Stress Relief

My last few posts had to do with personal inspiration and music.  Today I want to discuss stress relief and what we need to do to combat stress.

Honestly, I'm not usually stressed. This may come as a surprise considering I work with the public and more specifically, people who are trying to make themselves better.  If you've ever been in the same situation, you know the stress that ensues when you wear the stress of
others on your shoulders.  I honestly have a lot that I should stress about, and sometimes I do, but I found the perfect partner to share my life and my experiences with (I'm talking about you wife ;) ).

Not only do I have a wife whom I can share my stress with, I have an occupation that allows for me to reduce my stress.  Honestly sometimes life's easier at work, other times it's not.  I can go in, basically hang out with my friends all day, make people sweat and then go home.  Each day is unique, because each person is unique.  I love the challenge of it all, and if you know me even a little you know I struggle to sit still and literally do nothing (I'm sitting here right now writing this and even then I'm doing that).

Stress is not something that you live without.  How you manage this stress is more important than anything.  My stress relief comes from lifting & fighting, writing some of these posts, and honestly just wrapping my head around what's going on in the world.  I don't stress about things that I cannot control, or at least at the moment.  I watch and listen to people stress about things, or should I say complain, and yet do nothing to intervene (mostly politics).

Outline what stresses you out and what helps for you to relax.  If you have a greater list of stressors than things that reduce it, you need to consult some coaching to release some of that stress.  If it's the other way, keep doing what you're doing.  Stress is there, but it doesn't have to overwhelm you.

No benefit to prolonged warfare....

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare
- Sun Tzu

Strength training is boring.  The act of becoming stronger takes time, energy, and determination but nevertheless is still boring.  On the other hand, this boring can be super effective at getting you strong.  However at some point, you will not receive any benefits to the program as your body will have outlasted it's adaptability (for now).  

For the most part, strength training is a war.  It's a war against your body.  It's a war against gravity and usually a heavy-ass thing being pulled down by it's forces.  Strength gains can be fast or can be slow, not unlike gaining ground in actual warfare.  Sometimes you reach an area of which you gain nor lose ground, sort of like "digging in the trenches."

Over time, this "digging" leads to a retreat.  It's not to say that you are over-trained, just overreached for a period.  This can ultimately diminish your return and no benefit takes place.  Failure to change the plan or to rest can result in no more gains and just wasting your time.  

Often it's the cycling of different programs and plans that will lead to the largest gains and the fewest failures.  Sometimes it's the exact same lifts as a prior plan, but it's the organizational change that makes the difference.  In all fairness, the main lifts such as the deadlift, the squat, the bench press, the overhead press, and hell, even the pull-up are all the best things out there.  If you can do well in all of these, you're strong in general.  

Strength gains are made by manipulating the sets/reps/weight, and consistently pursuing greater and greater workloads.  They're gained by being patient and hanging on just long enough for it to become ineffective.  Too long and it's a failure and no benefit.  The war is then lost.  

Run away! Run Away!

An after run thought on running and lifting. 

The lift that conquers me

Everyone who lifts has one that conquers them.  I happen to have 2 that tend to beat the hell out of me. These two are the Snatch (Olympic lift) and the bench press.  I honestly don't perform the snatch too often, so I don't want to even pretend I like it or can improve.  However, the bench is something that I do perform more frequently.

The bench press is a relatively simple exercise that involves you laying on a bench, lifting a bar up off the pins, bringing it down to your chest and pushing it back up.  Simple right?  As the squat and the deadlift, which I had posted about previously, are simple they are not easy.

Some of the most effective and the best things that you can do aren't complicated, but often they're not easy.  And at some point, you'll encounter one that conquers you, regardless of how often you attack it.  This isn't to say give up.  It's just that you keep attacking and don't give up.

For your upper body, there are not too many things that are more effective over the bench press.  I might argue the pull-up or even the overhead press, but still, they are different altogether and will be the subject of a later post.

Lifting is war.  Each success that is made is like a battle that has been won, but the war never ends.  Sometimes there are setbacks, sometimes roadblocks, sometimes difficult terrain, but keep the faith in that you'll prevail in the end, as long as you don't quit.

The lift may conquer me, but in the end, I'll conquer it.  

Push from the heels and keep that chest up

Last week, I posted on the deadlift as it's one of the largest builders of awesomeness that there is.  It builds muscle, strength, explosiveness, and all around bad-assery.  With all of this awesomeness comes a price, the nervous system takes an epic beating over time.

Enter, the squat.  The squat is another one of the greatest exercises known to man.  The beauty in the squat is that it can literally be done anywhere and with anything.  While you're reading this, you can bust out some body-weight, or "air" squats; or you can load up a barbell and work everything in the process.  

Squats are traditionally held on "Leg Day," of which you guessed it, you work your legs.  But the squat is much more than that, it's one of the best mass builder, strength builder, and fat burner that you can possibly perform.  It's right up there with the deadlift as one of the largest builders of awesomeness.  

Performing this lift isn't all that complicated, but perfecting it is.  The carryover into every day activities is also unmatched, as long as you're walking.  With very few exceptions should anyone not perform this lift.  Every sport known to the human race benefits from this lift.  Every activity known to the human face benefits from this lift.  

Summary is, everybody can benefit from a simple yet somehow brutally demanding exercise.  Even with no weight, you can improve your life, legs, and lungs; with weight, so much more.  Now that you're done reading this, go ahead and try a few.  

You know that will probably kill you?

Do you know what the leading cause of death in the world is?  It's life.  Life will ultimately kill you in the end. Our ultimate goal with "healthy eating" or "exercise" is to prolong the inevitable death that we will all face.

Not to be morbid, but it got your attention right?  At work the other day, I had a...well let's call it an encounter rather than a conversation, with someone who is probably more than knowledgeable about healthy foods and exercise.  He is another employee from our parent organization, however, we don't have the same "chain of command" and we don't have the same purpose, I'll leave it as that so I don't even accidentally let loose who or what he does.  

In any case, I was just finishing up a fairly intense workout when I went into the break room for something quick to eat prior to my going to the university for a class that I teach.  He walks in and sees that I'm pulling out food.  He came into microwave a sweet potato and I am at this point eating oatmeal for lunch. That day I packed the oatmeal, some peppers & carrots, a Greek yogurt, peanut butter, and some summer sausage that I've had since Christmas (just opened it though).  He gives me a little shit about the summer sausage having sodium nitrates, which is true, but honestly I didn't care.  

In truth, if I weren't active for the majority of my day I'd probably care about sodium nitrates.  They might kill me in the end, but they might not.  The reality is that I have probably a hundred other things ranging from accidents to genetics that will take me in the end and I really didn't care if there were sodium nitrates in my lunch.  He may have been benign and just telling me or somewhat of a douche and telling me.  Not sure, didn't feel like asking nor did I really take anything he said into great value.  

What I'm driving at here is that ultimately life will kill you, so enjoy it while you have it.  I maintain a healthy lifestyle overall, with 2-3 boxing classes per day of which I'm moving around and coaching and taking hits.  I lift 4-5 days per week, depending on which plan I'm working on.  I eat vegetables and generally lean proteins nearly every meal, though in truth I probably don't eat enough (yes, I said that; more on that concept later).  

My main concern is keeping my stress level low.  I feel like I do that, most of the time.  You can eat the cleanest diet on the planet but if you're stressed no amount of clean eating or exercise can fix that.  Anyway, I would like for you to think about the face that in the end, life will kill you, so you might as well live. 

Fluffy like a pillow...built on steel!

One thing about myself is this, I feel fluffy like a pillow with a core made out of steel.  I've battled with my weight my entire life even to this day.  While I've been educated in how to exercise effectively, the issue is life itself.

Generally speaking, I need to build up the framework psychologically to be successful with body compositional goals.  My goals are generally simple, put on muscle, lose fat.  However, if you are to look at the way I gain and lose weight, it's the traditional endomorphic body type.  My upcoming post will go into somatotype to discuss the differences between endomorph, ectomorph, and mesomorph.

I feel like if I look at a cupcake or cookie, I've gained about 6lbs.  On the contrary, If I lift any amount of weight I feel like I've gained some significant muscle.  Not really a great compromise, especially when you consider the whole gain weight concept.

I enjoy lifting weights.  I enjoy food.  I'm like nearly every red-blooded American male.  I honestly try to be good with my diet most of the time, but, I also have a weakness for Oreos and pizza.  I like lifting weights and hate cardio (it's boring) unless it's boxing or kickboxing.  In the end, it forces me to be fluffy like a pillow built on steel.

Restricting what you do can only lead to bigger problems in the end.  I'm now of the mindset that I need to make sure that my overall health is alright.  I have three kids that need my wife and I when I get home each and every day.  I look at getting 4-5 workouts per week as a success.  I eat vegetables at least 2 meals per day and really try like hell to avoid those Oreos at night.

I'm like you and everyone else.  It's just that I have been educated and trained in exercise and diet, but I still love the American in me!