Many people start a fitness kick with some soppy ambition of starting a running habit or taking weekly gym classes.
While I’m all for people moving more (it’s better than sitting at home all day doing nothing with your body), it’s certainly not an efficient route to anywhere.
Most people, if they are doing exercise, want something out of it.
That’s a good thing.
If you’re going to spend time on a pursuit, you’d be crazy not to want results from it.
Where most people’s fitness pursuits fail is that they aren’t directed clearly at any such results. The fitness industry has done a shit-house job of educating people on the real cause–effect relationships when it comes to their bodies and how they look and feel.
So don’t be flat on yourself when lack of motivation kicks in at the three-week mark because your intuition is starting to question the tangible outcomes of your early morning 3km jogs.
The reason my program (RINGSTRONG) is so addictive is because I designed it single-mindedly to get me a result. Nothing else.
I’m a human, which means I’m ultimately lazy as hell. I’ve tried a gazillion things over the years to get in great shape, both aesthetically and athletically, and with enough experience you start to see the underlying patterns on what’s actually getting results.
And as you take things away from your process and get even more results, you start to see these things even clearer.
All that really works, for my goals, is building strength and getting lean. Everything else I thought I wanted fundamentally boiled down to those two things.
To max out your natural muscle growth takes about 15 minutes of work a week (plus rest time) if you know what you’re doing (although I wouldn’t expect anyone to be this efficient right off the bat—I’ve only discovered this after years of testing and experience). You just need to get disgustingly strong on one movement for each basic plane of motion, of which there are five.
To get lean you just do a lot of the above, and employ a calorie deficit once in a while to cut fat.
It’s not rocket science.
As soon as you link the input (training at your absolute strength limit for one set) with the output (gaining muscle and strength, getting leaner), there is no longer any resistance to overcome with your motivation to train. Of course you will want to spend 15 minutes a week on it. It works. And the outcome is more than worth the cost.
My point is, your emotional and motivational system is your ally, not your enemy. It wants what’s best for you, even when “you” don’t rationally agree with it on what that is. Your intuition is telling you something about those jogs, or those classes, or whatever screwed up program you’ve been spinning your wheels at lately—there might be a more effective way to get what you want!
Strength training is 40 of the best minutes of my week, every week.
Eating food is right up there next to it (okay, maybe slightly above).
Good shit feels good.
The more you can do just what gets you results you care about, the better you will feel.
So don’t spend time doing stuff you don’t want to do. It’s probably not getting you anywhere, and even if it is, you’re definitely not going to stick at it for long.
Life’s far too short to waste doing stuff you don’t like just because you think it’s productive. Listen to your emotions. They’re telling you something.