If It Is Up To Me

If it’s meant to be it’s up to me, if it’s up to me it’s meant to be. - Football

What this expression means to me is if I want a certain result, I am responsible for making it happen. There is not a genie in a bottle baby. If I want to be mobile, or lean, or strong, or more knowledgeable on a subject or more skilled in a movement or a different state of being, I am going to have to work for it. There aren’t any excuses that change the fact that if you are skilled or unskilled at something it is either because you worked towards it or did not. It is not because it comes “naturally” to someone else or your genetics, or you can’t.

If you haven’t spent a lifetime in someone else’s shoes it is pretty disrespectful to say that their success at something is due to something other than work. Any time we give excuses such as they were lucky, they are gifted, and anything else along those lines, all we are doing is giving our power away. When you give away your power, you no longer have the feeling that it is within your control, no longer feel that it is up to you. It feels as though it is up to the ether. Keep your power.

It is best to think that someone is in their position because of something they could control. If they can control it, so can you, which means it is possible for you. Being optimistic and wrong is better than being pessimistic and right. Why not believe you can do it rather than never try. Worst-case scenario, you don’t succeed. Not the end of the world. If you are growing as a human and becoming a better version of yourself then it is highly likely that you are used to either winning or learning (not failing) anyway. Any time you don’t succeed it is not a failure unless you learned absolutely nothing from the experience which is impossible, there is always something to learn. Simply reiterating, it is better being optimistic and wrong than pessimistic and right. It is better to have tried than to have not tried at all. I am certain I am butchering these quotes but who cares, the point is still delivered swiftly. This is all coming from a guy who once won Most Pessimistic, trust me when I say it is not a fun way to live life.

If I want X Y or Z, I fully believe imma get it if it’s up to me. So let’s get it.

Mindfulness and Strength

Strength training has many benefits that are often overlooked and in turn, are sought out through different avenues that don’t deliver results as good as what you would accomplish through strength training.

When people hear strength training, they often picture bodybuilders, meatheads, people in next to no clothes, loud music, and some rugged gym environment. If asked what they think the benefits of strength training are they’d say build muscle. Completely one dimensional. Because for some reason (society) some people are afraid of muscle, they shy away from strength training and choose other options to invest there time to that in my opinion, would be better spent on other things.

Yes, strength training can build muscle. No muscle cannot turn into fat nor can fat turn into muscle. They are different cells. Now, according to Merriam-Webster, strength training is defined as a system of physical conditioning in which muscles are exercised by being worked against an opposing force (as by lifting weights) to increase strength. I want to keep this definition simple. In this definition, there is not a mention of building muscle. There is a mention of an opposing force. The opposing force is crucial if you wish to truly gain all of the benefits that strength training can provide.

Outside of the conventional wisdom of all of the benefits that strength training can provide such as resilience to sarcopenia (muscle loss), increased muscle density ("tone") and increased strength, there are many other benefits rarely ever mentioned in the same breath as strength training.

Mindfulness is one of the biggest benefits I believe strength training can offer. Normally thought to be reserved for meditation and yoga, mindfulness is a must if you treat strength training as what it is, practice. It is deliberate practice. Each rep teaches you to be in the moment and to learn from it. There is always something to improve upon, there is always something to focus on. With strength training, your breathing is extremely important. Breathing properly makes you stronger and safer where breathing improperly can put you at risk. Needless to say, you have to focus on your breath.

Since this is a highly physical mindfulness practice, this leads to many other benefits. For example, it increases body/spatial awareness. Since each movement you are looking to experience certain feelings in particular places, this helps to create a better mind-body connection. Knowing how to control your body in and through space is a major key if you wish to navigate this world resilient to falling. Being able to fire your muscles quickly is extremely important, especially as we get older. Having full control of your body is a blessing few people are “lucky” enough to experience, and strength training can help you get there.

This hyper-awareness and attention to detail with every rep of our strength training helps bring in another neglected benefit of strength training, improved active range of motion. Active range of motion means the ability to control your limbs through their full range of motion. Hyper flexible people usually have a huge gap between where their limbs can be moved to passively and where they can actively control their limbs. Stiff people usually are just stiff, unable to move their limbs through an acceptable ROM (range of motion). Strength training can help stiff people become more “mobile” and can help super flexible people build strength in their full ROM. For both groups, this is a plus. Having full control of a healthy range of motion makes you more resilient to injury. Being too stiff or too flexible puts you more at risk.

Gaining these benefits comes with another significant benefit, that of patience. Often people do not have the patience it takes to get stronger so they choose modalities that feel hard but leave them spinning tires going nowhere fast. It takes time, consistency, and patience to get stronger. To learn proper form and mechanics of a movement it takes time, deliberate practice and the patience of a saint. You are not going to be perfect the very first time you try, just like learning any new skill, it takes time.

These tremendous benefits gained through strength training can have life-changing carryover to every other aspect of your day to day. I am not saying that this is the only way to gain any of these benefits but I do believe it is a great way. Strength is the basis of life, without it we are nothing. Neglect it and it will diminish. Water it and it will flourish. Nurture your strength. Do not be afraid of getting strong, your life will thank you.

YIN/YANG OF TENSION/RELAXATION

Relax! I know being told to relax as well as calm down can be fighting words but seriously, relax. 

We live in a world of high stress. Mental stress, emotional stress, physical stress. Stress everywhere. Work stresses us out, people stress us out, traffic, money and so on. Then you add in the obsession with making everything physical we do into high intensity aka high stress and it is no wonder so many of us live with our shoulders in contact with our ears. Relax!

Relaxation is the yin to tensions yang. Tension with no relaxation, relaxation with no tension, this is not the way life operates when in balance. When in balance, we are capable of creating tension and also able to completely release that tension. The difference between a high-level sprinter and an amateur is the ability to relax. 

Yogis will often have injuries from being too flexible and not mobile (mobility is having strength in the range of motion you can access) and strength athletes will often have injuries from being too tense for too long. The balance between the two is where both groups can thrive. 

StrongFirst and Original Strength, two leaders in strength, both preach the importance of tension and relaxation. In StrongFirst we do fast and loose drills in between sets of high tension or heavy lifting. Original Strength teaches resets which are meant to remove tension in a passive manner. 

Both StrongFirst and Original Strength emphasize breathing. They both emphasize utilizing two things often neglected. One is protruding from the middle of your face, the other can’t be seen by the untrained eye. If you have not guessed it by now, I am referring to your nose and your diaphragm. These body parts are key components to achieving true relaxation. Oddly enough (or is it) these two body parts are also key to protecting the body from injury when lifting heavy weights. Nasal breathing helps to ensure that you are utilizing your main breathing muscle (diaphragm) and not overworking the accessory muscles that are located in our shoulder/neck (scalenes) region. Breathing into our shoulders creates unnecessary tension that is not useful for much, other than fatiguing and limiting the range of motion in our shoulders. All the stuff we do not want. Breathing into your nose, accessing your diaphragm can take your body/nervous system from sympathetic (fight or flight) to parasympathetic (rest and digest). Many of us, because we do not know how to relax are perpetually in a state of fight or flight, I think you can begin to see just how important relaxing is and it can almost start and end with breathing. Almost.

Breathing is tied into all things relaxing, whether it is meditation, yoga, or movement. Breathing is always present. So when I go over a few movements I like to do to relax, remember to breathe from your belly. 

Original Strength has an enormous library of resets. There is a reset for almost every tension issue you can think of. Some of them give immediate relief. Others take a little bit of time to gain awareness of the effects. The reset that I have found to positively affect most people’s tension issues are rocking. Due to the world we live in, a lot of people hold tension in their shoulders and in their hips. Desk life helps exacerbate this issue. Rocking, on the other hand, helps to release tension in our shoulders and hips plus it is fun and feels like you are doing nothing. This movement is so easy to do it can be thrown in between any exercise. I have personally had great success with rocking. Before I discovered Original Strength, I was unable to ever sit on my feet or touch my foot to my butt, now I am damn near Gumby status. As with anything I do on video, I do not suggest copying what you see especially if you have injuries. It is always useful to learn movements from someone who knows how to do the movement and teach it.  

In the video above, you can also see a movement called head nods. This too is a great reset to bring awareness to tension and release it. 

One of StrongFirst’ newer seminars is called Second Wind. A lot of what is covered in Second Wind is how to relax. The ability to relax is synonymous with the ability to recover. Therefore the faster you can relax, the quicker you can recover. BOOM 🤯. This works for endurance and strength. We are elite at developing both strength and endurance which means we are elite in relaxing and recovering. BOOM. StrongFirst emphasizes fast and loose drills to help relax and recover between working sets. You essentially want to shake the meat off your bones. Here are a few examples of fast and loose. 

There are many ways to relax, find what works for you and do it. But whatever you do, don’t turn that relaxation into more tension. Remember that true relaxation starts with breathing. If you continue to breathe up into your shoulders instead of down into your diaphragm you are probably holding onto the tension you wish to release. 

MovementFirst

Hey, F your diet. Yeah, I said it. 

We are in the era of diets. Everywhere you look is some sort of new or old diet promising something. Many of these diets are promising weight loss and happiness. Somehow over the years (media, marketing, fashion) weight loss and happiness have been tied together. Well, I am here to say F that noise. Enjoy your food, create a healthy relationship with it, remove guilt, remove stress from your dietary decisions. This is not a jailbreak to start indulging like a bratty 8 year old who can’t eat anything green, I assume I am speaking to adults. Be an adult when it comes to eating but be a kid when it comes to movement.

I know people love to say, I mean I hear this all the time, “you can’t out train a crappy diet”. As if movement should not be focused on.

The simple fact is, a majority of us need to move a lot more than we currently do. We are constantly looking for more ways to move less. How can I do that in less time? This would be great if you were creating more time for movement outside of the gym, however, it usually only leads to less moving outside the gym and in your everyday life. It is quite the scheme employers have cooked up, get people to feel guilty about not working so that they work even more and move even less for the same pay. Bravo.

This lack of movement has led to more time sitting and more time thinking, thinking about how out of shape we have gotten. We blame the rice, we blame the bread, we blame it on the goose, yet in reality, for most people, those are not the issue. The issue is, that out of every 168 hours we move for 2.5 hours if we follow the guidelines for exercise. We sleep for 56 hours if we follow the guidelines (8 hours of sleep per night). This would leave us with 109.5 hours left in the week. Subtract 40 from that (amount of time most salaried jobs pay you for) and we are left with 69.5 hours. That is a lot of time, and since most of us do not actually meet the exercise guidelines or sleep guidelines that number is even higher. If those 69 hours are filled with no movement………… Duh right?

Movement is the most important behavior habit one can have. If you become a fanatic of movement and make moving well and often a priority then a lot of other dominoes will begin to fall.

Where to start? Start with creating the easiest possible wins ever. Gradually start to add a minute more of movement per day. Each week increase the weekly volume by 20%. Mark on your calendar, or in your phone or tell a friend. Create a community out of it. Win the day every day. Life will happen, and when it does, don't be discouraged, just hop back on the wagon and continue ahead. When you are sitting, train your mind to think about movement, not that boring ass salad you plan on having for lunch.

Our biology evolved with movement at its base. To strip it of movement is to leave it exposed to the extremes. Loss of cognition, weight gain, discoordination, all is a result of not moving enough. This is not life being unfair, it is life being life. Move more, future you depends on it.

Last Time You Got Better?

When is the last time you got better? Most likely it wasn’t by accident.

All too often people think just because they’ve been doing something for a long time, it automatically makes them good at it. Child Please. As Bruce Lee once said, “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

The best way to get better at a sport is to play the sport to implement deliberate and focused practice of the sport. This holds true for anything that you want to become better at in life. Just doing it won’t make you better.

If your conditioning for the sport is just playing the sport you’re asking for overuse injuries. There are ways to help condition yourself for a sport that will help your body become more in balance, more resilient and create less wear and tear on your body. Yes, part of conditioning for your sport should be playing the sport itself, however, if you lack development in certain areas, then focusing on improving those not as strong strengths will really help your performance.

“I can’t do blank anymore.”

Forget about what you used to be/used to do and focus on what you can be now/can do now and how you can get there. So many people watch their performance drop off and choose to just chalk it up as aging, not the fact that they haven’t stretched in decades or tried to increase their strength since they were teens or do anything differently.

Skill development is how you get better, combined with improving your conditioning and strength.  If you aren’t working to get better, you are probably getting worse.

Playing a sport over and over and never having someone mention your faults or address your shortcomings or cue you to do something better is not how anyone gets better at a sport.

If it was as simple as running around playing your sport and you would get better, why isn’t everyone Andre Agassi?