Mike Lamont: Team Training to Live a Better Life.

I returned to MM Team Fitness in April of 2013. I had been away from training for about 6 months because of 60+ hour, on-call work weeks. I ultimately changed jobs as I realized that lifestyle was going to kill me. When I returned to training, I found that I couldn’t finish the routines. One of the problems with dropping out is that everyone continues to move forward and you regress, rapidly. Everyone swears they will keep up with exercise, the reality is, it doesn’t happen. Those 3 hours a week are quickly replaced with something other than exercise and it takes an insidious physical toll. You never know it until you have to do something physical in an unfit state.

My first two months back were a struggle, the teams encouraged me to do what I could and to keep in mind that reentry is never easy. At that time I wondered if it was worth it. The key motivator was turning 50 in June of 2013 and seeing the decrepit physical condition of my friends. I didn’t want to be like them, I knew I had to get back in and make it part of my lifestyle going forward.

When we’re young, we measure our fitness level by how we look, how we impress others with max lifts, washboard abs and big biceps. By the time you’re 50, your fitness level is measured by how much you can still do in life outside the gym and the stuff you don’t think about when you’re younger like heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other lifestyle related diseases. The kind of stuff that can put you in a grave well before retirement or make retirement a physical and financial nightmare.  

I remember when I first started back with MM Team Fitness in early spring, I could barely cut my grass with a self-propelled mower without back pain and feeling wiped out the rest of the day.

In late fall, a friend asked me to come out to his farm and help him clear some land. I was hesitant because I knew that I had to cut and bag all the grass and leaves in my yard the same day as the weather was turning, but I decided to go regardless because he needed the help.

I spent the day using a chainsaw and ax cutting down and cutting up trees, loading them in a hauler and then stacking the wood on his property. We worked about 6 hours, non-stop. I went home tired but felt good about what we had accomplished. When I arrived home, I cut and bagged the grass and wet leaves in my yard, adding another 2 hours of manual labor to the day. Despite the long day, I still felt better than I used to after just two hours of hard yard work. I got up the next morning and wasn’t even sore, joined my 10a Team for a good workout.

At that point I realized the importance of maintaining a high degree of physical preparedness. It took me 7 months to get back into shape after dropping out, and it was well worth it. It’s an investment in me, for my future as well as my family. I am grateful that I can once again enjoy everyday activities of life, pain-free and without struggle.

- Mike Lamont