Never Start Over Again

Eden ist Psychologin, Stressmanagement-Trainerin und seit vier Jahren Mitglied bei Escapist CrossFit Berlin.

In diesem Gesprach erklärt sie, warum Motivation fast nie der richtige Ansatz ist, was Stress wirklich bedeutet und warum der Korper der schnellste Weg zur mentalen Gesundheit ist. Themen: Das Drei-Ebenen-Modell von Stress. Gewohnheit vs. Willenskraft. Winter-Depression und was dagegen hilft. Die vier Saulen der Gesundheit. Wie eine 105 kg Backsquat das Selbstbewusstsein in allen Lebensbereichen verandert. Never Start Over Again mit Rickard Long. Jeden Montag.

Raanan walked past Escapist CrossFit one day and saw a sign: "We'll make you fit in 12 weeks." He did not believe it. He decided to try it anyway. He had not done serious sport since he was 25. He had chronic back issues. He had a dislocated vertebra that gave him a week every year where he could not walk. His first session ended after one round because his face lost all colour. He came back. He trained three, four, five times a week. He started running 10ks on weekends. His back improved. His knee improved. He went from not being able to hold 130 watts on an assault bike to deadlifting, cleaning, doing gymnastics. Then he fell on the edge of a box, broke a rib, and Rickard told him to go get it checked. The X-ray showed something else. A CT scan confirmed it. A 4cm tumour in his left lung. Stage three cancer. The chemotherapy started. Then surgery to remove half his upper left lung. Then the cancer moved to stage four. Then a second round of chemotherapy, harder than the first. From October to January he could barely walk his dog for 15 minutes. He came back to Escapist last month. This episode is a conversation between Rickard and Ronan about what fitness actually is for, what it means to build an identity as someone who trains, and why the body you build before the crisis is the body that gets you through it. Ronan's goal right now: run a 10k without losing his breath. He is working toward it with one and a half lungs. This is not a fitness story. This is a story about what never starting over again actually means when life removes your ability to start. —— Links:→ Health and Fitness Map: escapistcrossfit.com/health→ Free assessment in Berlin: go.escapistcrossfit.com/freenonsweat-page→ Escapist Academy: escapistcrossfit.com/academy —— Hosted by Rickard Long · Escapist CrossFit Berlin · escapistcrossfit.com

Part 2 of the Berlin Professionals & Health series. You finish work. You planned to train. And then something happens, the energy is gone, the motivation has evaporated, and you tell yourself you will go tomorrow.

Tomorrow becomes next week. Next week becomes next month. This is not a discipline problem. Here is what is actually happening. By the end of a full working day, research suggests the average person has processed approximately 35,000 small decisions. Most of them are trivial. But collectively they deplete the same cognitive resource that self-control and long-term decision-making draw from. By 6pm, the part of your brain responsible for making good decisions, the prefrontal cortex, is running on empty. Going to the gym is a large, complex, effortful decision. It is exactly the kind of decision a depleted brain refuses to make. This is why Berlin is particularly dangerous for this pattern. Berliners actually work fewer hours per week than most other German cities. And yet Berlin has among the highest burnout rates and most sick days in the country.

The problem is not total hours. It is structure or the absence of it. Everything gets pushed to the end of the day. Work ends late. Restaurants open late. Social commitments happen late. And the training that was planned for "after work" gets absorbed by all of it. Plus: the history no one talks about, how the divided city may have permanently shaped Berlin's relationship with tomorrow. The one alarm clock that actually solves the morning problem. And why asking for help is not a weakness, it is the fastest route to change.

Part 1 of a new series: Berlin Professionals & Health. 

Why do educated, intelligent professionals, people who know exactly what they should be doing for their health, still struggle to do it consistently? Rickard moved to Berlin in 2011 during the Rocket Internet boom and spent years inside the startup scene. He watched founders and professionals in their late twenties pour everything into building something and arrive at their mid-thirties with their body completely out of shape. Not from ignorance. From infrastructure. Berlin has built a professional culture that pushes everything to the end of the day. Eating late. Working late. Socialising late. And health is always what gets moved when the afternoon fills up. The data: 61% of German workers report suffering from burnout, up 11% in five years. Burnout costs €9 billion annually. Mental health sick leave averages 38 days per case. And Berlin specifically runs on late-night culture, which leaves mornings unprotected and evenings consumed. The people who stay fit through demanding careers do not have more discipline. They train before the day can steal the time. Part 2 next week. 

Hosted by Rickard Long · Escapist CrossFit Berlin

Escapist turns ten this year. Rickard looks back at what motivated him to start it in 2016 — and then looks at what the health data in Germany shows over the same decade. The origin: deep frustration with normal gyms. No real progress. No community. No intensity that made sense. CrossFit changed that, and the question became simple — who is fitter after five to ten years in a normal studio vs this? The answer was obvious. The data: German healthcare spending went from €328 billion to €538 billion in ten years — up 64%. Obesity went from 12.2% to 19.7%. Cost per person up 44%. Diabetes now affecting more than 10% of the population. More money spent. Health moving in the wrong direction. The conclusion: Germany has a prevention problem, not a spending problem. And the mission that started in 2016 is more urgent now than when it began. Never Start Over Again is your weekly Monday reset — hosted by Rickard Long.

Everyone knows they should eat better, move more, and sleep longer. That advice has been on every magazine cover for 30 years — and Germany is still getting sicker every year. So this episode is not about that. Five non-obvious, uncomfortable things that would actually change Germany's health trajectory if enough people did them. No government programme. No employer subsidy. Just individual decisions. Measure grip strength and VO2 max — not weight. Standing more at work burns the equivalent of two marathon runs per month. Daily alcohol suppresses everything your training is trying to build. Power and balance decline faster than muscle size after 40 — and that is what determines whether you stay independent at 70. And the lunch table you sit at every day shapes your health more than your running shoes. Five things. All of them within reach this week. Never Start Over Again is your weekly Monday reset — hosted by Rickard Long.

Why does the medical system tell people to stop moving — when movement is often the only thing that would actually fix the problem? What happens when a doctor says stop sport and the patient decides not to listen? And what is a coach actually for when everything the textbook says you should be able to do has been taken away? Three questions. Three stories. One pattern. Lisa was told she would need a wheelchair. Her lumbar spine disintegrated at 46. She was back at Escapist within weeks and did her first deadlift a year later. A member who had a car accident and could barely use her upper body not only kept her muscle mass during rehab — she built some. And a member who fought stage 4 cancer and returned to training with one lung. Plus: what statins actually do to your ability to train, my father's bypass surgery, and the one question you should ask any doctor who puts you on long-term medication. This episode is not medical advice. It is fifteen years of watching what happens when people refuse to accept the first answer they are given. Never Start Over Again is your weekly Monday reset — hosted by Rickard Long.

If you wanted to drive from Berlin to Rome, the first question is not "how do I get there?" It is "where are you right now?" Health and fitness work the same way. And almost nobody starts with the right question.

This episode introduces the Escapist Health and Fitness Map — seven levels from Orange to Black, covering mobility, nutrition, body composition, gymnastics, strength, and metabolic conditioning. Built from nearly a decade of watching real people move through real progressions. Most people start at Orange or Red. Consistent members are now doing Black. They work in offices. They have families. They started exactly where you are.

Today also marks the start of a new training cycle at Escapist — six to twelve week blocks until the end of the year, each one built around this map.

The map is free. Find your level: escapistcrossfit.com/health

Never Start Over Again is your weekly Monday reset — hosted by Rickard Long.

I meet people at offices, co-working spaces, birthday parties. The moment fitness comes up, someone says "I have Urban Sports Club" or "we give our staff Wellhub." And I ask the same question every time: when did you last go? How often in the last three months?

They go blank. Every time.

This episode is about why that happens — and why in 2019, Escapist made the decision to cancel its Urban Sports Club partnership and never look back. What fitness aggregators actually do to coaching businesses. Why competing on price and convenience is the opposite of building lasting health. Why 94% of Escapist members train every month while the average gym membership goes unused 80% of the time. And what actually changes behaviour — not access, not convenience, but a relationship with someone who knows your name.

Never Start Over Again is your weekly Monday reset — hosted by Rickard Long.

I was at the Freibad with my kids this week. And something stopped me. The number of seriously overweight children — children who will carry that weight for the rest of their lives unless something changes. And the thing that is not changing is the conversation. We are not having it.

This episode is about why silence about a real problem is not kindness. It covers the most successful public health intervention in modern history — the North Karelia Project in Finland, which reduced cardiovascular mortality by 84% over 40 years through community lifestyle change, not government policy. Why Sweden's tax-free gym subsidies have not moved the needle. Why Germany just quietly cut its fitness course tax relief while facing an €18.8 billion healthcare gap. And why the real problem is not policy — it is heroes. We are celebrating the wrong ones.

Plus: what body positivity got right, what it got catastrophically wrong, and what being a real lighthouse actually looks like.

Never Start Over Again is your weekly Monday reset — hosted by Rickard Long.