Mature Inspiration: May 29

Your Endgame Should Not be A Wedding…

…or your class reunion.

We’ve all seen the articles featuring people who decide to “get in shape” for an upcoming event, such as a wedding, class reunion, summer swimsuit season or other milestone. This isn’t a bad idea, except that once the milestone passes, most people go right back to the unhealthful lifestyle that got them out of shape to begin with.

Photos anticipated to be taken at such events are the strongest motivation for people getting in shape, with the desire for ego-stroking compliments coming in a close second. What joy really will come from viewing photos later on, seeing one’s self in top form? Nobody wants to see what you used to look like, especially if you’ve let it all go to pot and have sailed downhill ever since.

Pointing out what one used to look like—in this case, much better than one does currently—only highlights weakness and failure. Pointing to what we used to look like back when we more highly prized self-care and self improvement only casts a glaring spotlight on how little we care at this moment.

Additionally, once someone does get themselves in shape, the hard work is behind them. It’s far easier to maintain the more healthful eating regimen and the workout than it was at the outset when it was all new and uncomfortable, so why don’t more people continue their new lifestyle once they’ve experienced its many rewards?

Lunges and Knee Pain

When it comes to injured or cranky knees, let’s not put the cart before the horse. “Work through the pain” is insanity. Fix yourself before resuming exercising via utilizing the RICE method: rest, ice, compression, elevation. Avoid stressing the knees while sitting (extend your legs rather than fold them). Never lock your knees, as most people do while standing. Do not make your knees do the stabilizing work for which your leg muscles are intended.

When you’re ready to get back to doing your lunges, stretch slowly and gradually for a good ten minutes before initiating the first lunge. Do not allow your knee to go forward of your foot.

Stationary Lunges In Place are an amazing butt/hamstring/ quad exercise: Here’s an illustrative example on YouTube:

I do it a bit differently. I get into a lunge position—others might first try a dry run without weights—with my bent knee not extending further forward than my foot. From this position I push upward and backward at the same time, using my heel rather than my sole to power up/ascend. I squeeze my butt hard at the apex of the movement. Then without pausing or un-flexing, I lower myself again to starting position placing all the stress on my heel rather than the entire foot. Then I repeat. I perform as many as I can. Not too many people can do this stationary lunge like this trainer in the video is doing without losing balance, so I hold a single dumbbell in one hand and perform it alongside a bench so that I can steady myself with my free hand as needed.

Pain is your body’s way of saying “stop.”

Your Biggest Obstacle In The Gym: Your Ego

Richard Sullivan @ age 55

People’s main attraction to crossfit and powerlifting is ego—their need to “prove” something to themselves and others. Crossfit and powerlifting are inherently injurious by their very nature and design. By choosing to engage in these disciplines, those people having no concept of proper form are putting themselves in harm’s way and opening the door to injury. Watching their bodies contort cruelly as they struggle to hoist unmanageable amounts of weight is cringe-inducing.

Obviously, fitness should be all about NOT getting injured. About NOT putting ourselves in harm’s way. About NOT taking stupid chances that can have life-long negative consequences.

Specifically, many people in gyms across the world are confusing powerlifting with bodybuilding/strength training/fitness.

Bodybuilding/strength training/fitness are about looking better, building strength, increasing lean muscle mass and bone density, becoming healthier, and above all, remaining active and mobile by carefully avoiding injury. 

How much weight one can lift has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with bodybuilding/strength training/fitness: in fact, using challengingly heavy weight is the very definition of powerlifting. To conflate the two is a big mistake that will prevent you from succeeding in either discipline. You have to choose whether you’re in the gym for bodybuilding/strength training/fitness reasons, or you’re in the gym to challenge yourself to hoist as much weight as you possibly can. When it comes to bodybuilding/strength training/fitness, unwieldy weight is more enemy than friend; when a challenging amount of weight is introduced to the mix, most people’s form goes right out the window.

To achieve your goal in bodybuilding/strength training/fitness, you must maintain proper form no matter how much weight you choose to use. It is counterproductive to hoist more weight than you can PROPERLY handle, as your form will suffer—and therefore your results will suffer.

Rarely do I witness people in the gym utilizing strict, proper form —whether they choose to use light, or heavy, weights. Of all the people I have seen fixated on their cellphones at gyms, never ONCE have I seen anyone watching a video about how to properly perform an exercise.

If you have not seen positive results thirty days into your program while working out three times a week, your form needs work. The majority of people in gyms across the world either have no concept of proper form to begin with, or they ignore it as inconsequential. They are placing the cart before the horse by prioritizing heavy weight over proper form—and their nagging injuries and lack of progress is the result.

Learn about proper form by viewing YouTube videos by Jeff Cavaliere and Mike Thurston.

Mature Monday Inspiration May 21

Mature Friday Inspiration May 18

Celebrity SuperBodies

Henry Cavill by Ben Watts/Men's Journal

It’s tempting to click on articles like the Men’s Journal example above which features celebs looking in absolute top shape for a specific purpose. If you pay attention you’ll see most of those featured do not currently look like they do in this photo spread because few are so committed. Once the movie is done filming, or the magazine spread done shooting, the workout and diet take a back seat.

The same goes for fitness models on Instagram, many of whom engage in a specialized diet and workout routine for a specific period before planning a lengthy shoot or series of shoots in different locations with many costume changes so they will have enough photos of themselves in top shape to post for an extended period. Few people can, or want to, adhere to such a Spartan routine for an extended period.

Read the Men's Journal article here.

It’s neither good nor bad, it just is.

It’s up to us to understand this and not get too frustrated by our perceived lack of progress. Most of us aren’t millionaires who can easily afford the time, the best trainers, exotic supplements, private gyms, etc., for whom career success or our latest project overwhelmingly depends on looking in top shape. There are everyday guys at my gym who dedicate themselves to being in top jacked condition despite having no financial or career-related incentive for doing so. One dedicated man is in his mid-50s and has a sensational physique 24/7 for no other reason than he wants to.

Is there anyone more clueless - or entitled - than a movie actor, male or female, whose appearance is crucial to their career success and popularity, who make millions for a few months work, complaining about having to maintain themselves, to look attractive, or to stay in shape?

This 19th Century Bodybuilder Guy Is Obviously Juicing.

What? You say steroids and Test weren't invented until Mr. Hackenschmidt seen here back in the 1800s was long dead from old age? Oh. Okay. Never mind then.

Aging Beyond The Point Of No Return

The human body has the awesome ability to adapt to adversity. We are hard wired for this process, as for 2 million years for our species it was either feast or famine, up or down, back and forth, with no status quo, no rest or break from ever-changing challenging circumstances for mankind’s entire short fleeting lives. During the last 100 years however, that has all changed for most.

As we go downhill slowly we barely notice. Those things that we do notice we simply go into denial about—denial being another crucial coping mechanism hard wired into our brains.

Yet some things cannot be denied: certain events or happenings that blatantly reveal just how far we have deteriorated, willfully.

Doing nothing is willful. Doing nothing is a choice. Not learning to cook or food-shop wisely or claiming that fast food is all we have time for is willful. It’s a choice. Our own personal choice.

The only way to change that—to get ourselves to the gym or work out at home, to stop cramming transfat and saturated fat-laden fast food down our gullets—is to make another choice, a different choice. The choice to thrive rather than to deteriorate—before we reach the point of no return.

May 3 Inspiration

A Hernia Can Be Life-Changing

Q-Who on earth would ever choose to be weak rather than strong?

A-Almost everybody

It’s baffling that anyone would set themselves up for tragedy by intentionally pursuing weakness, but that’s what most people actually do.

As most people age they simply accept diminished capacity rather than fix themselves. Creeping weakness means we need to get on the ball and get stronger, obviously.

Developing a hernia can be life-changing, requiring surgery. Prevention is a smarter option. Abs exercises are meant for more than just looking good, as a strong core can go a long way in preventing weak spots in our abdominal wall from developing, no gym required.

Additionally, monitoring how you lift things, for example, can go a long way in preventing hernias. Flexing your abs strongly inward as you begin the lift is essential. Many people actually push their abs outward as they lift heavy objects.

Practice strongly flexing your abs inward multiple times daily, as you drive, wash dishes, wait in line, climb stairs, etc.