Ozzie Jacobs

An interesting thing happened over the last 3 months. The last 3 months served as a competitive season for me. Having retired from fitness competitions in 2006, I began focusing on my education in the field of Exercise Science and Yoga. Time started to drift by and then I realized that I missed having a fitness goal. My workouts were sufficient and my consistent yoga practice and cardio on the beach caused me to lean out quite nicely. Then on a whim I decided to compete in a bikini and modeling contest, it was at this point that I woke up my “focus” muscle.

This muscle had lay dormant for a little while, sure it was present in my day to day studies but this new level of focus was at a much higher intensity. I was driven to give 100% and I was determined not to give up even when the dieting became really tough and that last 10 minutes of cardio seemed like an impossible task. Each workout became a training ground toward overcoming obstacles and beating odds. As I now look back, there was a change occurring within me that was evident inside and outside of the gym. My confidence grew, my tenacity grew, a strong desire to break barriers developed, I discovered I wanted more out of my career and I realized that the strong “focus” and determination that I developed would help me achieve it.

Once upon a time, long, long time ago there was a man and a woman sitting by a tree. Suddenly they hear a sound; a crack of a branch,. The ground begins to shake and suddenly a thunderous roar fills the air. The man and the woman take a quick glance at each other and immediately, as if their bodies were machines, they begin to run. Their hearts began to race, their legs took them from rest to full speed in seconds; it was their body’s instinct that carried them to safety. As they reached safe harbor, they sat down on a rock and all was well; they were at peace once again. The man and the woman never saw the creature that loomed behind them; they did not need to see the danger to know how to respond because their instinct kicked in.

This is the story of how our bodies respond to stress, and it happens every day. When we face stressful situations in life, whether running from a predator, dealing with a deadline, or a bumpy time in a relationship our body releases sympathetic hormones (aka the “fight or flight response”) to allow our body to act. However, the problem is that unlike the cave man and woman previously described, we aren’t always able to run away as our body was designed.