As unlikely as that may sound, it really did happen, I was there.

Several years ago, I traded some time and talent as a professional camera man for a Golds Gym membership that I would have had trouble affording otherwise. This particular Gold’s gym had as many CEO’s, Diva’s and paparazzi as it had real weight lifting members. It was here that I met a massive gentleman whom like myself who was working there in order to get the opportunity to be near this fabulous gym, its new equipment and the fantastic talent that was there all the time.

The reticent quiet individual had at that time won dozens of body building awards and was continuing to win consistently even at that time.

The odd thing was that no one had ever seen him workout. I was working my magic with the camera there on a near daily basis and I saw him lift weights only when he was putting them back on their respective stands.

There was a buzz around the gym that he was on steroids or taking some kind of drugs and quite honestly, I have to say that it really did take me more than a few weeks to even catch him lifting weights late one night.

I couldn’t help myself, so I thought to query him as to how he managed to win, win, win and yet this was the first time I had ever seen him just finishing a workout.

“You are winning regional contests but rarely ever work out”, I began.

He looked at me oddly and asked me why I thought he never worked out. I told him about the rumors that he might be on muscle building drugs or steroids etc. He laughed quietly and remarked, quite truthfully that drugs don’t build muscles they only help one to work out more strenuously.

Thinking that this was the beginning of some kind of story, I waited, but he went back to picking up a stray weight on the floor almost as if i wasn’t there. Four weeks passed before we could resume the topic.

Ahh ha, I thought as a month later I spied him in the middle of a preacher curl workout. In a rather nonchalant way, I unhurriedly, wandered over and by incredible coincidence happened to be right there in front of him as his reps were finished. To my surprise, without pausing he continued the conversation from the month before.

Seeing that he was a little more talkative than before, I again asked him what was his secret.

What he said then was quite extraordinary – He quietly revealed that he monitors his heart beat both at rest and at play. After some time, he knows exactly what his heart rate should be when his body is at complete rest ( explained as not rebuilding muscle ) He said most people work a different set of muscle groups daily, but that his difference was based on more.

He continued that the real pivotal difference was simply the exact time period or signal used to start working out again.

He told me that he knows his heart rate when its at rest and that after a really heavy workout the muscle fibers are damaged and need to be rebuilt. None of that is rocket science, we all pretty well know that. However, what was different is that in his case, he won’t start working out any body part at all until his heart rate is once more ‘at rest’ again. This could be several days or even a week, but he won’t work out again until then.

Does this work for everyone? I can’t say, but when I left Asia, this unassuming body building janitor was continuing to un-reluctantly body slam contest after contest to the near complete befuddlement of his competition training in the exact same gym. Gold’s gym in this particular Asian country produces more body builder champions than most of the other Gyms combined.

If you are not a body builder and haven’t left a few gallons of sweat in a local gym already this story is probably a total non-event. The “No pain no gain” mantra might have been one of those cutesy phrases that you have merely heard. The real point being made here is so many of us who exercise and have been doing it for years can get so sure that we know, we absolutely know the right way to do a particular thing. So, ohhhhhh no, we are not going to change what we are doing.

So, we have all seen the tunnel visioned friend who is working hard at doing exactly the same thing he has been doing all along and hoping, yes even praying that his future plans which contain more of the same old methodologies will finally bring him that much needed change. Oops, would that be too much to expect?