#80 Humble Yourself at the Starting Point

Humble yourself from the start.  You may be new to our process.  You may see all these people lunging 400 or 800 meters or doing all these wild things.  You think, "How the fuck can I do that?"  Maybe your starting point is lunging 10 steps, then walking the next 20 minutes.  Then it’s 20 steps.  Then it’s 50 steps.  It doesn’t matter what that starting point is.  You just have to get going.

Knee Health

I went on a deep dive on knee health during the quarantine.  I was trying all these advanced isometrics on my knees.  What did I discover?  They were weak.  Up to this point, I squatted five times a week for three years.  I had lunged 800 meters every day for 300 days in a row, and even lunged for three-quarters of a mile with an 80-pound vest.  I've done a bunch of wild shit over the last seven to 10 years with no knee pain.  Then, as soon as I start to jump, I get jumper's knee and patellar tendonitis. 

As I went in on the deep dive, my ego was telling me to go try the advanced exercises.  Little did I know, I had to take it all the way back to the basics.  My knee tendons were so weak.  My tendon strength was below my baseline.

Understand

You can have aspirations of where you're going to take it to, but you might come into this and say, "Yeah, I can do the Get Stacked plan, but I can only lunge 100 meters.  What do I do after that?"  Walk it.  Get a sled.  There's always a way. 

When I was figuring out my QL, I was missing my 400-800 meters of lunges.  My baseline.  I still went to the track… and power walked a mile.  I’ve done sled work too.  I need the consistent routine to stay in the groove.  Not only that, but I’m also listening to David Goggins.  I told myself, I'm going to power walk a mile. Tomorrow maybe I'll do longer.  Maybe then I'll be able to lunge.  Whatever it is. 

Humble yourself and fucking move.  Because if I just fucking move, I'm going to feel better than if I didn't.  When you go to the gym, you never come out of it and go, "I wish I didn't do that." 

It doesn’t matter where you start.  Get there, get something done.  What matters is that the process must continue.  The time put in to building up your metabolic work and conditioning will carry you through the times when you need it.