What I Learned

What I Learned

This project was incredible for increasing my passion for exercise. I was able to pass on some of knowledge to others which was a great feeling. Throughout the course of the past couple months I also made some massive improvements to myself involving strength, endurance and muscle tone. My deadlift max raised about 70 pounds and my bench press max raised about 60 pounds. At the beginning of the project I wasn't any sort of a runner but currently I'm doing my first marathon in two weeks. Two days ago I went on a little four mile run and did the first two at 5:30 minute mile pace. A couple weeks ago I did 6 miles at 6 minute pace and a 27 mile run whereas when I first started a few moths ago I was going on three mile runs at 10 minute mile pace. To measure my improvement in terms muscle tone I took progress pictures of my abdomen about every month.

To conclude, this project was amazing for me. It successfully reignited a passion I had been starting to lose sight of. My life had been on a path that was not opportune for my long term goals. Not only did I become physically improved but my persistence, determination and ability to strive for my goals improved. At this point I believe those aspects are more a part of who I am than ever before in my life. To provide a simple overview of how my life has been, I will explain some aspects of the past couple months. On average I've been working out 2-5 hours a day four to seven days. I alternate how much time I put into exercising in order to have a recovery period. For one length of time I may have grown a bit fanatical, getting up at five every morning and running for two hours, going to school, going to swim practice, (I'm on a swim team) then lifting weights and doing calisthenics before running again and getting home to do more strength training. During that time I would finish exercising at around 9:30 which was perfect so I could go to bed at 10:00 and do it over the next day. I would often break past five hours with over 10 miles of running, 75 minutes of swimming and hours of strength training. After not having a rest day in weeks and being forced to visit the chiropractor for a myriad of problems related to over training I decided to tone it down a little. Earlier I mentioned that the mental traits exercise affected other parts of my life. With the added discipline, persistence, and determination I was able to accomplish mush more in school, raising my grades and learning more content. Right now I am the closest I've ever been to my life goals and I reiterate, the personal characteristics that I value most, that are the closest to my heart are more present in my everyday life than ever before.