Almost half a year with barely any movement you learn to appreciate the bodytweaking lifestyle. The bad thing about putting your fitness second is the vicious cycle it leads to. Believe me, I know.

I have experienced some bladder problems last September, basically I was sick for two+ months. Each time I tried to do anything, my condition seemed to get worse so I decided to stop jogging and rowing and working out for a while. After the two months everything was perfect again, but I have conditioned myself to the work-pc-sleeep-eat-work-lifestyle during that time.  Somehow I neglected to get into the full bodytweaking way of life again.

The months passed and I have noticed a sharp downhill movement in my energy levels. I felt tired in the morning (I have to wake up at 5 :00AM for work) and throughout the day. And I felt absolutely no motivation to do anything productive in the evening, after work. This ‘anything’ includes workouts. The more I stayed like this, the more I felt drained and unmotivated and annoyed about everything. My productivity and motivation at work also suffered a bit.

I knew that this way of life can lead to a overweight-couch-potato-lifestyle within a year. So to get into the shape again I signed up for a 10 miles city-run with Sparky a month ago. The run itself takes place in June (you will hear about it).  It is not really that big of a challenge, but still requires you to run regularly over the period of several weeks.

Running has always been the main pillar of bodytweaking. It gives you unheard energies and motivation and conditions your lower part of the body (from the chest down, which BTW includes most of your muscles, volume-wise) for more physical challenges.

After four weeks of running 3 times a week things have changed tremendously. Motivation is back at high-levels. I get up at 5:00AM and feel fresh. I feel that my sleep became very deep and energizing again, since I remember dreaming a lot. And most of all, my legs start to feel like two power rockets. It gives me that self-confidence that I can jump over anything that comes in my way.

I am the rocket man!

This amount of data can actually overwhelm you and paralyze you. You will think “Oh my God, there is so much about this topic and I don’t know anything about it… It would take years to even get a glimpse at the basics…” And there goes your motivation down the hill. Your subconscious builds automatically resistance and blocks your way forward.

This happens in many areas of life, but most of all – you shouldn’t allow it to happen with your fitness. A wise man said that happiness lies in ignorance. In the first place – you do not have to know. You have to have fun and you have to feel free.

1. Stop chasing the knowledge - look at it as the first requirement in your new fitness lifestyle. Your first action is to actually get physical exercise. If you feel motivated, you can read about the topic afterwards. This has also the benefit that you can draw parallels between what you have just experienced and what you are reading.
2. Prototyping – This is a concept from software development. A software developer takes a look at the problem and then simply goes and programs a quick-and-dirty solution. It doesn’t have to solve the problem 100%, be pretty, complete or totally functional. The point is to get your feet wet and put the first milestone. You can always refine the details at a later point.
3. Do not be afraid of doing something wrong – Do not be afraid of doing something wrong and being labeled as a newbie. Go your own path, do not let the thoughts about “what others may think” cloud your experience. Enjoy what you are doing. Smile. You will instantly feel more confident and perform better.

To start with the Bodytweaking lifestyle I will just give you a hint: Run. Run 2-4 times a week. And now stop reading and go running. Everything else will come later

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.

Last month in the mountains, while climbing a practically vertical wall of about 120 feet, I’ve got a severe muscle cramp in both hamstrings. Basically I couldn’t use my legs and was hanging there for several moments, a 50lbs backpack behind my shoulders, clenching my teeth together in pain. Luckily I was only a few feet away from a plateau, so I could get there and rest a few minutes, stretching and making the cramps go away.

All this happened after 4 hours of hiking. I consider myself a fit person, so it was kindof strange to get in that situation in the first place.

So after some research I’ve found that fitness doesn’t always play a big role when it comes to muscle cramps. Some of the reasons for muscle cramps may include:

• Poor Hydration, which was probably my case
• Fatigue (I’ve been sleeping only 2 hours the night earlier)
• Poor Flexibility (not really my case)
• Poor Nutrition (Maybe it was my case)
• Not enough oxygen (Usually I don’t do any hiking at those altitudes)

Even the strongest swimmers can get a muscle cramp in moments they don’t expect. I’ve heard some swimmers take a needle with them when they swim long distances into the sea, because apparently a muscle cramp goes away when you strike the muscle with a needle. I don’t know if I’d have the guts to do that, but I guess the perspective is a little bit different when you are “on the edge”. We all can do wonders when it comes to our pesonal life .

A needle wouldn’t help me much on that wall though, as my hands were a little bit busy in that moment

You can read more about muscle cramps here.

The morning after our arrival. I must say we somewhat underestimated the climate in the mountains. We came without proper equipment for snow nor climbing; it looked like we’d have to do a lot of that though

We’ve spent the first night 5250 feet (1600 meters) above the sea level. I couldn’t sleep at night because it was pretty cold. I got up 5am and jogged for about an hour to keep myself warm. I’ve managed to get only 2 hours of sleep that night.

We had a good 4-season tent. Our clothes and sleeping bags weren’t good enough for that freezing night though.

The landscape is pretty impressive: rivers, wateralls, mountains, forests. They say the water is safe to drink at this altitude. I don’t remember having ever drunk such a pure and cold liquid.

That’s some crazy waterfalls…

Finally moving out of the canyon to climb up the snow-covered mountains. It’s something above 1000 feet (300 meters) from bottom to top of the canyon. It may look small on the photo, but is pretty gigantic when you look at it with your own eyes.

Initially our plan was to stay below the snow line. But we underestimated that snow line which appeared to start at a lower altitude than we expected. Besides our originally planned route turned out to be blocked by heavy snow, so our new plan was to cross a few mountains to get to a shelter on the French side of the Pyrenees. Bad idea

As you may notice on the photo we’re by far not prepared to cross snow-covered mountains at high altitudes.

The Incredibles. We’ve spent about 5-6 hours walking up the mountains. Our shoes are simple Nike shoes for running. Nothing fency for the mountains nor snow. As a result our feet turned into ice in no time. We had to stop and use plastic bags to cover our socks and keep the feet a little bit warmer and isolated. That didn’t help much.

It was getting late and we had still a few miles to go and about 1000 feet (300m) to climb. At this moment we were at about 8530 feet (2600m). The snow became pretty soft under the sunrays and the walking bacame much more difficult as our feet sunk 2-3 feet into the snow.

What came next was a perfect horror scenario. A freezing stom with heavy winds appeared in a matter of minutes from the French side. This only meant that we couldn’t cross the French border and get to the shelter because we had still a 1000 feet to climb and that storm would have killed us at that altitude. We were literally cut off from the shelter. No person, no nothing in a radius of many many miles. Just rocks, heavy wind, and the white freezing dessert…

We managed to change our direction and cross two frozen lakes, going down to 7200 feet where the storm wasn’t that strong. We’ve put our tent on some rocks which looked like an iceberg in a white sea. The wind almost broke the tent apart that night. The sounds resembled someone hitting on your head with a sledge hammer… Out clothes, shoes, etc became pure ice… I could literally use my socks as boomerangs in the morning…

Our salvation was a portable butane burner. We could keep ourselves warm at night and dry our clothes/shoes in the morning. We’ve decided to end our trip right there. I guess at one moment everyone of us thought that we were not going to make it.

And then, then came the wall… The only way to go down to the canyon next morning and escape the snow was to climb down “the wall”. It may look small on the photo, but, believe me, it’s so huge and so high it simply takes your breath away.

It’s a long way down to the abyss…

We’ve found some spectacular waterfalls on the way…

The abyss gets closer. It seems like it’s been an hour and we still couldn’t reach it.

And finally came the abyss, “the wall”. Don’t ask me how we managed to climb down with 30 pounds backpacks behind our shoulders. It was the second time on this trip we were so close to the end. Second time lucky…

Nirvana. Relax after some strong emotions as the adrenaline still pumps through our veins… This adventure wasn’t that bad after all…

There are a few lessons to be learned.

• Never ever underestimate the mountains
• Get the right equipment
• Get the right know-how
• Get the right meteo information

You have to respect the mountains, as they can be pretty deadly.
I’m thinking about getting the right equipment, a few books and maybe visit some mountain trekking courses. High Mountain Trekking is a perfect hobby to stay fit, too. It’s incredible how many calories you burn.

… And if you like photography, there are some perfect landscape shots waiting for you