Category: Exercise

A friend asked for some advice on getting into better shape. He’s a regular guy, not much of an athlete and was after some clear, simple advice.

Like most people, he just wants to look good naked and to be generally healthy. That means he doesn’t need to train like elite athletes do. He doesn’t have to aim low, but by definition, an elite athlete is rare, probably in the top 1% of the population, so why should he train like an elite athlete?

And he’s better off not trying to be someone else. Shoot for you, but better. A better you is something you can do.

He has to make sure he’s harvesting the low hanging fruit that produces a lot of benefits without much effort like not smoking, sleeping enough, eating more protein and fat, and getting some sunlight. Plus he should start standing more than sitting.

Next, he should find exercises he enjoys doing and he’ll be more likely to show up for workouts. And try to arrive at the minimum effective number of workouts a week. The right amount of exercise is more effective than doing as much as possible. If laying in the sun for 30 minutes produces a tan, doubling the time in the sun just burns you. Less is often more.

An another important consideration is not doing exercises which may result in harm. Getting hurt is a big setback. Some exercises might look cool but can hurt you when they’re done incorrectly or too often. For example, unless you’re fascinated with Olympic weight lifting, why bother learning those complicated high velocity techniques, when you can easily and safely do deadlifts, bench presses, and squats with moderate weight?

That was enough information to get him started. I’ll try to keep tabs on his progress. If knows he’s accountable to someone, he’ll be more likely to stick with it. We’ll see.

I took Capoiera for a year before switching over to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) for the last six months.

Capoeira requires more flexibility and  musicality than I have. Instead, I have a good strength to weight ratio and don’t tire easily which suits BJJ better.

Plus BJJ as a form of grappling and is more applicable in the real world, should you need it, because most fights wind up on the ground.

And I’ve noticed is how coaching works or doesn’t work for me.

A teacher can’t coach a student to do a movement the student isn’t able to do. The student will only be trying to survive the pattern being taught, rather than absorbing it.

Among lots of possible factors, difficulty learning a movement could be due to the athlete’s lack of flexibility, balance, strength, symmetry, or coordination. Then add to that    communication skills and jargon. My primative Spanish and a veneer of Portuguese Capoiera jargon combined to create a confusing environment for me to learn in.

Capoiera was a lot of “monkey see, monkey do” learning which isn’t effective for me. It wasn’t always clear what we were doing or why we were doing it. Culturally it seems, Americans like to ask lots of questions in striving to understand the what you’ll be building on.

Having an English-speaking instructor is important for me because he can explain the nuances of different moves, which I was missing out on before. But even if the language situation were reversed I’d still prefer BJJ.

So far BJJ is fun, interesting, and a good fit for me.

It’s been said that a strong person is harder to kill than a weaker one, and generally more useful too.

There’re lots of ways to get stronger. How you decide to do it depends on what your goals are. But if you’d like to get generally stronger most methods work, if you’ll do one.

You don’t need to kill yourself. Only do as much as necessary, rather than as much as you can.

I think getting your eating straightened out is important, ahead of exercise, but that’s another subject.

Here’s a sampling of some different schemes, from easy-to-follow to the more involved:

Power to the People uses just two exercises, the deadlift and a press. Each is done for two sets of (never more than) five reps. This leaves something in your tank, so you can do this workout five days a week and take the weekends off.

Easy Strength is somewhat similar in approach to Power to the People, five or six days a week of easy workouts using five movements and a low rep scheme that varies according to the day, of a 40 day cycle. You only add weight as you feel stronger.

High Intensity Training takes less than twenty minutes and you’ll do maybe six exercises, usually on machines. The workouts are just once every seven to fourteen days – but you must go to utter muscular failure, to make deep inroads to the muscle and nervous tissues. That’s why the sessions are infrequent, you’ll need lots of recovery time. There’s a low incidence of injury because you use machines and move slowly.

Bodyweight exercises are effective and there’re lots of ’em, calisthenics, isometrics, gymnastic movements and many ways to do them. If you’d just do push ups every other day and some sprints occasionally you’d do well. That’s all football great Hershel Walker did.

Three workouts a week is the most familiar and tradition approach. You do lots of exercises to get all body parts, doing 10 reps for three sets of each exercise.

Split routines are used by bodybuilders. Two workouts a day, with each one focused on blasting one body part. Steroids help most of these guys along as well as lots of time to spend in a gym.

Some schemes are more effective, but the most effective is the one that you think is the most appealing and enjoyable, in other words the one that you’ll incorporate into your life and keep doing.

If you like it, you’ll “show up.” And that’s the hardest part.