It's Okay to be Lazy!
It’s okay to be lazy. It really is.
Here’s an honest fact: I’m extremely lazy. I’ll often decide to listen to music rather than the audiobook I was planning on listening to, simply because music is on my readily available phone and the audiobook is on the tablet which is (gasp) all the way in the backpack on my back. We all hate to get up and get a snack when we’re watching a movie, simply because it would mean moving. Often times, I know I need to get some work done but spend a lot of time on twitter instead, or tell myself that it’s totally fine that I play video games for two hours.
How we find ourselves lazy, in the end, is largely about what habits we’re used to. When you’re not used to working out, it’s going to seem like a mentally draining task. What we’re used to, we find easy, and what we aren’t, well, we get lazy about.
Another thing is that people get the impression that powerlifters are the “lazy” exercisers, because they do very little cardio and can be very out of shape when it comes to that stuff. Particularly with bigger powerlifters, it’s possible to have a high degree of competence in the strength field without having much in the way of conditioning. Even strongmen tend to get a lot more conditioning than most powerlifters do. As a result, it can often look like powerlifters are pretty lazy. I know that I certainly get a few clients who laugh when I admit that I really can't handle some of the crazy conditioning I put them through.
When you’re training for absolute strength, and you’re lifting near maximal weights, you need a long rest in between sets. That means rest times of even as much as 3 minutes - and most of us aren’t used to sitting on our thumbs for that long in the gym. While we disparage dudes for using their phones in the gym, it’s an absolute necessity when you’re trying to sit still and recover for a few minutes. That might look like being lazy, but if you really need to sit and recover from a maximal-effort set, it’s really just an appropriate recovery interval.
There’s nothing wrong with being lazy. Sometimes, we just don’t want to do things. Other times, the body needs to recover, and there’s no point to pushing it harder. Since we’re all used to certain habits and not used to others, we’re going to be lazy in some respect, sooner or later.
Just don’t be lazy about returning your plates when you’re done with a workout. That’s some hell-level assholery, right there.
