One Small Step

When I started boxing fitness my plan was to enjoy it and get fit, but accepted that it is a slow process. I wasn’t going to be able to do ten pull ups after the first week, and if that was my hope, I was going to be bitterly disaapppointed and disheartened. Instead I set out with a goal of doing one thing slightly better each time, one thing faster, heavier, stronger.

Lots of small steps.

Many of the exercises look easy when the instructor does it. He makes it look effortless. One of the exercises that looked so easy to do involved the resistance band. It was tied around an overhead bar and you had to kneel under it, hold the band behind you head at the back of your neck and then simply bend over and touch your elbows on your knees.

I tried so hard to do it the first night it was part of the circuit. I strained and struggled and couldn’t seem to bend at my waist at all. Same thing the second night. On the third night, the instructor told me to kneel down more, to rest my butt on my heels and instead of bending with my back, crunch using my abs. I knelt down, sunk into position, grabbed the resistance band and crunched my abs.

Slowly, my elbow drew closer to my knees. I grunted loudly and exhaled as much as I could. I felt my abs crunch even more and start to complain, but I held on. Finally, my right eldow pressed against my knee. That burst of excitement at getting that far after so much failure pushed me to pull my weaker left side down, inch by inch. I touched my left knee, grunted loudly in satisfaction and slowly released the tension.

I managed it twice more on the second set and went home feeling on top of the world.

It’s moments like this that keep me going back. Small steps, big progress.

Related:
Two Small Steps