One, Two, Three, .. and the Whole

Quyet, you can do it! Try your best, just one more and you can take a rest …

This is my inner voice praising me to finish an workout in a set that focus on my chest muscle at the beginner level.

Flashback to the beginning of June, I started doing late afternoon exercises daily in order to become “Từ Hải - Vai năm thước rộng thân mười thước cao”, in other words, make me become musculine, especially in the upper body part. This desire actually has existed for several years, but until this summer, I don’t have both time and determination to actualize it. Now I have, and it’s time to start.

At the time I started, my upper body was quite weak - I was not able to pull up, while just able to do at most 3 (correct) push-ups (what a shy) @@ Thus, I had to do other workout sets focusing on other muscles, while only performed several incline push-ups (an easier version of the standard one, but still very hard for me) to get myself familiar to the exercise, triggering the growth of my tricep and chest.

Two week later (i.e mid of June), as expected, I started being able to do the whole set for chest muscle, but I cheated - divide each workout into small parts, and perform each part after taking a “long” rest, also skip the most difficult workout in the set =)) However, even just doing a small part of each exercise, I still felt it … hard. I was often fatigued after the first half of the set, and the rest, of course, was a nightmare for me. It should be always a big spiritual dispute in my head, whether to stop or continue. Fortunately my mind took over and it declined to surrender the hardness. Following my mind, I continued part 1,2,3, … of each workout by doing 1,2, then 3 reps, and finally I finished the whole set with a totally exhausted body. What a tough life!

After one week, ‘magical’ thing came to me: I could do the whole set while not tearing it into tiny parts =)). I observed the clear growth of my body, yeah, even though it still took me more time than the preset time limit to do the set of workouts. Gradually, I could complete the set within a shorter time, and now within the preset limit. I am not surprised by the achievement, but I am happy that I did not give up.

That once again teaches me the power of habit: if we want to change (to be a better version of ourselves), just need to start with small actions (and of course be brave to progress), then it will accumulate to a big change.