From Beast Mode to Kingdom Purpose: How Perfect Practice Transforms Body and Spirit with Lance Hardin.

High Five ReignMakers.  (link to Podcast to listen and read along)

Testimonials provide hope and encouragement for us by bringing to life how God takes us from common men to Damascus men and women. We call these testimonials “Journeys through the fire.” To refine us and burn away the corruption that influences and traps us, we undergo trials, transformation, and renewal. Today, we learn how our physical body can illustrate a Spiritual reality. In this case, Lance Hardin of Hardin Fitness teaches us from the perspective of a personal trainer and coach how memory gets stored in the body and why repetitions transform us.

As worship pastor, husband and father of four, and concierge nutritional and fitness coach, Lance lives by two sayings—“Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect” and “We don’t live to eat, we eat to live.” For close to five decades, these ideals guided him as he forged champions and hearts of champions. Whether slinging kids, carrying groceries or battling in the gridiron trenches; forging perfection in any sport or endeavor requires attention to detail and discipline. Yet, to develop clients into disciples tops every accolade. 

Lance feels blessed to work as a personal trainer. While juggling family life, worship practice and coaching, time management and discipline keep him on track. Aligning with his perfect practice mantra, Lance prioritizes his ministries well—family first, and then church and clients equally. Serving clients who are unchurched as well as believers, Lance impacts clients both spiritually and physically, often long before some awaken to faith. Incorporating the wisdom of 1 Corinthians 12:25—“Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”—Lance trains concrete behavior infused with supernatural power.

Coaching changes the behavior of athletes who respect their coaches. Lance speaks about faith to those who see and inquire. When he sees clients with “ears that hear,” he tells them, “You've got an understanding [born through sports]. Now your behavior's going to change[spiritually], but it's not about behavior, it's about proximity. If you're close to the Lord,

you will become like the Lord.

Lance started as a gym rat at eight years of age, sharing space with his dad in their garage gym. At fifteen, upgrades to gym ownership and exposure to body building increased his proximity to men of fitness excellence. As the son of the owner, Lance had full access to clients including several Houston Oilers and countless athletes, coaches, trainers and gym rats. Reminiscing, he said, “Growing up in the '80s as part of that movement [Pumping Iron and the books of Schwarzenegger] and with athletes involved in professional sports; I embraced a philosophy of excellence within fitness.”

When asked about his perspective on excellence; immediately, he replied, “to retrain the core foundation. To retrain the client in functional movement; whether they fix cars,  compete as athletes, or lift up grandchildren; I want that core foundation to be there.”  For termites in a home, you kill the pest and rebuild or the house collapses. Decreased physical activity infects the core muscles like termites in the house. Any wrong movement and the spine collapses. Also, the arms and legs require the core to negotiate the energy [resist bending] to work together.” 

Spiritually, we are like a ballerina performing pirouettes under an umbrella in the rain. To keep dry she must remain under the umbrella, her core activation keeping her from drifting off center. As believers, we are safest under God’s umbrella. When we allow our bodies, our minds and our hearts to deviate from God’s word and presence, we spin wildly out of control and lose our proximity to the center. Spiritual formations, like fasting and silence, teach us to engage our spiritual core and allow the Lord to bring us back to neutral. Remember Lance’s key phrases—“Do not live to eat but eat to live” and “Perfect practice makes perfect.”

Into his twenties, after a decade of beast-like athletics, Lance submitted to the Lord. “I realized my pride [fear] motivated my excellence.” The eight year old gym rat understanding of how life works sculpted the physical body well but neglected to give God the glory. The desire to change drew Lance back to God and created a 180 degree shift in perspective. “My pursuit and desire for my clients also shifted,” he said. “Instead of being pride driven, my attention became core driven—physical and spiritual health and safety.”

Lance retrains muscle memory stored in these amazing structures called engrams; “memories travel through the central nervous system and command muscles to fire in specific ways and order—I want to train memories exactly right, from the beginning. Remember, practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. Consider this. Every poor repetition requires ten perfect repetitions to erase and over-write the correct movement. Once established, a perfect engram protects indefinitely. Then, to add complex movement to the precise movement can advance performance safely. Like a scratched LP, Lance repeats this message to keep his clients safe: It only takes 500 repetitions to code a good engram but thousands to over-write bad ones.

For Lance, re-coding engrams impacts character development as well.  Being in a successful environment for coaching, you're making good money, you have a good reputation. It's all pride driven. I realized the Lord gave me this vessel. to serve him, not to serve myself. It really changed my mindset. It took me from being hyper focused to a much more natural spot. I went from obsessive, compulsive and trying to be the beast; to realizing, I don't need to go that far. In fact, beast mode precipitates injuries.” 

When we pull back and assess beast mode; we will realize that we use it as a coping strategy, employing the fight response to overcome fear. Though generally effective for athletes within their sport, it, like our house with termites, destroys our nervous systems and makes life hard. Fight response coping strategies require adrenaline to feel normal. When off field and outside of the gym, fight driven personalities can struggle with common life, especially relationships. When adrenaline drops, threats to security and competency arise. The shield of invincibility fades and the discomfort creates irrational choices. Taming the beast misses the mark. To transform the drive from fear into purpose forges champions.

The rewrite for Lance’s primary fear engram came through parallels between coaching and ministry, While sparring internally with faith and pride, he replaced the corrupted memories that created his fear drive, and coded Scripture into the engrams that spoke of his value in Jesus. At first unable to reconcile ministry and athletics, he realized that [clients] want to know the origin of their coaches' wisdom; whether physical or spiritual in nature.”

Reconfiguring his engram from fear of inadequacy (fight response) to God’s created design and calling for him in sports; his “no fear” approach to training made sense. Every good principle comes from God, so find the origin of the wisdom in God’s Word, and speak boldly. “I realized, he said, the Lord has me here to minister to these clients in order to get their bodies healthy, but also in spiritual ways.” Ultimately, excellence goals became threefold— immediate, lifetime, and eternal. 

Coaches find it challenging to persuade clients to set goals. For many athletes, hitting the weights makes sense. Going full tilt in practice pays in gold. But curb an athlete’s comfort food or dessert? No. This resistance crafted Lance’s second mantra “We don't live to eat. We eat to live.” A number of issues drive us away from nutritional eating. A lot of emotion drives focus but you must strip the food of power.” Scripture cites fasting and silence as powerful tools of freedom (Isa 58:6-14). Diet optimization lays a foundation physically for both of these spiritual disciplines. Submission of corrupted thinking and reactions to achieve physical goals—the main challenge of food plans— also forges spiritual growth as well. Jesus, addressing Peter, states, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”(Mt 16:19.) As Christian coaches, understanding this one reality of spiritual and physical connection opens doors for evangelism.

As worship pastor, husband and father of four and concierge nutritional and fitness coach, Lance desires to build into his clients healthy choices and practices. To empower clients, from every stage of life, to embrace their opportunities, to apply their life experience and speak their testimony drives him now. A final quote from Lance, “As you build that character, you know, your behavior's going to change, because it's not about behavior, it's about proximity. If you're close to the Lord, you will become like the Lord, you know? Right.”  www.lanceHardingFitness.com and lancehardinfitness@gmail.com. (512)799-8943.

I want to contrast 2 types of fearless performers. Those who overcome fear obstacles or power over and through them, and those who allow Christ to change their Engrams from fear to passion. Fearless overcomers create coping skills that successfully overcome all obstacles and create champions on the field. Tapping into skills that submit fear to their will, they rise to the top of their field. Fearless overcomers often struggle off field when their coping strategies of choice tend to fail and when they no longer reign at the top. Fearless, or no fear performers surrender to Christ Jesus, the One true overcomer and find physiological stability and healing in his word. Staying under his umbrella of protection creates freedom from fear, transforming their motivations from fight to passion. No fear performers find rest off the field.

Shawn Arstein RPH, MTSB is a lifelong athlete, Pastor of ReignMakers Outdoor Ministry, and main presenter on the ReignMakers Forge Podcast: Empowering the Damascus Man. www.reignmakersforge.com

Get Forged with the 10 question workbook study. https://forms.gle/4qvpVNxof2KkuFSk8