best experiences I have had.

Overall

I guess there are a few lessons from this story that I like to tell myself or others if they ask. The first is that even someone who has never been naturally athletic and was behind for a long time physically (me) can work hard to get into good shape. And I know it can be intimidating to take that first step into the gym or outside for a run, but when I see people who are out of shape working out, I break into the biggest smile, because it means that they are taking the first step, which is all you can ask at first.

The second big lesson to me was to be more deliberate. If I played with a soccer ball for even half as much time as I was in the gym when I was younger, I would have been significantly better of a player. I could play soccer every day, but if it’s against people that are worse than me and aren’t challenging me, then I am not going to get any better. The same way lifting too little weight won’t accomplish much. And the kicker that I am just starting to realize is that food is a monumental factor into all of this. Exercising is important, but in America we eat these huge portions of food and so much of it is terrible for us, which is what really contributes to not being able to look how we want.

I’ll probably write more about fitness in the future since I’m a big fan of working out and it has totally changed my life, but here are some initial thoughts from me.

Cheers.

Year 1, Article 3

N.B.A