Here we are, on the third round of traps that cause people perpetual anguish when trying to change their body. You can read round one here, and prevent falling into some of traps nutrition and fitness companies use to trick you. You can read round two here, and get a different perspective on the relationship [...]
Here we are, on the third round of traps that cause people perpetual anguish when trying to change their body. You can read round one here, and prevent falling into some of traps nutrition and fitness companies use to trick you. You can read round two here, and get a different perspective on the relationship between testosterone and sex drive, and also between aerobic running and alactic anaerobic running and the whole marathoner vs. sprinter body debate. (If those terms scare you, you should read this.)
I’m not sure what’s going to come first: me finding decent enough Admiral Ackbar pictures to use, or me running out of advice. Time will tell on that one, but for now — we move on.
1. On stories
From the moment you enter this body transformation space, you’re gobbling up voodoo stories of how the body works. I won’t pretend like I don’t believe in some of my own voodoo — because I do — but it’s important to be aware of it.
Some of these voodoo stories are true. Some aren’t. It’s all fine, really, because even some of the false ones help you keep your head on straight. Otherwise you’d be a tremendous skeptic and have an existential meltdown every other day. (In other words, you’d be me.)
The problem with these stories are twofold, each of which is one in the same: self-fulfilling prophecies and embodied cognition. What you think effects how your body functions, and you often end up fulfilling your own self thought destiny rather than total possibility.
Do you really need a pre-workout drink? If you think you do, you will. If you’re of the mindset that the body thrives in times of starvation and that energy comes from storage and is plentiful, you won’t.
Nothing really changes in this situation, just the mindset. Where one embraces hunger and mentally uses it as an advantage, the other sees it as a negative.
Do you really need 48 hours of rest in between training sessions? If you think you do…
Do you really need a gigantic feast thirty minutes post workout? If you think you do…
I’m not here to say any of these are right and wrong. That’s not the point. The point is that your voodoo stories should match up with what you’re working with. There’s no point to believe that pre-workout nutrition is uber important if you have to train at 6AM, and can’t eat beforehand. There’s no reason to believe that you need 48 hours of rest if you’re a gymnast that needs to practice skills that require the entire body every day.
Wherever you are, it starts with the story you tell yourself. If you find yourself in a predicament, don’t try to abide by an inconveniencing story. Flip the script: change the story itself and see what happens.
Sorry Descartes. You did good things, but the mind and body are inseparable.
2. On ease
I get a lot of emails from frustrated souls, wondering why they aren’t seeing progress. Almost always, these are the people that have one foot in and one foot out.
Here’s the deal: you have one trillion (!) cells in your body.
When you train, you alter the way these cells function, which then alters the way they take up and handle nutrients, which then alters…
If you ever had the pleasure to meet the best knitter in the world, I’m sure you’d find that this knitting champion spent an unusual amount of time knitting (and probably what any non-knitter would consider an “unhealthy” amount of time).
If you want to have any semblance of self dominance over your body, you have to accept that your one trillion cells are working in a way that’s totally unique to your body, and that you have to do the grunt work to really discover how it all comes together.
If you aren’t willing to take it to another level of thought and care then I don’t know what to tell you, save for the fact that you’ll never become the best knitter you can become.
3. On expecting consistent progress
More often than not, your best progress will come after a period of regression. I can probably explain this in some Dr. Seuss way, but the body isn’t a linear and predictable creature.
This is why I write about chaos, and why I wrote The Chaos Bulk. One of the upgrades coming to The Chaos Bulk is going to be all about this non-linearity of gains, and how to use it all to your advantage. The more you try to make muscle gain a linear thing (ie: gain “x” amount of pounds in “y” time), the further away reality becomes.
Looking back on pictures from this year, my thoughts about The Chaos Bulk have been even more self verified. On the outskirts, The Chaos Bulk is about intermittent fasting, carbohydrate cycling, calorie cycling, and all of that nutritional madness. From the inside though, it’s about going through short periods of purposeful deprivation (even to the point of short term muscle wasting) in order to boost muscle building potential in the future.
Most people freak out about this, they worry about it effecting their immediate performance. They want the linear climb. They’re telling themselves a story. But the reality is that muscle rarely floats into a forever nothingness.
Once you grasp the idea of your training and nutrition being a cohesive unit (talked about in point #2 here), and training driving physiological change, you can be at mental peace knowing that your body will take care of business as long as you’re delegating the right orders.
What if I told you…
The above points are updated and condensed versions of a few old posts. If you found them interesting, perhaps you’ll also enjoy:
- 7 Crucial Training Lessons to Learn From The Chaos Theory
- 7 Expectations of the Journey, and Why You Should Be a Goonie
- What Stories Are You Telling Yourself?
Perhaps it’s best to end on this bit: what stories are you telling yourself of ease and progress? Are these stories positive or negative?
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