When You Put It All Together, It Spells "M-O-T-H-E-R"

Daughter has been after me for quite a while to add a sustained weight lifting regimen to my fitness plan.  As you all know, in the middle of June, she created my first comprehensive workout.  I have been diligent in following her instructions (no, I don't say that only because she reads the blog - it's the truth).  Just recently, my per mile running time has dropped by half a minute.  Coincidence?  I think not.    Way back when I was a teenager, I recall the tennis world being turned on its ear by the revelation that Martina Navratilova regularly made weight lifting part of her workouts.  Before that, everyone thought that weight training and working the muscles outside of one's sport made for more bulk and less speed.  Now, everyone, including me, is cross training.  We all see how cross training makes a better, well rounded athlete.  I even work on breath retention when I swim to increase my aerobic capacity when I run.  Weights help me both swim and run (and avoid the muscle mass loss that comes with age - ouch!). Weightlifters do cardio.  Runners, tennis players, basketball players,... lift weights.  We've learned that just doing your sport and doing drills directly related to your sport, isn't enough.  Pushing your muscles to create lactic acid creates endurance and strength, which translate to speed (relatively speaking, in my case) and power.  Having a well rounded exercise regimen is the only way to see sustained improvement, because everything in your body is interrelated.

Here in the Trenches, we understand interrelationship.  Although I usually settle custody before child and spousal support, I never settle support without settling property.  I never settle just one piece of property without settling it all.  Why is that?  They are all interrelated.  If a spouse keeps the house but doesn't have enough income or support to retain it, what good is that?  If a spouse keeps the majority of retirement but has no cash to buy their own home, is that a good result?  Maybe, but maybe not.  What if they keep the house and waive retirement, and they outlive the house proceeds?  Ouch!  We try to explain to clients that piecemeal settlement is almost never in their best interest because all the pieces have to fit together for an acceptable outcome.  When you either take a piece off the table, or fix it in place, you have removed some maneuverability and made our job here in the Trenches that much harder.  All the pieces need to be in play to create a life outside of the Trenches that is acceptable to all. We aren't trying to make life more difficult for the client, who just wants each individual piece settled so they are that much closer to the end.  By refusing to settle piecemeal, we are actually making it easier to fashion an acceptable life after the Trenches.  It makes for a better product, kind of like weight lifting helps create a faster running time. Here in the Trenches.