There comes a time in every man's life where he needs to find out who he truly is; a time to dig deep and search for him self; a time to man up for a real gut check. My time came recently in the form of a challenge made by my good friend and colleague, Jordan Geehan. He challenged me to a fitness competition in which the winner would be determined by who can produce the biggest results. So what was a man to do in such a situation? I looked him straight in the eyes and said. “I accept,” because I am a man.

This “competition” commenced this past Monday. Jordan's ridiculous work schedule and my chronic injuries have put a massive damper on any training attempts as of late. Let's not forget that we've been extremely lazy on top of that. But one day, it all changed on a slow evening in the fitness centre during the Christmas holidays. Jordan suggested we set some goals, get back into a routine, and set some sort of challenge to get us going. Sometimes, that's all it takes, and this time, it just happened to be enough to get us off our asses.

So, we took some measurements of ourselves to have some sort of a guide to measure our individual progress. Since we'll be doing a mix of weights and cardio, we measured our arms, legs, chest, and waistline. We then followed this up by taking ‘before' pictures of ourselves so we could also have visuals at which we could measure our progress as well. We topped this off by using Fitness 101's body fat analyzer (inquire with us if your interested in checking it out) to measure our body fat percentage. We have yet to set a definite deadline for the contest, but we are ranging around six to eight weeks from now. All of these variables can be utilized when setting up goals and objectives towards any sort of training routine.


So how will the winner be determined, you ask? It'll be determined in the same manner that it was started; measurements, pictures and whoever attains the best overall improvement from day one. It's all about adding muscle and subtracting fat. To make things a little more interesting, we've decided to throw money into a pot. The winner not only gets the pride and bragging rights, he also gets the bling to boot.

As much as there is a fun competitive nature about the whole thing, the comradery has been there from the get go. We purchase our supplements together to make sure we are both getting what is required for our demanding workouts. We exchange any advice that is beneficial to one another in terms of diet and training. Hell, we even send each other MP3s of dramatic movie soundtracks to help motivate us through those last grueling moments of our workouts.

So do yourself a favor and partner up with someone for your regimented workouts. Challenge each other, motivate each other, and be there to kick each other in the ass when there's evident slacking. If you jog, jog with a friend and tell one another stupid stories about the weekend to pass the time. If you play squash, find someone of similar level that will keep your interest up in playing, but won't discourage you too much if they beat you.

It's never a bad idea to partner up with someone of higher level then you. Constantly practicing with people of bad work ethic or poor skill can weaken your initiative to give it your best effort. Next thing you know, you're a slacker yourself and you're performing at a level far below your potential. Partnering up with someone better than you brings out the best in you. It's too bad this time around; I'm dealing with someone who isn't better than me. There can be only one...