What is the sense of big muscles if you don’t know how to use them?
What is the sense of a fancy sports car with no horse power within?

It’s so pitiful seeing all those big guys hitting the gym trying to to get even bigger, spending thousands of hard-earned dollars for expensive bulk supplements that, in many cases, hurt their bodies and cause irreversible health problems. And what’s the aim? A 350 pounds meat pack that spends 3500+ calories a day, but is still a big zero when it comes down to even most simple tasks?

The “bodybuilding” boom of the last few decades has been aiming at “good looks”, but no real quality. That is: isolate the muscle, pump it hard, eat a lot, make it grow. But, where’s the bright logic of homo sapiens here? Who said that big muscles will do better job in a given task? Quantity never presupposes quality and vice versa. There is no logical connection between the two. And as our fathers were “training” for quality, we are training for quantity nowadays. Good progress, comrades! It’s like building a facade and forgetting about anything else.

Now, I don’t want to tell You what to do. It’s a free world (in most cases) and you have a choice just like in anything else: to smoke or not to smoke - you decide. If you are just trying to get big muscles in order to impress somebody then to hell with the quality. To hell with the guy on the other side of the planet who is writing this. To hell with the health, if it stands on your way. Go ahead and impress everybody. Maybe it’s a good aim.

But if your aims lie in deeper virtues, if you are seeking performance rather than the mere “good looks”, if you’re going for the essence and not superficiality, then go with the quality.

Quality doesn’t mean isolating and pushing one muscle till it grows the size of a tumor. Quality means training the whole body: to train all the muscles together so they work in a team as they should be. It means training your nervous systems that controls your muscles.

The neurologists say we only use max. 10% of our brain capacities. The fact is, we use only 10% of our whole nervous abilities. It is said that our muscles have enough strength to lift a car even without having been once to the gym. It’s just that they don’t know HOW to do it. The nerves just don’t give enough impulse to work at 100%. Ever seen a man struck by lightning with several bone fractures? That’s how “hard” the muscles can work given the right impulse.
Now imagine a trained neuromuscular system working at its best. Knowing what to do in a given situation and how to do it. This is an aim far beyond the mere pumping of the muscles. In fact, the question of size is senseless here. They will grow to the size that is needed for the tasks your system is trained for. Muscles are means but not the aim. And strength is only a tiny part of it! Think about increased speed, range of motion (flexibility), better coordination, endurance. THAT is quality.

I’m happy to see that more and more people are realizing this. Today you can find the same concept in what is called “functional training“,? which is getting very very popular, and “kettlebelt training” - the roots where our fitness fathers have started from!

Live strong!

In todays world people live in what I like to call a mental trap. You don’t really get to live and to enjoy the things you do during the day. No matter what your goals are and no matter if you reach them or not, most of the time thoughts cluster in your mind. Doubts, fears, hopes… about the future and the past. If there was a reliable way to detect those thoughts and analyze them, I’m sure that most of us are trapped in that abstract state most of our time during the day (and night).

Unnecessary thoughts are your enemies. If you know how to control them, thoughts are powerful tools in art, science, studies, etc. But most of us don’t even know that there is something inside our heads completely on the loose. Like a hurricane thoughts disturb our inner life and peace. As a result you get depressed, you are more sensetive to stress, you get insomnia, you get anxious, etc. Basically you just can’t enjoy your life. Days seem to pass quickly. You don’t get the time to do all you want to do. Years fly by and time feels waisted. Your self-esteem is damaged, you can’t face challenges, you can’t keep promises, you get weak and ill.

And the cause is the thought-beast that rages in your inner self. Think of it as a nuclear reaction. In a controled state it is the most important and powerful energy source, in a not controled state it’s the most disastrous catastophe you could ever face.

Among other things random thoughts are our main enemies when it comes to achieving our goals. Basically most of us give up long before we reach our physical limits and long before we did everything we could have done to achieve a specific goal. Thoughts in the form of doubts put an invisible wall on our way.

I’ll take my jogging experience as an example. After a year of “rest” I’ve finally decided to start jogging again since I felt a decline in my physical endurance. For the first time I’ve chosen a pretty long track and I had serious doubts that I could run it without stopping. Nevertheless I wanted to try.

After half the way my legs started aching pretty bad. I thought my lungs would explode, I’ve been breathing fast and deep, my throat was burning, but still could get enough oxygen. My inner voice literally screamed “Stop”. I noticed myself thiking “Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to start jogging” “It’s too much for the first time” “Maybe I should stop and walk the rest of the way home”, etc. You get the idea. As I was thinking my state got worse and I was an inch away from giving up.

It was then that I became aware of my thoughts. What the heck was I doing? Why was I spending my time in those thougths? My pain was completely normal considering that the last time I jogged was so long ago. So I decided to stop thinking completely and just concentrate on the run.

I just focused my whole awareness and my whole self on the sole objective to get further. I lost the sense of my body and it’s pains. I was free of thoughts, I was a pure action. My self was unstoppable. I felt like the wind. No emotions, no thoughts, just doing it (I always liked the Nike slogan hehe).

Surprisingly I finished the second half of the track much faster, although my condition was worse. The only difference in the second half was my mental state. Since I didn’t “collapse” nor “die”, like my thoughts suggested, it was obvious that my physical condition actually allowed me to finish that track. On the other hand, if I had allowed my thoughts to take over, I would have stoped because of the “mental wall” they would have put in front of my progress.

So here is my advice. If you want to achieve your goals outside in your life, learn to control your inner state first. Show who the master is in your inner world. Control over your thoughts will give you intergrity and solidness to face different situations in your life. You will notice that you are more calm, strong, wise and productive, and others will feel it, too.

I’ve found the following interesting fact while browsing the web the other day: on average, every 10.3 steps you take burn 1 Kcal.

So, by walking one mile (around 2000 steps) an average person burns 200 kcal! Let’s suppose the average person’s weight used in the calculation above is 200 pounds (which, I suppose, is average but +/- 15% don’t really matter here).

A 200 pounds person burns 200 K.calories by walking one mile. Therefore, a X pounds person burns X calories in one mile. So, if your weight is 300 pounds and you walk 3 miles you could potentially burn 900 Kcal. That’s quarter of a pound baby! And 3 miles can be done in an hour.

This is a very simplified calculation method, but very handy for an “average” person who hates maths.

People, save money on gas. Go walking to your work, to the store or the movies. Take a relaxing evening walk that will also make you sleep better. By doing only that you could burn 2-3 pounds extra a week.

Live strong