4 Things Your Girlfriend Should Know

Tony Gentilcore’s article 4 Things Your Girlfriend Should Know on T-nation.com has ruffled a few feathers {Note – this is the link for a revised version of the original article}. He makes the statement that “Yoga Mostly Sucks” at improving the body composition. He trashes steady state cardio (low intensity long distance) in favor of high intensity interval style training for fat loss. He suggests that women train more like men and that they should be using low reps and heavy weights. He’s even got his girlfriend deadlifting.

“But I don’t want to get big and bulky.”

Newsflash, ladies: You will not get “big and bulky” just because you’re doing squats and deadlifts. That statement is akin to me saying, “Eh, I don’t want to do any sprints today because I don’t want to win the 100m gold medal next week.” Getting big and bulky isn’t easy, just like winning the 100m gold medal isn’t easy.

If anything, it’s an insult to all those people who’ve spent years in the gym to look the way they do. It didn’t happen overnight, which is what you’re assuming by saying something so absurd.

And let’s be honest, most people (men and women) won’t work hard enough to get “big and bulky” in the first place. It’s hard enough for a man to put on any significant amount of muscle, let alone a woman. Women are physiologically at a disadvantage for putting on muscle due to the fact that they have ten times less free Testosterone in their bodies compared to men.

That being said, you still need to get the most bang out of your training buck, and that includes ditching the glute-buster machine and focusing more on the compound movements. Joe Dowdell, owner of Peak Performance in NYC, trains many of the top female models in the city and their programming includes squats, deadlifts, chin-ups, bench variations, sled dragging, and tons of energy system work.

Yes, Victoria’s Secret models are doing squats and deadlifts. And yes, that’s completely hot. Guess what they’re not doing? Watching Oprah every day while walking on the treadmill for 60 minutes.

It isn’t a rant on the evils of yoga, just on the lies that some yoga teachers attempt to pass off as fact and the impact that these notions have on how women work towards their fitness goals.

What I take out of it is that people will believe anything an “expert” tells them without so much as thinking about it. Anyone who suggests that deadlifting is not as good at building back strength as yoga has NEVER performed a single deadlift with their body weight.

If you want to look a particular way, do what people who look that way do. If you desire to be lean and have toned muscles, you’re going to need to work out intensely and lift a lot of weight.

What Is Karma?

Karma is the consequence of an action. It is neither good nor bad. However, since you have very little impact on what the consequences are you are best to try and limit the amount of karma that you create or allow to be created because there is always the potential that the outcome will be negative.

The concept of karma is misunderstood because people want to believe that the world is a fair and just place so that those who create suffering in others will get what’s coming to them – you get what you give. It’s an understandable desire because we do seem to be exposed to extreme cruelty and uncaring, but the world doesn’t work like that.

If you act according to your nature, you will create the least amount of karma. If your nature is positive, as most people’s true nature is, you and others will enjoy the consequence to your actions. If you act in a way that is different from your true nature, for example looking at the world with yourself as the center of everything, others may suffer as a result of your actions. Also, in the long run, any enjoyments you experience may dissipate and fade away completely. Very often these actions will create a feeling of cognitive dissonance within you that will be immediately experienced as a negative feeling such as anxiety, tension or sadness. If your nature is not positive, all of your actions will come from a place were you are the center of them and others will not enjoy the consequences of these actions.

Karma is minimized when someone is fulfilling their life purpose because they will be taking fewer actions that deviated from their natural tendencies; you will create only intended consequences.

One goal should be to create as little karma as possible through living the life that reflects your nature. This is why it is important to figure out what your nature and your life purpose are. Steve Pavlina outlines how to uncover your life purpose with his simple and effect method – it worked very well for me and I found the experience to be very powerful.

An example here may be useful. My life purpose has something to do with trying to empower people to achieve their goals and potential. While this has always been my purpose, I haven’t always known it and in fact it only became evident to me after a training seminar early in February of 2007. Before it was uncovered, when I would try to fill this guide role for others I would either feel shame for trying to change them, incomplete because I felt I needed others to change in order for me to be useful or just completely creepy for talking to people about what I saw in their essence. Try and tell a complete stranger at the gym that you see that they could be an excellent personal trainer because of the way they engage the front desk staff or that the person who pumped my gas should be a motivational speaker because of the clarity of their observations about whatever. People aren’t used to this kind of honesty or insight and they tend to be very suspicious of anyone who brings it to them. So before it was clear to me why I do what I do, I would suffer from the dissonant feeling that I was acting weirdly. Worse was the often-hurt feeling I would get when people would respond poorly through lashing out or just ignore what I had said. I have alienated a number of people through voicing my observations in a genuine attempt to help them.

To draw this back to karma, I was actualizing my life purpose through these interactions. The consequences to these actions were, for the most part, non-existent because very few people are receptive to what I said such that my talking to them created very little karma – any karma that results from their continuing down the same path is their creation. However, in the odd case where someone buys into what I tell them, they take some strength from it and begin to move towards their potential, a lot of karma is eliminated – their path through life has been changed or reset to a path that more closely represents their true nature. My actions were the result of my nature and they serve only to decrease the amount of karma that is created. In fact, if I had kept my mouth shut and said nothing I am, in essence, knowingly creating karma through willfully allowing others to continue down the wrong path.

The moment of enlightenment when I uncovered my purpose was very liberating because it allowed me for the first time to see my actions as appropriate and independent of the outcome. I am following my nature by TRYING to help others find empowerment to grow and not by GETTING them to find the empowerment to grow. The result is not as important as the effort. The result is only important for me. I MUST become empowered and TRY to help others but others actions are not even a consideration in the karmic equations that defines me. When it comes right down to it, I create more karma when I do not take an action that I feel I should. If my pure actions are inhibited it is because I am putting myself as the center of everything because I want to avoid shame. This is the recipe for Karma so I work to avoid it.

I’m recommending that people take the time to figure out who they are and what they need to do on the planet to have a meaningful life. Then go out and do it. Stop living a life that doesn’t complete you because you are creating a lot of needless Karma.

25 Years, 25 Mistakes

25 Years, 25 Mistakes by Mike Boyle from T-nation

Most of the mistakes deal with weight lifting and physical training, but there are a few very good general life lessons in the list:

Mistake #14: Confusing disagree with dislike
I think it’s great to disagree. The field would be boring if we all agreed. What I realize now is that I’ve met very few people in this field I don’t like and many I disagree with. I probably enjoy life more now that I don’t feel compelled to ignore those who don’t agree with me.

Mistake #15: Confusing reading with believing
This concept came to me by way of strength coach Martin Rooney. It’s great to read. We just need to remember that in spite of the best efforts of editors, what we read may not always be true.

If the book is more than two years old, there’s a good chance even the author no longer agrees with all the information in it. Read often, but read analytically.

Mistake #16: Listening to paid experts
Early on, many of us were duped by the people from companies like Cybex or Nautilus. Their experts proclaimed their systems to be the future, but now the cam and isokinetics are the past. Just as in any other field, people will say things for money.

You don’t think his post applies to you? Read mistake 25.

6 Dumb Training Mistakes

Christian Thibaudeau from T-nation talks about 6 Dumb Training Mistakes

Dumb Thing #5: Misunderstanding “Overtraining”

If you ask me, “overtraining” is the most abused and misunderstood concept in the entire strength training community! Perform more than twelve sets for a muscle during a workout and you’ll undoubtedly be accused of overtraining. Train a muscle group more often than two times per week? Overtraining! Relying on set extending methods such as drop sets, pre or post-fatigue, or rest-pause? What are you doing? Don’t you know that’s overtraining and you’ll shrink faster than your masculine pride on a snowy Canadian winter night?!

Yes, overtraining can eventually become a problem when it comes to your training performance, injury risks, and growth. However, it’s far from being as common as most people would have you believe.

The problem stems from the term itself, which is composed of “over” and “training.” Because of that term, individuals are quick to equate it to “training too much.” So every time someone thinks that a routine has too much volume, frequency, or advanced methods, they’re quick to pull the “overtraining” trigger. When someone is tired and has a few bad workouts he’ll also automatically assume that he’s “overtraining.” In both cases this shows a misunderstanding of what overtraining really is.

In the post, he has a full description of the states of physiological fatigue associated with training too much and it includes an image outlining the type and amount of recovery time needed to return to a normal state. For this one item alone it is a fantastic article, but there are a few other mind opening ideas that make it a must read.

People Who Get It

As a reformed bitter person I take some pride when people say that I “get it” because I never used to.

What do I mean by “getting it?” Well, very simply, you get it when you figure out what the world is all about and when act accordingly.

What is it that they get? Basically that the world is a tough place for most people and that you have a choice to make when it comes to how you engage it. You get it when you realize that other people have a similar experience of reality that you do and that your actions impact their experience of this reality. You get it when you realize life is about the journey and not about the destination. The destination is what motivates us, but the living occurs along the way.

  • Those who get it tend to work hard at their jobs because they like doing a good job and not because they are paid to do the work. Payment is required for them to agree to the work, but they will work to their potential at EVERYTHING they attempt to do because that is what gives them satisfaction.
  • Those who get it tend to have a work ethic that helps them deliver quality results with little managerial intervention. They thrive in an independent work environment when they have clearly defined expectations.
  • Those who get it tend not to view themselves in adversarial relationships with other people. They tend to view others as partners in tasks or as people to avoid due to the negative attitudes they hold.
  • Those who get it tend always to be to be involved in some sort of personal development project. It can be further education, reading, exercise or an artistic pursuit. They see themselves as a work in progress and are very open to new experiences and to change.
  • Those who get it tend to welcome and embrace new information because it improves their understanding of the world.
  • Those who get it tend to be people that others like to be around because they make you feel good. Their view of the world is enriching or enlightening and their optimism about things is a fresh change from the glut of bitterness that modern living seems to nurture.
  • Those who get it tend to improve group synergy because they foster an atmosphere of caring and non-judgment that gives other the permission to speak freely and express more creative solutions.
  • Those who get it tend to laugh freely because it feels good and because they view things in a more positive light.

We all know a few people who get it and we find that we engage these people more frequently for assistance or help because we know that they will offer their service to us without attitude or with any attempt to make us feel like we are inconveniencing them. We identify these people because we can see their passion for their activities and we’ll often believe that they would be doing the same thing anyway, even if they were not getting paid to do it. They make things happen without creating bad feelings or a sense of obligation, and they smile and say thank you.

The Joy Of Motion, For Me Anyway

“I’ve seen old people. Old people don’t move very much. I’m not angry at them for this, I’m angry that it happens to people, I’m angry that it will happen to me. I move like this now because I can and because I won’t be able to when I’m old.”

This used to be my signature for my email and it captures the essence of how I feel about locomotion at this point in my life. Moving brings me joy today that I may not be able to experience tomorrow. It feels really good physically and I become more and more comfortable in my environment as I increase the ways in which I interact with it. I am, for example, more confident walking on snowy or icy sidewalks as a result of my plyometrics training because I have increased body awareness – I know exactly where I am in space and time and this awareness helps me avoid falling. This knowledge can make everyday life less stressful and a little easier.

A love of movement also leads one to try other activities either out of desire for further enjoyment or because I feel less shame about trying something new. I have spoken to too many people who claim that they did not do something because they we intimidated, scared or because they feared that they wouldn’t be any good at it. The consequence to this is that they never get the joy out of something new because they’ll never try it for the first time because of the thought of feeling shame about it.

As I tried more stuff I began to notice that I am not naturally good at most things. In fact, I’m pretty useless at most things the first time I try them. I learned how to play guitar a few years ago and I was horrible at the beginning. The fine motor control that is required to finger the chords while strumming or picking certain stings is almost overwhelming. It took me about 3 months before it stopped sounding like noise and another couple of months until it sounded like music. But I stuck with it and eventually doing it started to bring me joy. With me, for most new tasks, three months is about average for how long it takes before I feel comfortable enough doing it to find the experience rewarding vs. finding the fact that I’m trying it to be rewarding.

I find yoga to be very difficult to do and I feel like a heal doing it. It really is hard to imagine being so bad at something that is so graceful. The main reason it is so difficult for me is because I have no frame of reference or any past experiences with skills that transfer over to yoga – I’m a lifter and an adrenaline junky which require very different skills than the downward dog or any of the warrior poses. But as I do it more, I am acquiring the skills that will allow me to not have to think about it while I’m doing it. For me, the ability to make the skill automatic is essential for maximum enjoyment because it is the only thing that will lead to a state of mindlessness.

So I move out of fear of a future that does not contain movement and out of a lust for more pleasure, satisfaction and personal growth. It is only through interacting with the world that we learn how to exist in peace and harmony with our environment.

Study Findings About Long-Term Exercise Compliance

Gary Homann talks about his findings into long-term exercise compliance in this T-nation thread called Long Haul Training.

He covers all kinds of stuff such as goal setting periodization and what the evidence indicates about exercise intensity is well worth the read if you’re prone to quit training:

Back to the intensity issue. Unfortunately, this is another example of experts prescribing what they think people will do rather than what’s best or optimal. Reviewing the research makes it clear that higher intensity exercise leads to a longer life and less cardiovascular disease. (5) Studies have also demonstrated that people who do higher intensity exercise are leaner than people who only do low or moderate intensity exercise even when they eat more calories and burn fewer calories during exercise. (6) In short, you get more bang for the buck with higher intensity exercise.

Posture, Breathing, Intention, Aura – What I Meditate On

Posture, Breathing, Intention, Aura are the things that I will meditate to when my attention is not better placed elsewhere. Each one leads into the next one, building into the presentation of a purposeful me.

Appropriate posture is absolutely critical for taping into the energies of your body. When you first feel your body blend in with the earth’s gravity you will understand exactly what I am talking about. Gravity seems to pull the hips downward in such a way that they force the shoulders back, opening up your chest. It’s a powerful feeling that tells you that you are aligned. As the feeling builds, your mood and thinking will change to correspond to this improved state. Your breathing will become easier and deeper.

Once this happens, I shift my attention on to my breathing. I will be breathing from the belly instead of the chest. My diaphragm will be drawing air deep into the lungs and the abdominal muscles will be contracting and forcing it out. This will be a dramatic change from the normal shallow chest breathing that is more common and the consequences will be improved oxygen and CO2 exchange, increased breath size, decreased breathing frequency and a passive massaging of the organs of the abdomen. As attention remains on the breathing, there is a building sense of energy and stillness of the mind. Now I direct my attention to my intention.

When I’m mediating, my intention is to find peace and unity. I find these things when my mind is silent and they come about because of the sensation of NOT being ME. Thoughts and feelings of me being a part of everything, part of the individual global picture that everything belongs to, are peaceful because I am aware of no suffering and no isolation. It is within this peace and unity that I find the power to create and build my intention aura.

My aura is the energy I give off or sum total of the paralanguage that I radiate. Some people see energy auras radiating off of other people, others pick up on an energy field that radiates while others present paralanguage communications that indicate to everyone around them that they are positive, powerful, confident, at ease, peaceful and open. These may or may not be the same thing, but in this deepest stage of my mediation I am attempting to build an aura that others can pick up and draw power from. I want to beam energy and positive intention to everyone who sees me and I want to coat myself in a field of energy that allows me to hold on to this aura for as long as I can. It may seem unlikely, but people have commented on me looking different when I do this. They are unable to place exactly what it is that they are picking up on, so they just say different, and maybe a little brighter.

I will focus more on aura than anything else because of the four items as it is the only one that you cannot measure.

My practice of aura building goes back to my university days when I lived with Tony and Beth and was prone to fall asleep in front of the TV at night. As I feel asleep I would try to focus my attention on feeling a warmness within my fingers or toes. If you think about it, other than when you injure yourself or are in some sort of distress, you are rarely aware of anything existing within your body – you know there is something inside your head when you have a head ache, your back when you have back ache, in the muscles when delayed onset muscle soreness and your stomach when you bring in food or cold water. But you are, for the most part, oblivious to internal sensations of your limbs. This makes sense, given that the human perception works by determining contrasts – when you are not injured or sore, you have no reason to be aware of your limbs and will quickly and completely habituate any awareness. My goal with turning my attention towards my fingers or toes is to tune in to these sensations and try to perceive them.

It takes a few minutes to feel something but I slowly become aware of a warmness either in the fingers / toes or in the hands / feet. My eyes are closed so I imagine that blood is pooling in the extremities and this is create both a pressure and an increase in temperature – whether or not this is happening is irrelevant, what is critical is that I feel it happening. Once I feel the heat, I work at growing the heat up my arms / legs towards my torso. As the sensation builds I shift my focus towards my arms or legs, depending on how I started the aura-nurturing portion of the mediation. The sensation is a lot easier to generate once the whole thing has been set in motion and very quickly I feel both my arms and legs and my torso quickly fills up with feeling. As the awareness takes over my entire body, I reestablish the connection to my breathing and allow it to keep the sensation alive. I will try to maintain the feelings for as long as I can, imagining that there is something radiating from my body. Since my eyes are closed I visualize a sort of blurry field about 6-12 inches surrounding every part of me – I imagine that it is like looking at the top of a toaster that is on when the heat coming off of it makes the air rising from it look and behave like a liquid. I try to see myself surround in a field of that. After some time I would fall asleep. Upon waking the next day I would find myself full of energy and beaming with a social confidence and I’d be free from anxiety.

The aura building process works the same sort of way now, except I use the posture, breathing and intention steps to prime my body and mind and get them ready for it. After a lot of practice I am able to achieve this state with my eyes open and when I’m doing other activities like riding a spinning bike, climbing a hill or cruising a long straight section on a road bike or climbing a steady section on a mountain bike. With my eye closed I find the sensation easy to create when I’m doing resistance training. In fact, I credit my ability to generate this body awareness for big improvements in isolating specific muscles during resistance training sessions when it is critical to feel the muscle contracting.

I did say that this is the only item of the four that cannot be measured so why would I make it the biggest part of my mediation? Well, because I think there is something happening and I do enjoy improved feelings when I focus on generating an aura. Even if it is only psychosomatic, the improved feelings of well-being are worth the effort. It is also possible that the sensation of heat that I generate plays a similar role as delayed onset muscle soreness in letting me know that there is more of me than I am normally aware off. I’d liken this to the increase in confidence that many body builders experience when they gain weight. They feel more confident because there is actually more of them. Regardless of the mechanism of action, I do find an increased sense of wellness following this type of mediation.

“Posture, Breathing, Intention, Aura” said repeatedly until I tune into each one of them. It’s a great way to your attention onto something that will make you feel better.

Dr. John Berardi Wonders Out Loud

Finding inspiration in a return drive from Toronto to Philadelphia and back John Berardi wonders out loud.

I wonder…
Would more people overcome “average genetics” if they devoted 1-2 hours to their exercise plan every single day?

A new Canadian television program, The Dragon’s Lair, features aspiring entrepreneurs who are given the opportunity to pitch a business idea to 5 successful venture capitalists in the hopes of convincing them to invest in their business ideas. In typical reality TV fashion, the show presents a string of woefully unprepared contestants making a mockery of entrepreneurship.

However, on a recent episode, a woman from London Ontario, home of my Alma Mater, the University of Western Ontario, impressed the “dragons” with her business model and approach. She had started a line of delicious, omega-3 rich, organic salad dressings, She already had distribution and was looking for capital to mass-produce and distribute her dressings. Her presentation was on point, her marketing and advertising was solid, her product was of high quality, etc. And as a result, two of the dragons kicked in a total of over 100K to help her along.

When interviewed, post-show, she confessed that she was a mother of 2, worked full-time during the day, and devoted only 1-2 hours/night during the week to her salad dressing business. “People are always shocked when they hear about how I’ve grown the business” she stated in the interview. “But you’d be amazed by how much you can accomplish with 1-2 hours of directed effort performed consistently 4-5 nights a week, every week.”

It’s surprising how little incremental effort is required for long term success. His observations are solid and his article is worth the read.

Compliments Mean The Most When We Want Them To Be True

I give out a lot of compliments. When I identify someone who is doing a good job I will tell them that they are doing a good job. The girl at the coffee shop who makes my coffee, a joke and me smile will get recognized for it. I’ll notice new hairstyles, engagement rings and changes in the look of vitality and comment about them. In doing this I’ve noticed a few of things.

First off, most people can’t take a compliment very well. They seem to play it down like it isn’t true and some are very successful at diminishing it completely. I’d be inclined to say that some of my positive comments have actually allowed people to feel worse about themselves. I do wonder why someone would tear himself or herself down so completely in response to something nice. I tend to think that it is because they believe that I’m not telling the truth because, in spite of what I say, they know that they are crap and unlovable. It’s really weird.

The next group is those who respond with suspicion. They’ll ask me what I’m selling or just throw a compliment back at me. I’m guessing they do this because they feel unlovable too. I clearly must want something from them if I’m going to lie to them. If they reciprocate the compliment they keep everything on an even playing field and will not feel obligated to me for the nice thing I said. Both are clear indications that they do not believe my observation.

The final group is those who respond with a thank you and are filled with a sense of gratitude. They take compliments well because they believe what I have said. They don’t question my intentions, they just assume that I am telling the truth and have noticed something about them that they want to be true. I regard these people as more complete than the others because they give in to the possibility that things are the way I think they are. They allow their feelings and understanding of the world to be impacted by the way I view it – they take something positive out of my kind words and they allow themselves to feel good about it.

If you are going to give out compliments be sure that they are true and that they reflect how you actually feel. For example, “I like the way your hair looks” or “the way you smile every morning makes me feel good” are better than “you look pretty” or “the other people don’t smile as much as you do”. I say this because you can easily defend and embody your feelings; it is a lot harder to back-up objective type statements – I am an expert on my own feelings so any statement I make that speaks of them is undisputable. If your new hairstyle makes me feel that you look more beautiful, you aren’t in a position to tell me that I’m wrong. It is very difficult to tear these compliments down without being offensive to the person who uttered them.

It’s also very difficult to automatically reciprocate the compliment because it won’t sound natural. I’m saying something that I’ve clearly been thinking about because I’m telling you how something made me feel – knowing your feelings requires at least a moment of introspection. If you automatically compliment me back the “when were you going to tell me that” question is unconsciously raised. This question changes the dynamic between the two people in a very real and unnatural way.

A good compliment is simply just an honest observation about something that you view as positive. It will be well received if it reflects what you actually feel, especially if the confirms something that the recipient wants it to be true. If they receive it well, you know you are engaging someone who is comfortable with who they are and that they trust that you are telling them the truth. Be sincere and make their day!