The Third Set

This past year, one of my new endeavors has been to work with a personal trainer. It has been a joy to get to know Aaron Johnson, a delightful and talented personal trainer with a profound spiritual side. Unfortunately, he is quite concerned about the sad and pathetic state of my abdominal musculature. He frequently reminds me that there are eighty year olds who can show me up in a contest of sit-ups. Aaron has me do three sets of every exercise and he is very consistent about this concept. If I were in charge, I would only do two sets of the exercise. But for Aaron, just two sets will not do. The third set of exercises is the set that pushes your muscles to grow and stretch beyond their original capacity. It requires great mental focus to finish the third set. The ultimate goal is to bring the physical body under subjection of the spirit while still tired and under duress. Today, Aaron had me working with boxing gloves and punching at handheld targets. Between the punching, he instructed me to lean back to avoid getting hit. Then I was to spring forward, in order to punch some more. The first and second sets were super fun and I didn't miss a beat. When that obnoxious third set arrived, Aaron hit my shoulder and declared profoundly, "Don't get hit when you're tired." Well, doesn't that just about sum up how we function in life? Our capacity to grow is determined by our execution of the third set. Do we just want to make it through to the end of a spiritual exercise, or are we trying as hard as we were during the first set? Or as Aaron would put it so succinctly, "Don't get hit when you're tired."

*Side note: Aaron Johnson is currently a personal trainer at LA Fitness on Preston and LBJ. He also does children's fitness camps. His website is www.skatebuds.com.

Rachel Roark