The broken man awakens. His battered body rises from a shoddy bed and staggers to the opposite side of a one room log cabin. Coals glow in the fireplace but the air is cold. On the dresser mirror the man finds a photograph. It captures his attention. His mouth falls open but he doesn’t speak. His face is fierce and unafraid, but in his eyes there is doubt and fear. If he is going to defeat the man in the picture, he has to be stronger. He has to be faster. He has to be better.
He races outside into the snow covered mountains of somewhere in Russia, and cuts down a tree, lifts a horse, and runs maybe fifty miles with an ox yoke around his neck.
That man was Sylvester Stallone.
If the 1985 blockbuster Rocky IV taught us anything, it’s that if you want to get in shape really fast, you need a training montage. Usually ninety seconds does the trick. But in the fourth installation of the Balboa franchise, the “getting ready for the big fight” sequence was eight minutes long. That’s two full songs! It was brutal. It was drawn out. It was painful. It just seemed like it was never going to end. That’s the hard truth about exercising. Exercise is work. It’s hard work.
“Actually, that was a pretty good montage,” says Brent Eno. “Some of what’s he’s doing is stuff people do every day, you know, chopping wood, using a sledge hammer… I use the sledge hammer every day, on a tire. It’s awesome. But there are lots of things we can use to exercise that are cheap: a single kettlebell, a sledgehammer, battle ropes, even just a set of dumbbells.”
Brent should know. He is the owner of CrossFit Aiken.
But if Rocky IV really taught us anything, it was that you need a trainer. A good one. Rocky needed one. Apollo Creed’s trainer, Duke, suddenly appears in the Siberian wilderness after promising “I know you think you’re gonna have to do everything by yourself, but you know, I’ll be with you.” Duke understood how to train. He was a professional. He advised on techniques, corrected improper form, and motivated Balboa to dig deep in order to champion his Soviet foe.
“You want to help people ‘get fit’ or ‘lose weight’, but those are just buzzwords,” claims Eno. “My goal is to help people improve their lives by being mindful of how they treat, and what they put in, their bodies. At its core is self control.”
Self Control. Discipline. Routine. Resolve. Maybe Eno learned that in the Air Force. Maybe it was the 14 years he spent playing competitive ice hockey.
“The biggest mistake people make is going too hard too fast. Start very slow and try to do whatever you choose to do every day. Get accustomed to it. Once you develop that habit you start incorporating new exercises and movement. From there you go on to understand proper form and alignment, and ideally you have a knowledgeable trainer to work with you, to further develop your routine.”
“Starting with something as simple as walking everyday is enough. The goal is to make that 20-30 minutes of exercise a daily habit. We are creatures of habit and once we develop a routine, especially one that gives you an endorphin release, we tend to stick to that routine.”
But it’s not all about the gym. Brent admits that, “Working out is only 25% of fitness. The other 75% is eating right, sleeping well, hydrating, stretching, even meditation helps.”
Yes, that sounds like a lot to take in. Maybe it’s too much for some folks to process. But If we’re truly honest with ourselves, we have to admit — if we, as a nation, have learned anything … anything at all … from Rocky IV, it came from the final moments, when Balboa was addressing the crowds of Moscow, and he said, “If I can change, and you can change, then everybody can change.”
