Sylvester Stallone @ Age 69

Inspiration: Sylvester Stallone @ Age 69

Struggle vs. Challenge

Watching people at the gym struggle with performing any given exercise makes me realize that many don’t seem to know the difference between a challenge and a struggle.

A challenging weight is one that allows you to perform the exercise properly and productively with no jerking, finessing, contorting or other unproductive actions. If you can’t perform 5 reps without beginning to struggle, the weight is too heavy. There is a sweet spot you must find between your ability to perform the exercise using proper form and cheating the weight up.

The challenge is to tax the target muscle to its fullest ability so that the muscle fibers break down, which spurts regrowth—not to hoist the weight up at any cost as if you are in a powerlifting contest, which causes muscle injury. 

Gym Workouts Vs. Manual Labor

I hit the gym AND the yardwork too.

I’ve always hit it hard at the gym: challenging weight, short rest periods, intense concentration. Yet even though I am temporarily drained when I leave the gym I’m still able to do my other daily and work-related tasks.

On the other hand, physical labor, such as yard work or helping friends move knocks me out. Afterward I need a good rest and I am not prone to devoting full energies to whatever else I have to do that day.

What’s the difference? Two hours at the gym leaves me tired but still energetic, while two hours of manual labor makes me want to take a nap.

Perhaps it has something to do with manual labor being disorganized and more unpredictable than a practiced workout, but it still perplexes me why a heavy workout at the gym is less draining to me than the same amount of heavy manual labor.

What do you think?

Comparative Workout Advice

from dailynews.co.uk

For those who blow off their workout too often, or entirely, it might be useful to consider your body similarly to how you consider your car. The two have a lot in common actually, not the least of which is getting you where you need to go every day.

One way to avoid maintaining your body or maintaining your car is to deny that it’s getting older with each passing year, that it doesn’t need maintaining because it still runs "all right," and because it hasn’t broken down and left you stranded. Yet.

Sure, your body / car is not as pretty as it once was. It has a few little dings here and there and doesn’t run as well as it did, but it still gets you where you need to go. And of course if you’re not fixing the little things as they happen, the mechanical as well as the cosmetic, as time goes by these little things can lead to bigger, uglier, more costly, more inconvenient problems down the road, but hey—who’s got the time to properly maintain a car—or a body?