Natural Bodybuilding, Fitness, and Peak Performance

The "Want to Gain Weight"/ "Metabolism’s Too Fast" Confusion

Well, it’s happened once again; a person blessed with a near inability to get fat has told me that his ongoing struggle to "make muscle gains" is due to a fast metabolism. Is there a real connection between these two things or is this just another example of the human mind’s tendency to distort and generalize when frustrated? I think the latter is more likely the case.

Think about this for a moment: If someone feels they’re underweight and desires to "get bigger", do they really in their right mind think they want to get fatter in order to make that happen? I doubt it. Usually it’s clear to them that ‘solid weight’ is what they’re after. Yet putting on that solid weight requires an effective strategy of breaking down muscle tissue and intermittently allowing it to recuperate. So I ask you: What does this have to do with the speed of one’s metabolism? Doesn’t it have more to do with the effectiveness of one’s training strategy?

A fast metabolism that curtails the accumulation of body fat with seeming disregard for the quantity of calories consumed is a blessing. It should be treated as such and not be cursed. A person with such a physiological disposition is more prone to favorable hormone ratios, which can translate to higher testosterone that, in turn, contribute to greater muscle gains. How can this possibly be a hindrance to gaining the only kind of weight that most of society deems attractive? It can’t.

Evidence to back this assertion is readily observable in the fact that the slow metabolism crowd has as much trouble (if not more) in putting on muscle as the fast metabolism group. The fact that they can easily "gain weight" (albeit the less desirable kind) in no way makes their quest for gaining the kind that’s more healthy and attractive any easier. That’s because muscular development is a matter of ‘smart training’ and not an issue of possessing a metabolic rate that hums along at some imagined ideal rate.

If you’re an ‘underweight’ person that’s blessed with a fast metabolism, be glad you aren’t prone to gaining body fat and start zeroing in on an effective method of gaining muscle. As long as you’re taking in adequate protein each day and – above all – training and recuperating intelligently, then you can’t help but steadily become solidly heavier.

Law of Imbalance can Stack the Deck in Your Favor

"When you’ve become adept at chunking the Law of Imbalance within the areas of bodybuilding and fitness, you’ll become better at doing this in everything that’s important to you."

The above words are what I imparted to a client just two days ago while in the midst of a training session. I’d been explaining the importance of adhering to the 80/20 Rule within the context of fitness; then felt compelled to illustrate its effectiveness for enhancing anything worthwhile.

"And how would you utilize this principle so as to squeeze out all of its benefit?" I asked. "By not only identifying where it exists, but also recognizing what logical level on which any discovered 80/20 opportunity reveals itself." I answered.

Many people have at least half-interestedly heard of the 80/20 rule. Most of us are vaguely aware that a law of imbalance is interwoven into much of the physical world. We might see a newspaper report that reminds us that about 80% of auto accidents are caused by roughly 20% of motorists – or we might be more subtly aware that 20% of the interior of our homes need cleaning around 80% of the time. What most of us don’t do is utilize this peculiar phenomenon in order to maximize the quality of our lives.

In order to utilize this principle effectively, we must recognize how it occurs on different ‘logical levels’. Then we need to ensure that we apply tactics that recognize and respect the principle sequentially from the highest logical level within a given context to the lowest one.

For example, if you wanted to be a better investor, you might find that great investors like Warren Buffett only buy stocks in companies that have a return on equity performance history of 12% to 15%. Identifying such businesses could represent a 20 percent of input factor that generates 80 percent of output or positive results. Yet your overall effectiveness as an investor who uses this method might hinge on adherence to another 80/20 imbalance that occurs at a higher logical level. Let’s just say that this higher factor is the necessity of choosing the right type of business with the most impenetrable ‘business model’ in which to invest. With this second factor mentioned being the more all-encompassing 80/20 aspect, the lower level one of choosing a company with a history of 12-15% return on equity becomes moot if the higher one’s not respected and practiced first. Put simply, the return on equity 80/20 factor sits at a lower logical level than the business model 80/20 factor – in terms of sequencing for success. And there might be even more aspects of the law of imbalance within this investing context if we chunk down even deeper.

These same laws of ‘80/20 chunking’ can be applied to physique enhancement and fitness. In an earlier blog entry, I mentioned some key components to ‘Creating a Killer V-Shape’. These were definitely 20% factors that I was imparting within the context of bodybuilding. Even so, they do reveal themselves on a lower logical level than other factors important to physique improvement.

When all 80/20 aspects are identified and utilized – but especially the ‘higher level’ ones – then better results come with far less effort. This is discussed in more detail within the book: HardBody Success. It’s available at www.hardbodysuccess.com

A Terrific Mental Skill for More Success in Life

If you were to acquire just one simple mind skill that could improve all of your life situations, would you be willing to put it into practice every single day? I’m talking about a mental skill that holds the power to help you stay focused on your goals, remain calm and centered, and solve problems that might arise. And it doesn’t matter what context of life you apply it to – career, relationships, fitness and physique enhancement, or academic achievement – it helps with all of them. I’m referring to your ability and willingness to regularly move into position 3.

A while back, a colleague of mine invited me to a ‘men’s group’ meeting. This is one of those nationwide groups with local chapters, similar to Promise Keepers, that gets together weekly to help each other work through life challenges; everything from family issues to career advancement to spiritual matters. It was a somewhat demanding and revealing couple of hours – one in which men were held accountable to their peers for their actions or lack thereof, as well as the resulting consequences. Overall, it was a positive experience.

   

One recurring saying that arose throughout the meeting was "… I was stuck inside my head". A guy would share an incident in his life from which a problem ensued and he would preface his telling of his mental state at the time with this peculiar line. Where was this coming from? What does it mean exactly to be stuck ‘inside one’s head’?

In the practice of NLP, this is referred to as being fully associated. It’s the state we’re in when all of our deletions, distortions, and generalizations from our past subjective intake of sensory input start rearing their ugly heads. It’s the state we’re in when negative emotions arise, when rational thinking gets muddled, and problems get distortedly augmented into the appearance of insurmountable.

What’s the quickest way out of this negative state? To develop the skill of going into ‘position 3’. You see, when we’re in position one, we’re ‘inside our heads’, seeing things through our own eyes, hearing sounds with our own ears, and taking in the world ‘out there’ through our personal and emotionally tinted pair of glasses. If we go into position 2, we’re seeing things through the eyes of another person. But going into position 3 turns us into the metaphorical ‘fly on the wall’ that’s viewing our circumstances with the objective benefit of more rational thinking. You can more effectively assess any problem, whether an interpersonal disagreement or a major life issue, by cognitively viewing it as a third person, a celestial being, or any metaphorical objective observer you like to imagine.

Becoming adept at third position observation and assessment is easy with practice. Simply close your eyes and imagine floating out of your body and viewing yourself in selected life situations from afar. You can do this for goal achievement as well as problem solving. In fact, seeing yourself taking action each day toward your goals, or procrastinating that action (whichever the case may be) can emotionally detach you from the entire situation. By doing so, you can often get a clearer picture of whether you’re effectively moving toward your goals or need adjustments – or why you’re procrastinating and how you can eliminate that behavior.

I often utilize the practice of going into position three for fitness and bodybuilding. I do this for both my clients and myself. It’s a terrific way of practicing this mental exercise in order to apply it to other areas of life. And utilized effectively in this context, it most definitely provides positive results that are far beyond what’s obtainable in the absence of it; what’s obtainable through merely being "inside our own heads".

Be Clear about Your Physique Improvement Goals… and How to Attain Them

A few days ago I witnessed a slightly goofy, albeit amusing, scene at the gym where I work out. It was a group of about six guys in their early to mid twenties that were having a pull-up competition. They took turns hanging from the stainless steel bar and cranking out high repetitions (anywhere from 15 to 30) of the perennially popular pull-up exercise. They were attempting to find out who among them could perform the highest consecutive reps. One guy got 30 reps, more than anyone else, and appeared to earn the envy and admiration of his peers.

This wouldn’t have seemed amusing if the same group of guys hadn’t been competing for a max bench press the day before. I thought to myself, ‘let me get this straight; when they’re pushing weight off their chests – then the heaviest weight for one repetition is what matters. When they’re pulling with their lats – then getting a high number of reps with a relatively light weight is what matters. Why the polarity between what’s important for each of these respective muscle groups?’

Before you accuse me of being overly critical of what was obviously nothing more than a testosterone-driven mini tournament among young guys, let’s consider something. Their two activities having contrasting objectives might be equally reflective of the prevalence of lack of clarity in physique improvement goals. One activity – the bench press for a max rep – is definitely a power lifting movement that is utilized for competition in that realm. The other exercise – bodyweight pull-ups – was being done with high repetitions that would be more akin to training the body for endurance than to get either bodybuilding or power lifting results. Based on conversation I’d overheard, all six of these guys seemed to be in want of better physiques, yet neither of their competitive activities would be conducive to that end.

In fitness and in life, nothing is more important in achieving your goals than knowing exactly what they are and employing an effective strategy for their realization. Many people who begin a workout program attempt to do so with only a fuzzy idea of some ambiguous desired improvements. Then they drift aimlessly through the gym – doing thirty pull-ups here and a one rep max bench over there. They wonder why their enthusiasm wanes after only a few weeks. But without a clear and compelling goal and a strategy that’s proven to get you there, motivation will eventually just wither on the vine.

Don’t let that happen to you – in fitness, career, spirituality, or relationships.

Happy Training!

Weight Training, ‘Functional Training’, and Navy SEAL Training

Being afflicted with hypothermia is like being drunk. You lose your inhibitions; your ability to make sound judgments, along with your overall sense of what the hell is going on around you. Just add a heavy dose of uncontrollable, teeth-chattering, full-body trembling and you get a combination that holds an odd mix of misery and slight euphoria. Strange feeling.

Yet it was an all too common one in U.S. Navy Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL Training. Our weekly two-mile ocean swims during the winter months would have us submerged in a temperature just low enough to have cumulative negative effects on the body’s normal 98.6-degree homeostasis. I personally succumbed to this body-heat sapping, enervating environment a couple times – slowly being enveloped by a chill that absorbed into my bones as the strong current we swam against caused our exposure to seem detrimentally never-ending.

Making matters worse, I was a slow swimmer when I started BUD/S in 1984. We were propelling ourselves through the ocean using a quiet sidestroke while kicking with diving fins. My skinny, twenty year-old thighs were not up to the task, so my swim buddy had to repeatedly slow down so that I could recover the distance that had precariously separated us several times. This prolonged our exposure to the biting cold and turned our side crawl through the salt water into a slow and torturous endeavor. I recall feeling disappointed and embarrassed when my swim buddy and I finished second to last place. Of course, those feelings were only realized when the obliviousness of hypothermia had finally worn off.

Two years later, April 1986, I was back in BUD/S Training again. This time, however, things were different. In fact, they were diametrically opposed to my predicament of two years previous. Now I was nearly the fastest swimmer in the training class and I had to repeatedly slow down so as to not let my swim buddy fall behind. What had made the difference? How had I gone from being a slow swimmer who was getting eaten alive by the cold to an incredibly fast swimmer who’d conquered those two miles before the cold could get me?

Simple answer: my thighs had met the leg extension machine. This wasn’t something planned – just something I’d fallen into. As I waited two years to go back to BUD/S Training after being dropped for injuries, a friend introduced me to weight training and bodybuilding. And although I’d say I was engaging the weights haphazardly in those early days, it made a world of difference to my second tour in BUD/S. The many sets of leg extensions are the only thing attributable for my drastic improvement on timed swims. They work the thighs in the same motion as does the kicking with fins through the water.

So what is my point exactly? It’s simply this: there’s a lot of hype these days about ‘core training’ and ‘functional training’. While I’m not here to say that these forms of training aren’t effective, I will assert that there’s nothing that beats a well executed weight program for building strength in the body’s ‘core’ as well as that which is ‘functional’. If you want your body to perform better for sports or for simple, everyday functions, you need the muscles in your body to be stronger. Nothing beats weight training, when planned and executed effectively, for making this happen.

Notice how I’ve emphasized the concepts of good planning and execution. Whether you utilize weight training, pilates, core training or functional movements (or a combination of all), you won’t get the results you desire if you exercise randomly and haphazardly. For getting real and tangible improvements, you need to make everything you do serve a definite purpose. Your feedback should be clearly observable and quantifiably measurable. Despite what many fitness trainers would have you believe, these factors are even more important than making sure every exercise you perform is a mirror image of the ‘function’ you’re attempting to improve.

To your ongoing success.

How Improving Your Body provides a Blueprint for Life Success

One of the most successful businessmen I’ve ever encountered, a multi-millionaire real estate developer, is also a life-long bodybuilder. He claims that within the foundation of every building he’s ever erected is a barbell plate; his personal homage to a pastime that’s provided him the lessons and wisdom for creating an extraordinary life. What better form of symbolic gesture could be enacted for paying tribute to a sport and pastime that possesses the power to teach so much?

Learning how to successfully improve your body can teach you the laws and habits of success in every area of your life. It has the power to not only teach you these laws and habits, but to imprint them into your cellular structure. Physique improvement can turn you into a better goal-setter, teach you how to create effective strategies and tactics, and make you sensitive to feedback that signals need for adjustment in moving toward your goals. It can plant patterns of success into your deeper mind so they become automatic to you.

Furthermore, the world of physique improvement is like a microcosm of patterns that occur in the bigger world. We’ve all observed how quick buck artists come and go in the business world while truly committed business people have staying power that creates long-term success. This is analogous to the contrast between the chronic steroid user in the gym whose fit body is oftentimes a flash in the pan next to the life-long natural who acquires the patience and wisdom to create bodybuilding gains that last. It seems that the quest for nearly immediate gratification at the forfeiture of long-term commitment and discipline invariably brings hollow and fleeting results – context independent and across the board. To the contemplative observer and doer, this is shown through as a spiritual truth.

Improving one’s physique is not the superficial pastime that it was once believed to be. That is – if you don’t allow it to become such an endeavor. When used as the cornerstone for both good health and a blueprint for life success, it becomes a pastime with invaluable and nearly incalculable payoffs. To learn how to better use bodybuilding and fitness for this purpose, you can check out my 230-page training manual, HardBody Success at www.hardbodysuccess.com. It is jam-packed with cutting-edge nuggets of information and specific techniques on how to apply your mind to fitness success, as well as success in every other area of your life.

Secrets to Developing Great Pectorals

One of the most pervasive fallacies in muscle building is the belief that heavy bench pressing invariably leads to a well-developed chest. The prevalence of this belief is underscored by the ubiquity of a typical sight at any gym in Anytown USA, or anywhere in the world for that matter; pairs or groups of guys that are trading off doing set after set of flat and inclined pressing movements. And although these round-robin benching episodes are most popular among the lower age brackets of post-pubic males, many a middle-aged gym-goer can be susceptible nonetheless.

I will readily concede that some of these benching fanatics might have power lifting aspirations. If one wants to merely find out how much weight they can bush off their chest for a one repetition maximum, then hours of engaging in this activity might be warranted. However, if thick and shapely pectoral muscles are what you’re after – I’d advise dumping an obsession with bench pressing if you’ve been taken with it. Nothing could waste more of your time and energy than thinking a lot of bench pressing will do anything for you other than – well, getting good at doing a lot of bench pressing.

The key to developing thick and powerful pectorals is with the flye movement in all its variation. Flyes, whether done with free weight dumbells, cables or a machine, will isolate and work the chest muscles like nothing else if done properly. And therein lies the factor often missed; done properly. Either from simple naivete in what constitutes good form on this exercise or fear of additional strain from shifting to the effective method – many people perform flyes in a manner sub-par for obtaining desired results. They opt for a movement that resembles a sort of hybrid between a dumbell bench press and a half-flye. This produces lackluster results for improving the chest muscles.

When executing a flye movement, you should only pivot at the shoulders while leaving the elbows stationary yet only slightly bent in order to avoid hyperextending them. The pec muscles should feel like they’re being 100% called upon to take the full brunt of moving the weight when starting the positive contraction of the exercise. This is the most demanding yet important point in the movement for adding slabs of muscle to that vast surface between your shoulders above your abdomen. It’s the pivotal place in motion where too many of us decide to forgo the searing feeling of pectoral burn in favor of the easy route of that makes the exercise a cross between ‘squeezing’ and ‘pushing’. Deciding to ‘fly’ the weight rather that ‘press’ the weight can be the difference, however, between an eye-catching chest and an average one.

I only do four total exercises for my pectorals – three of which are flye movements. I do one flye exercise for each section of the chest: middle, upper and lower. Yes – I do sneak in a pressing exercise; a bench press machine targeted at the upper chest. I perform this one because I believe the upper chest should be a little more developed than the middle and lower chest for aesthetic purposes. But I only perform these presses after the middle and upper chest have been "pre-exhausted" with flye movements.

For the diehard bench-pressers among you, I have only this to say; be absolutely clear about what you’re attempting to accomplish. If you are striving to be a good bench presser but have little desire to improve your pectorals, then keep at it and all power to ya. Just be aware that that’s a pursuit in and of itself – with its own exclusive rewards.

If, however, you realize that you’ve been after the possession of a powerfully thick and aesthetic set of pectorals and find a lot to be desired in that pursuit, then an about-face from ‘pushing’ the weight and a turn toward ‘squeezing’ it might be well in order.