He Hate Me!!!!!

Remember the XFL? It was suppose to be a football league to rival the National Football League but the league “tanked” due to poor ratings. Anyways… this league was nothing like the NFL they let the players make up their own names to put on the back of their jerseys. I can remember watching a game one day and this player had on the back of his jersey, ” He Hate Me”. I thought it was odd and I never really got it. Why the hell would he name himself ” He Hate Me”?

I lived in Atlanta around the early 90′s and I had finally given up my basketball career. I had been an athlete just about all my life and my instinct was to stay in shape even though I no longer aspired to play basketball professionally. I went to a very well known gym in the Atlanta area to inquire about signing up for a membership. I wasn’t all that impressed with the gym but the scenery (smile) is what got me, so I joined. I put down my initial fee and they assigned me a trainer on my first day. The guy didn’t ask me anything about my family history, past injuries, and he didn’t do any fitness testing. From the moment this guy spoke, it was all about “him”. He told me how he use to be a fat guy and how he managed to get into shape and become a trainer. He said he wanted to give me a free personal training session so I thought, ” What the heck”? I was still living on pennies and dreams at the time, so if it was free I wasn’t turning it down!

I started my free session with a bang!!!! I rememember doing bench presses, curls, and squats…. he put me through 3 sets of 20 reps of squats. I was in fairly reasonable shape but it was only my first day and it had been a long time since I worked out with weights. I thought he was trying to break me ya’ll! Ever seen the movie “Cool Hand Luke” with Paul Newman? The warden really tried to break Luke in that movie! I think he finally did. I survived the workout and went home. I woke up the next morning and I could hardly walk from all the squats he had me doing the previous day. If this was what it felt like to be fit, I would rather be unfit! He even tried to sell me some training sessions after the workout. Whitney Houston said it best “Hell to da nah” I wasn’t paying anybody to intentionally cause my body pain.

A couple of weeks later, I was sitting down watching tv and they were interviewing Rod Smart. Rod was the player from the XFL who had named himself “He Hate Me”. He said he named himself ‘He Hate Me” because it would motivate him when the coach played other players before him at his position. His last name was Smart but inventing that name I thought was pure genius! It made alot of sense after seeing his interview.

I went to the gym the next day and saw the trainer and needless to say I avoided him like the plague. I had just gotten over being sore and I wasn’t going to let him put me through that same thing again. I never did workout with him again and everytime I saw him after that I literally thought ,” He hate me! You should be eased into being fit not rushed into hating it. You will be sore from time to time as your workouts become more challenging but no one should be forced to be fit on their first day. Watch out for the He Hate Me personal trainer as he/she may turn you against being fit.