Life Yourself Up

H E A LT H

BODY Lift Yourself Up Be your own fitness hero.

BY CORY FREEMAN

My health and fitness journey has not ever been easy. There have been times, without a doubt, when it has owed, and felt like every part of training, nutrition, and recovery came together. However, even in times when it flows, there is still e ort and disciple required to keep it all running together.

In contrast, there are more challenging times, when training is arduous, nothing in my regular diet is satisfying, and my recovery is easily neglected. These are the times when we seek out forms of motivation. A primary source of motivation for many of us is our heroes, or those we greatly admire.

The world has no shortage of impressive physiques. Take a look on TikTok or Instagram, and there are a myriad of influencers and trainers showing what they have built. Before that, we had muscle magazines that every gay boy, including myself, seems to be guilty of perusing for motivation and alternative reasons.

I think many of us have heroes long before we start our fitness journey. I know I had been admiring muscular physiques for many years before I ever believed my e orts could achieve anything similar. It was, however, those muscle men in those magazines that really inspired me to put in the initial e ort to work towards a muscular physique.

Over the years I’ve been inspired by men and women alike in the gym and on social media. I consider those people to be my fitness heroes.

While there are benefits to having heroes in this regard, I also want to caution you on the pitfalls of placing others on the hero pedestal. Doing so can make us believe that they are somehow more able to achieve amazing results than normal.

Socrates is often quoted as saying, “No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”

The fact of the matter is that we are all capable of achieving remarkable results. It has been my long-standing philosophy that we kill our heroes. That we take people o those pedestals and recognize that they are as human as we are. They have achieved greatness in our eyes, so take that as indication that you are capable of incredible things, too.

CORY FREEMAN is a two-time first-place national bodybuilding champion, having won both of his first-place titles, The Men’s Classic Physique Master’s Over 35 at the 2019 NPC Viking Championship and at the 2019 NPC Masters USA in his rookie year. Cory works as a physical therapist in the home health industry.