Fitness and the Military Mind – War Perspective
Updated: 4 hours ago
Zack Christy has over 20 years of experience in fitness and personal training. His boxing experience was used to train thousands in the military before he turned professional. He is now the founder and CEO of Z-Man Fitness, personally training clients through customized plans, intensive one-on-one workouts, and expert advice on online platforms.
Is getting fit really that hard? The time constraints. The hunger. The strenuous exercises. Sweat. Pain. Soreness. The need for motivation! Yes. It is. Unless you change your perspective.
There is a military tradition in my family dating back to World War II, and after 9/11, I knew I wanted to join. I didn’t know where to start until I saw a commercial for “Special Operations”. There was a problem. My whole life, I had struggled with my weight, my family not being able to afford the martial arts I longed to practice, while my nutritional ignorance taught me a hard lesson. Then I found the boxing gym as a teen. During my recruitment, I fought in the amateurs, suffered injuries, surgery, and losses due to dramatic weight loss, atrophy, ketosis, and dehydration. I had the motivation without the knowledge. You had to take what is called a Physical Agility and Stamina Test (PAST) and lift 115 lbs over your head. Passing wasn’t the hard part. It was what was to come.
The owner of our gym, Tiny Ricci, our boxing mentor, passed away. On his deathbed, he told me I should become a pro boxer, but I knew I had to join the military first. I was so excited, Googling training methods so I could look cool to instructors, but I had strangely been routed into an obscure career field, and I couldn’t understand why, especially since these people didn’t even know what it took to throw a hook.
Ironically, I ended up physically training military personnel, ensuring physical fitness standards were met and exceeded. Not dozens, but thousands upon thousands of joint and coalition forces. I even taught them to box.
The person who initially taught me the most about personal training in the military was a former bodybuilder and military professional whose philosophy was simple. You can work out anywhere. Anytime. “You can work out in a 4x4 room,” as he put it.
But this career field had one thing I didn’t anticipate, igniting the fitness fire that would never be extinguished: mortuary affairs.
While deployed, I was assigned to a detail with the Army, manning the mortuary for days on end. A casualty came in, and we had to unload the transfer case from a huge cargo aircraft. We brought it into the mortuary and opened it. What I faced changed the way I think about fitness forever. It wasn’t fear. It was perspective.
I was 24. He was younger than me. Cold. Stiff. Part of his head was missing from a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). I wasn’t as sad as I was angry. Not just about this dead soldier I was helpless to save and the terrorists I wanted to kill. I was angry at myself. I had allowed someone to divert me from the mission.
This led me to missions in Special Operations, several near-death experiences, and a perspective of war no one could have prepared me to understand. Special Operations Forces (SOF) and other military members understand something.
Your fitness level is not optional, and in the military, it really isn’t. It’s a lawful order. It isn’t mere recreation or competition. It is a battle between life and death, and that battle may be someone else’s.
When the moment arrives, and you have to choose between fight or flight, fitness or failure, God forbid it passes you by! If it does, you’ll come to understand one thing forever. It isn’t someone else’s responsibility. It’s your responsibility.
Look in the mirror. Take a deep breath. Feel your pulse. Do you think you get another chance at this? The reason you think your fitness level is optional is that you do not have that perspective. You’ve never had to look necessity in the face and fight it off with only your own abilities to save you.
Think about this. What if your girlfriend, family, or the person you loved most in this world was captured and trafficked? Subjugated. Spent every day in pain, being tormented by demented terrorists? What would you be willing to do to save them? I can tell you.
You’d run for miles without the slightest thought of giving up. You’d climb a mountain. You’d fight harder than you ever had. You’d move faster, train with more intensity than others thought necessary, for longer than you knew you could. You’d make time all over the place and find time all over the clock. You’d persevere. Endure. Persist. You’d kill to accomplish the mission. You’d die before you quit. I know how you would feel because that’s the way I feel every day.
On several of the highest priority SOF missions, I came to understand the driving force behind this mission, scenes that would bring communities to tears. Intelligence that would make your skin crawl, and qualifications that have an attrition rate of over 90%, only in order to do the most dangerous things.
I thought their mottos would be some self-exalting, egotistical slogans, like “kick ass and take names” or “take names and kick their asses,” but they weren’t. They were of selflessness.
“That Others May Live”
Or,
“De Oppresso Liber” (To Free the Oppressed)
These men didn’t need someone to motivate them. They didn’t need anyone to encourage them to train. Spotters were for sniping. Headphones for protection. They didn’t need a reason. They had a reason.
Your fitness isn’t lacking because you’re lazy. You lack perspective. You get the opportunity to be healthy once. If you get the chance to hit the gym, you are not facing stair climbers and dumbbells. You are being given the one chance to live life to the full. To perform at your best. To thrive. To survive. To see the views from heights others can’t climb and the expanses of distances they can’t travel. To pull yourself up when no one else will. To push the limits of what you are capable of. Lift up the broken. To fight evil. To defend the weak and save the lost.
It’s not a workout, or an exercise class, or boring, endless monotony and repetition. It is the only day you’ll ever get. It’s the battle for survival. It’s the fight of your life.
Read more from Zachary Christy
Zachary Christy, CEO and Founder of Z-Man Fitness
Zack Christy is a leader in fitness know-how. Constant bullying as a teen led him to learn how to defend himself, and he has had several deployments abroad with Special Operations Forces, as well as clients who can attest to his personal desire for them to understand what they are capable of. As founder and CEO of Z-Man Fitness, his understanding is now available everywhere. His expert insights have already helped thousands of fitness enthusiasts, and now Z-Man Fitness continues the fight for fitness success.
