Well here we come up to a brand new decade! The usual disbelief, the usual sense of 'where-did-the-time-go', the usual contemplation of ways to make massive changes in one's life. Undoubtedly, January 2010 will see crowded gyms as people try to integrate new health habits into their busy lives, and by February, the only people left will be the regulars.

I'm not really one to ask about how to start an exercise program. I started in 1986 and literally haven't stopped, ever: I took a month off to travel in 1987; another month off for work in 1988; then about three weeks off in 1999 during my honeymoon--though I squeezed in a few runs in Tuscany--and handfuls of days here and there for sickness and other unavoidable circumstances. I am absolutely unabashedly an exercise freak.

But when I think back to starting, how I started and why, there were a few key details that probably set me on the path that I'm kind of inexplicably still on:

1) A simple program.  The program that I started on was three or four days a week, 45 minutes a day, do-able in my home. It was the strength training program that accompanied the SOLOFLEX, which I wrote about here, and I later learned was designed by two-time Mr. Olympia Frank Zane. It was a full-body, Monday-Wednesday-Friday kind of affair, with a handful of "optional" exercises you could do on alternate days, which I did on Saturdays. You started with "abs", went to legs, then back, then chest, then shoulders and arms. Each day had six exercises, and they were different on all three days. You did three sets of twelve reps, increasing the weight when you could do all the reps. Thirty seconds between sets, one minute between exercises.

I remember this so well because I must have been on this program for two years, and it worked so well that I still use a version of it. It's a pretty great template.

I think that there's such a deluge of fitness information out there that most people wind up just getting confused. Sure, there are valuable advanced techniques, and valuable off-the-beaten-path exercise modalities that at some point may be worth your attention. But not when you're first starting out. I recently attended some aikido classes by a teacher who tried to show me--who's done all of two months of aikido--exactly how to do a technique, from precise hand and foot placement to how hard to throw and how exactly to respond to the attack, etc. etc. I wasn't allowed to make a single, minute movement unless it was spot-on correct. It took about 45 minutes, and at the end, I was far more confused than enlightened, and I couldn't tell you anything about the technique now. Most classes I attend are taught by the 80-plus year old teacher who gives the beginners a basic sketch, and has us learn by doing, over and over.

It works much better.

2) Clear goals. This was an easy one: I was an adolescent boy. I wanted to feel more physically competent. I had just gotten my ass kicked by a season attempting to play football, and was so slow and weak that I spent most of the season on the bench. I realized I was a skinny dork, and didn't want to feel--or look--that way any more. I suppose there were other reasons you could easily assign to it: I was just entering manhood and wanted to accelerate the process, I felt like a bozo when it came to dating, blah blah. But I knew that I wanted to be bigger and stronger and that strength training was the way to get there.

3) Inspiration. Like just about every kid who was into being physical, I was into the ROCKY movies. They seemed custom-built for adolescent boys: honest, hardworking underdog guy works out like a fiend and achieves glory.

A few months after I started lifting, one of the big, strong guys who had chucked me around all football season said to me, "You've been lifting, haven't you?" Not realizing that there had been any noticible changes in my physique to speak of yet, I asked him how he knew. He said, "I can just tell." Muscle-obsessed freak that I was, this made my day. I'd earned the begrudging respect of one of the big guys, and there was no stopping me after that. Three years later, after I'd long since given up on football for other pursuits, the new football coach saw me in the weight room and practically begged me to put on the shoulder pads again. So in three years I'd gone from a bench-warmer to a guy the coaches were courting.

It's funny how clearly I remember those couple of moments: fleeting, offhanded remarks from some guys who shared similar goals, and yet, they made a big difference. They kept me getting up early and hitting the weights. Most people who read a fitness blog tend to be pretty well sold on a fitness program already, so maybe the resolution for those of us who have already drunk the workout Kool-Aid should be to be a source of encouragement and inspiration to other people this year--and particularly towards the beginning of the year, when intentions are good but old habits keep rearing their heads.