23. Guinness and Gainz

A good pint of Guinness is one of life's great triumphs.

And having just got back from a long weekend in Dublin, I'm now officially allowed to say that. I'm now also officially allowed to live out my dream of being one of those shitebags who, at any given opportunity, will claim as pretentiously and insufferably as they can "hmm, well the Guinness here just isn't what it is in Dublin..."

Yes, I'm now that guy.

Though on the flip side of life's great triumphs, are life's small inconveniences.

I'm not just referring to non-Dublin poured Irish Stout, but other types of little annoyances:

• Our phone signal having a mare on the train

• Stepping on a wet bath mat in a lush pair of new socks

• Pouring a massive bowl of Weetabix Minis only to realise there’s no milk in the fridge

• Feeling compelled to read the latest Blogs and Dogs post otherwise you’ll upset Howie

Yep, all very unnecessary.

There's been another one of life's inconveniences that has been swimming, running and walking (reference will become clear in about two lines time) around in my head over the past day or two.

And with mild-to-low interest, what’s that I hear you ask?

Basically, fitness levels. And how quickly they can dissipate.

After any sort of extended break from exercise, I’ve found they can deteriorate quicker than it takes to wince at the thought of a London-poured pint of the Black Stuff.

Whether said break is from being ill, being injured, generally being unmotivated/out the habit, or having returned from a very boozy weekend, it’s a thought that pops into my mind pretty much every first session back.

And as I started sweating alcohol and nearly beginning to cry after about 2 minutes in a game of 5-a-side football last night, it’s something that once again cycled to the forefront of my mind.

Fitness levels. Difficult to gain, easy to lose.

Over the years, this whole ‘difficult to gain, easy to lose’ concept is something that I’ve found not only to be incredibly frustrating and demotivating, but also a recurring source of self-criticism (something my brain seems to never need a second invitation to jump at).

Variants of the following thoughts have, with relatively regular frequency, lodged themselves in my mind:

• “Really, work your arse off for months only to piss it up the wall in a week!?”

• “Jeezo, I really have shit genetics”

• “You’re bloody useless at this, maybe you’re just not cut out for this whole exercise thing”

• “Why on earth does this affect me so much more than anyone else!?”

As you can probably imagine, or maybe even relate to, this isn’t the most fun of headspaces to be in.

Is it overly harsh and overly ego-centric? Probably.

Is it totally out of character? Probably not.

I say overly ego-centric as if we were to Google “why do we lose fitness so quickly” then we’d be met with over 4.5 billion results.

This would possibly suggest that it’s a slightly more widespread challenge, and that maybe not everyone swans between workouts with boundless energy, and never losing any sort of fitness or motivation.

And other people being in the same boat (or on the same rowing machine) is exactly the type of reassurance that personally speaking, my brain seems to crave.

This whole rapid loss of fitness idea is something that I’ve come across a couple of times recently.

Firstly, on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

In episode #1735, with physicist and longevity of health guru Peter Attia, they discuss two different studies which look at the effects of exercising, and not exercising, on people in their 60s.

To keep it fairly top-line, in study 1, they put the subjects on a 6 month strength training programme and high protein diet. On average, the participants put on 1.7kg of muscle mass in that time. Gainz.

In study 2, the participants were put into 10 days of bedrest. This time, on average, 1.5kg of muscle was lost.

In short, what it took to put on in 6 months, was lost in 10 days.

Of course, like all these studies, there are multiple variables at play, however the effect of activity/inactivity seems to be a huge factor here.

A similar concept was detailed in Andre Agassi’s incredible autobiography “Open”.

Quick side note, I’d recommend that book to anyone, especially sports fans. I thought it was brilliant.

But back to the point, after winning his first Grand Slam, Agassi’s career took a bit of a downturn. Another quick side note, it’s interesting how often that seems to happen in life; achieve a big goal, and then shortly after, be met with a sort of emptiness.

But anyway, back to the point again. Not too long after winning Wimbledon in 1992, a cocktail of complacency, lack of motivation and a stint on crystal meth (yep…) saw a, not surprisingly, sudden deterioration in his game “Every shot is an educated guess, and I’m no longer educated. I’m as green as I was in juniors. It took me 22 years to discover my talent, to win my first slam - and only two years to lose it”.

But whether it’s from podcasts, books, personal experience, or any of those 4.5 billion Google results, it seems to be a fairly safe thing to state that fitness can be pretty quick and easy to lose. Far more so than we’d probably like.

It’s quite a strange concept, as from an evolutionary point of view, we may imagine that it wouldn't make a great amount of sense to perish away after a bout of inactivity.

Well, apparently, it does.

Professor Robert Newton, from the Edith Cowan University Health and Wellness Institute, makes a solid observation that our great great ancestors didn’t tend to spend prolonged periods on the sofa or in the pub "you couldn't spend days lounging around the cave because you'd soon starve to death or something would kill you.” Fair point.

As such, though our bodies tend to be good at maintaining a certain level of fitness when we consistently do it, they’re not so good when we don’t.

Prof Bobby Newts goes on to state “when you don't use the system at all and you don't contract the muscles at all, they shrink rapidly in as little as two weeks in terms of loss of muscle size and muscle strength." (here).

Again, this makes sense to me. I’d even say 2 weeks is generous…

This whole ‘difficult to gain, easy to lose’ idea can be a challenging one. Not just when it comes to fitness, but in life more generally. You know how it is:

• It’s difficult to get a lot of money, it’s easy to spend it.

• It’s difficult to get a good reputation, it’s easy to blow it.

• It’s difficult to get new readers, it’s easy to lose them (very easy in my case).

I'm sure you can think of a load more examples. Destructive behaviours have a rather inconvenient tendency to be far more immediate, obvious and impactful than non-destructive ones. Far more so than the longer and more arduous nature of their positive counterpart.

Although a slight inconvenience, I do think there’s some reassurance to be taken in that this struggle is something that seems to happen to everyone.

And from a personal point of view, once all this Guinness is finally out of my system, I suppose it’s back to grinding away at that very struggle.

Sláinte to that.