“Our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by society.”

Alan Watts

“Our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by society.”

Alan Watts

You were born into an industrialized world of domestication, isolation, and categorization. Pop Tarts for breakfast. Mom transports you to school. Sit still in class. Walk to another class with an entirely unrelated, compartmentalized subject. Sit still. Soda and square pizza at lunch. Every other day you get to move in PE. Your social energy is invested in finding an appropriate group category. Perhaps athlete or the theatre clique. Ride the bus home. Do your homework and watch TV before having Hamburger Helper or a frozen pizza for dinner.

Mom and dad were cogs in the machine, working jobs you hardly understood—insurance claims or as a data specialist—to provide more material accumulation. This was your goal. Go to college. Study business, finance, or something tech related in hopes of getting a high-paying job. The point was to put yourself in a comfortable position so you could afford all the things you want—nice cars, nice house, nice clothes, a house-cleaner, a premium television package, and all that makes life wonderful.

College was a blast, although classes were tough and, often, uninspiring. A means to end. You graduated and got a good job with lots of room for advancement. You’re selling something. It doesn’t really matter what. You punch the numbers in the spreadsheets, or make the sales calls to customers, or maintain inventory, or some other role on this figurative assembly line. You are disconnected from the beginning and the end, isolated in your cubicle, pushing paper for pay.

You are still drinking and eating like a college student. These habits provide relief from the mind-numbing work and dissatisfying lack of purpose. Absent of intramural sports and a biker-friendly campus, your physique inevitably deteriorates.

This leaves two choices. Deny your desire to be better, or make a change. You opt for a gym membership. It is refreshing to be in a new environment with new people. While initially annoyed by how quickly your body has declined, you’re amazed how good you feel after a workout.

But that novelty soon wears off. It becomes a chore to get to the gym. Sitting all day makes you tired. Workouts are uninspiring.

You run like a hamster on a wheel while watching the news. You walk a never-ending staircase. You bike without moving. You go to the arms section for arms, the legs section for legs, and then the ab section for abs. Industrialization and domestication.

The Daily Grind

Each day becomes a cycle of going to work and working enough to avoid notice, scanning social media and Amazon for things that might shake you out of your rut, battling traffic to get across town, and then punishing yourself at the gym, limb by limb, under the guise that this is the only path to health.

In the locker-room you overhear a guy talking about his new diet. He is only working out three days a week and he’s lost 30 lbs. All you have to do is militantly count calories. He gets 2,000 per day and tracks them on an app.

He’s found that by buying a lot of low fat foods he can eat more because fats have nine calories per gram versus the four of protein and carbs. His wisdom becomes your introduction to “clean eating.” Categorize foods by macronutrient profile and count the calories. Industrialization and domestication.

You become obsessed with buying packaged foods with clearly marked calories and then adding up the calorie totals each time you eat. Clearly this is no way to live. You feel lethargic. Every day there seems to be new sweets in the office that take away from what you can eat the rest of the day.

Eventually, you get a promotion and see your workload increase. After a fun weekend at a friend’s wedding you remember how free and easy life used to be. You are done with this crap.

This is normal. This is the standard model of life that we’ve been handed.

We don’t just eat. The concept of prioritizing whole foods available in nature seems bizarre. Like, you don’t eat chips? We don’t just move as an obvious extension of being alive. We won’t bike to work, but we think we need to get up an hour early to ride a stationary bike.

We won’t mow our own lawn, or take the stairs, but we’ll do lunges around the track. We aren’t connected to projects that have clear beginnings and ends. We rarely play and have little understanding about what will give life meaning.

The Funnel of Society

Society funnels us towards work, material accumulation, dating, marriage, and eventually having kids that require us to make more money in order to maintain the things we all “need.” With few other examples, and the overwhelming pull of smartphone distraction, these children are quickly indoctrinated into the same patterns.

It is a cold, artificial, reductionist world that misses the obvious interrelations between everything. Contrast this to the world your biology was intended.

Hunting and gathering was the only job and all in your tribe were on the same team. The group depended on you. You’d explore constantly, deeply in tune with the environment and all your senses. Each day introduced novel movement from climbing trees to jumping between boulders. Time was spent on hunting missions and building projects. Free time was ample and led to games, music, and stories around the communal fire. It was a life of natural harmony and discovery.

Sure, there were dangers and hardships, but there was also great freedom and strength. Each person got to realize the resilient beast they were made to be. They knew who they were, what they were capable, and what they would die for. They faced rites of passage that clearly illuminated their immense capability and forged unshakable bonds through profound, vulnerable experience.

“What would you risk dying for—and for whom—is perhaps the most profound question a person can ask themselves. The vast majority of people in modern society are able to pass their whole lives without ever having to answer that question, which is both an enormous blessing and a significant loss.”

Sebastian Junger, Tribe

Obesity, depression, anxiety, suicide, and drug overdoses all climb to disturbing heights. We’re entrapped by debt, stuck in a chair doing meaningless work, while totally disconnected from the universals of the human experience.

Insulated from reality, society is immersed in creature comforts, growing dependent on sweets and heated seats. We become brittle and entitled, feeling afflicted by the exact gift that we need—the adversity that would call us to purpose, authenticity, and a greater version of ourselves.

We can’t hide from our bio-evolutionary nature and expect to thrive. But, perhaps, we don’t need to go back to a nomadic existence to realize the essentiality in honoring these deep human needs for authenticity, connection, and competency.

In our work at Inspired Human Development, Justin Lind and I refer to the concept of a Standard Model. As Justin first defined it:

“The standard model is life as we know it. It is the promise of happiness and fulfillment if you only just follow the expected and “normal” path through Western life.”

Life Is Too Short to Be Normal

Let’s break the mold.

Breaking the mold is about questioning the standard model of fitness and life. It is about challenging the compartmentalization and needless limitation of this artificial world in order to experience a fuller existence.

It is about breaking down walls so fitness intersects with life and offers a portal to a new way of thinking. The body is the entry point for self-development, but if we don’t eventually take it further than arbitrarily selected fitness goals we are sacrificing this gift.

My aim is not to attack the gym, but to remember that the point of the weight room has always been to make us capable of more outside of it—to enhance our lives and make us capable of doing the activities that make life special.

We don’t go to the gym in order to punish ourselves for a bland, sedentary life, or to excuse laziness and limited living through the rest of our week. Rather, the gym was created to offer unique challenge and training that amplify our pursuits and bring greater possibility to our lives.

Breaking the mold is about asking why.

• Why do I sit here and do this all day?
• Why do I spend my time this way?
• Why do I feel compelled to do these things?
• Why should I count calories and incessantly track every movement?
• Why don’t I try a new way of exercising? Calisthenics?
• Why couldn’t I use human muscle for most my daily locomotive needs?
• Why don’t I play tag or run around the playground anymore?
• Why wouldn’t I sign-up for that obstacle race?
• Why don’t I plan a rite of passage?

The past few generations have grown up absent of any mission or grand challenge. Without unifying purpose, the point of life became self-promotion, consumption, and convenience. Our lives were regimented around these outcomes.

The markers of adulthood became automatic and material. Eventually we took on the appearance and habits of adulthood, but without the strength and confidence we were sure would follow. A large part of us is desperately aware that we only have one life to live, yet unsatisfied with how each day is spent.

But, we have to do these things to provide for our children. The best thing any parent can do for their child is model a strong, tenacious spirit and a passionate life. Strong parents. Strong kids.

Stuff doesn’t matter. What really matters? Health, a joy in movement, passionate hobbies, a sense of freedom, confidence in your competency, deep relationships, and a desire to learn, grow, and chase challenges so that we are always becoming more.

We are already rebels. Fitness, in and of itself, is an act of counter-culture in this crazy world. Let’s take it further. Break the mold. Break down category and reductionism. Fitness and life should be messy, beautiful, and human. Fitness is not separate from life. It bleeds into every arena, and likewise, is informed by all our other experiences. Everything is everything again. We are an integrated, complex machine.

This Week’s Mission

Workout outside. It’s cold? Even better. It’s muddy? That’s the spirit.

Play with and practice these animal movements, courtesy of Justin Lind. Don’t worry about counting sets or reps. Just play as long as you can and feel free to let the momentum bring you into more creative play, whether handstand practice, cartwheels, a game of catch, or a joyful jog.

If other people are around you might feel awkward. Don’t be afraid of being weird.

Life is too short to be normal.

The post Breaking the Mold appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

From outside the gym looking in, a workout routine can seem like an insurmountable obstacle. Seeing others go through strenuous routines on machines you’ve never used before can be enough to turn just about any inexperienced person away. But I’m here to tell you that you aren’t alone in feeling intimidated.

Everyone had to overcome this moment to get to the point that they could circuit train and lift like a true gym rat. And the trick of it isn’t as hard as figuring out a series of pulleys and weights. The real secret is increments.

Start Your Journey

The journey of 1,000 reps starts with a single press (of something). The easiest way to gain an interest in working out and move toward your body goals is to incorporate it into your day-to-day routine in little ways.

In fact, the beginning of your fitness journey doesn’t even need to involve exercises as you might think of them. Start by setting yourself right within your own day. Merely making your routine the slightest bit healthier will set you on the right path toward a better, fitter life.

Try waking up at the same time every day, going on short walks, or even just cooking meals for yourself. These are all good habits to have (or, in the case of cooking, a necessary skill to survive as an adult human) and they can quickly start you toward your fitness goals without feeling like you’ve had to make dramatic changes.

Image courtesy of Jack City Fitness

These little changes will lend you more energy, giving you the necessary boost to start fitting in exercise where you can. It’s important to remember that exercise doesn’t have to look like working out in a gym.

Playing with your kids more often, doing a bit of work out in the garden, or keeping your dog out walking just a little while longer all adds up to a fitter, healthier you. And as far as perks go, a happy family, healthy pets, and a nice-looking yard are nothing to shake a stick at. (Of course, that’s also exercise).

Set Your Healthy Habits

The point is that it’s far easier to fit exercise into your day than you’ve been led to believe. While taking time to go to a gym will lead to faster and more noticeable results, any additional amount of exercise is a good look for someone who wants to look good.

After setting up healthy habits and finding the little moments to get a bit more exercise in, other parts of losing weight or managing health will start to fall into place. Get started today—you’ll be glad you did!

The post The First Rep Is an Increment of the Next 1,000 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“Everybody’s working for the weekend!” I’m a millennial, so that is the only line that I know to this popular 80’s ballad. After that line, I just awkwardly hum the melody: “na na na na na na na.”

While the “working for the weekend” approach lacks the focus to spur sustainable fitness or occupational success, it is a wonderful strategy to bust through Friday malaise. I’ve found great power in using this concept as a challenge. Don’t just work for a day off, earn it! Regardless of your fitness plan, each week should feature a gut check, and there is no better time than during the final session of the week.

The gut check has merit. It is not simply a display of bravado to tickle the ego and justify a little Clint Eastwood swagger. The gut check trains discipline and resiliency, perhaps the most essential qualities for life success while eliminating the increasingly common expectation for convenience and comfort.

Missing Toughness from Modern Life

Growing up in Texas without air-conditioning, my grandmother slept on the upstairs balcony all summer. My grandfather grew up with access to only cold showers for most of the year. Today, Roombas sweep the floor and people are shocked that my lawn mower is not self-propelled. Voice command, sock-sliders, back-up cameras, and a culture built on convenience conspire to leave us physically brittle and less resilient. We absorb conveniences unthinkable a generation ago, so much that their removal would feel like the cruelest injustice. Each rise in living standards establishes a new set point for conveniences we would feel oppressed to live without. This normalizes our bizarre luxury and can make us soft, feeble, and unhappy.

Luxury is not a new concept to humanity. The Roman philosopher Seneca wrote of the need to practice resiliency in a world prone to abundance, over-indulgence, and entitlement. He instructed that:

It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence. In days of peace the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil. If you would not have a man flinch when the crisis comes, train him before it comes.

Life is difficult, particularly when doing passionate and fulfilling work. Those who do not train their mind and body are doomed to fates of regret, self-pity, physical incapacity, and limited impact. The discipline, resiliency, health, and emotional balance necessary for optimal living are all trainable.

Training to Be a Hero

Limited experience with discomfort causes you to exaggerate your own plight. This leads toward self-interest over heroism. Capacity for heroism is necessary for our own happiness. As Sebastian Junger explains in Tribe, “Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary.” We become necessary through competency built on discipline.

Photo by Bev Childress

Our greatest societal aim should be to create people capable of and inclined towards heroism. This is impossible without training resiliency and an ability to delay gratification. Willpower is trainable and proves to be the greatest determinant of success and fulfillment. Delayed gratification means the ability to put up with discomfort. A relative concept, discomfort lies on a continuum from mild to extreme.

“The things that hurt, instruct.” – Benjamin Franklin

Much of health simply requires the discipline to persistently enter mild discomforts: taking a walk first thing in the morning and making a smoothie, rather than snoozing the alarm and picking up Chik-Fil-A. However, we must also train a capacity for thriving through more extreme hardships.

Typically, fitness success means avoiding extremes and committing to a sensible, long-haul approach. Yet, with more experience, we benefit by training our willingness to enter into a “Gut Check.”

The Gut Check

A weekly gut check trains the toughness required for those inevitable times that life demands true force of will. It teaches us a great deal about ourselves through intense trial. It creates an iron will, resilient to whatever the world throws its way and capable of great action when necessary. There will be times in our life that demand great courage– conscious decision to enter real pain for a greater value- whether that means social criticism for standing up for a cause or the ability to ignore pain to help others in a crisis.

For happiness, self-worth, and fulfillment, there is nothing better than a weekly gut check. You build the ability to take action and be the person you want to be rather than an impulsive, weak-minded child of the smartphone age. The gut check requires you to stare pain in the face and run towards it. It trains the ability to decide that five minutes of pain is worth becoming who you want to be.

You’ll feel a pit in your stomach when you think about the task ahead. A barrage of thoughts will invent reasons to skip it. Then, you’ll have to confront disappointing yourself. You’ll know that you’ll have failed if you do not make it happen. The entire day you’ll operate in the shadow of your own mental weakness.

Our Choices Define Us

We know what we have to do. Rachel Hollis, author of Girl, Wash Your Face (I promise, my wife told me about this), frames this as never breaking a promise to yourself. I’ve always favored my high school football coach’s directive: “99% is a wimp.” Regardless, the message is clear: plan the gut check and execute. You are capable. Do it for yourself.

Why We Need a Gut Check

Consider the intense luxury of the modern world. We fly to different cities, have access to more information than we could ever process, and experience tastes, comforts, and entertainment that most humans in history would have ever thought possible. The weekend offers these luxuries in even greater abundance. Earn them.

Privilege must be earned. No juice is sweeter than the juice you squeeze. Delayed gratification and earned privilege let us fully appreciate our comforts.

Photo by Bev Childress

Creating Your Gut Check

So, what do you do now? My premium programs always end the week with a challenging metabolic day, but you might prefer to focus on one big finale. Maybe it’s 500 jump ropes or a weekly Tabata front squat. It could be timed 400-yard repeats. Author of Original Strength, Tim Anderson told me he does a 1-mile bear crawl. Training for the RKC, I discovered the brutal five-minute snatch test. Now, each week I do as many 1-arm kettlebell swings as possible in five minutes. The US Secret Service selection process features a 10-minute kettlebell snatch test to take things to the next level.

Approach all gut checks with the same progressive mindset as any other training. I do not recommend the Secret Service test or high repetitions of anything for which your form is not perfect. Regardless of your level and experience, there is a weekly challenge for you. So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to earn the weekend.

The post Earn the Weekend with a Gut Check appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It has been said many times that people make decisions for two reasons—to gain some type of pleasure or to avoid some type of pain. Let me ask you a question, would you be more inclined to exercise to live a longer life? Or would you be more inclined to exercise to avoid dying too soon?

Most companies in the health industry are focused on looks and strength and performance gains. But rarely do they tap into the major decision-making part of the brain, called the limbic system, which drives emotional decision making. If you could tap into the area of the brain that understands true decision making, how powerful would that make you?

It’s Not Only Cause and Effect

Most people live their lives in a cause and effect scenario and often won’t start eating healthy or begin exercising regularly until something bad happens—maybe a friend died young from high blood pressure, or maybe it is when they are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Yet, the average gym, personal trainer, or health enthusiast focus their marketing on getting six pack abs, losing 25 pounds for summer, gaining muscle, and losing fat. Most never speak about the negative effects of not living a healthy lifestyle. Here are three questions to ask someone who is on the edge of living a healthier life:

1. What is the cost of the average ambulance ride to the hospital if you were to suffer a heart attack?
2. What if you don’t live long enough to watch your children graduate from college?
3. For Americans who file bankruptcy, the number one cause is health reasons related to large medical bills. Is that something you would want to go through?

Create Compelling Reasons for a Healthy Lifestyle

You see, people today have good intentions. They read a motivational quote online and it gets them going for a week or two. But to have sustained growth and consistent success it requires compelling reasons. Those reasons can be fear based or pleasure based.

Unfortunately, the United States is still the most obese country in the world. In fact, 75% of our country is considered overweight and there is no end in sight. By 2020 actuaries predict that number will increase to 85%. Choosing to live a healthy lifestyle is as real as it gets. It’s the job of gym owners and trainers to try to influence the masses.

If a healthy lifestyle isn’t the first priority of our clients or members, many will experience premature loss of a loved one, excess and unnecessary medical costs, and personal bankruptcy.

The post Health Clubs Should Focus on Our Fears appeared first on Breaking Muscle.