How to get STRONG: 5 tips for body, mind and spirit
STEP ONE: Men, legally change your name to Sue. Johnny Cash fans will appreciate, the rest of you will be heading over to Google.
If you’re looking to get stronger in life, to be able to lift more, carry more, do more, handle more, be more then I have 5 lessons to share with you that I’ve learned over the years. These are lessons that I am always working on and will be always working on. And we’re not just talking about just physical strength. Rich Man’s Gym is strength and conditioning for body, mind and spirit. We as humans should strive for strength in all three areas. These 5 tips apply to all three.
FIRST: Train heavy
Yes, train heavy. If it’s not hard, if it’s not stressful, you won’t get stronger or better. Period. There’s no Super Soldier serum… yet. You can’t just walk into an art deco cylinder and come out Captain America. So the only way you’re going to get strong is by lifting and carrying things that are heavy. By doing things that are hard. This is how you grow and improve. With stress and discomfort. And this applies to every day life. One of the biggest problems in this world right now are “First World Problems.” Too much pursuit of comfort not enough pursuit of challenges.
[RECOMMENDED “How To Get STRONG” READING: One of the ways I’ve done this over the years is with Deadlifts and Overhead pressing. A book I read and a protocol I’ve followed for years are the strength training principles in Pavel Tstasouline’s book, Power To The People. Reading this and implementing these principles will improve your strength hands donw.]
SECOND: Train frequent
If strength is a skill, and I believe it is, you can’t get any better with infrequent training. If you want to get good at playing piano, do you practice once a month and only when you feel like it or are you practicing everyday no matter what? When you get hooked on some video game, are you playing it every single day and obsessing over it until you beat it? Overcoming and conquering challenges are things we need in life to be fulfilled. So why wouldn’t we do that for those things that make us better with great frequency?
THIRD: Push past perceived limits
Most of our limits only exist in your head. Most of our limits were taught to us. More often then not we are way more capable than we know. How does one verify that? How do you prove that? Well, there’s a multitude of ways, but let me give it to you in a nutshell. When I did the Russian Kettlebell Challenge back in 2009 we were about to start a very strenuous snatch workout and before it started, Mark Reifkind dropped a pearl of a quote from Bikram Choudhury (the hot yoga guy) where he said, “The pose does not begin until you want to get out of it.”
And while we’re dropping quotes, this is a great time to talk about David Goggins and the 40% rule.
When your mind is telling you you’re done, you’re really only 40 percent done.”
[RECOMMENDED “How To Get STRONG” READING (or listening): Living With A SEAL by Jesse Itzler. Subtitle: “31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet.” This book is a journey that will have you laughing, crying and inspired. The Audible is great too because Jesse’s reading it and he does that incredibly well, it’s like he’s literally sitting next to you in the car just telling you a crazy ass story.
Look, our limits are a perception and the only way to find our limits are to push them. End of story.
FOURTH: No failure
The only way to fail is to quit. I have learned many things from working with Grant Cardone over the years but one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned that has helped me get out of my own way was when this lesson finally sunk in,
Be willing to fail knowing that failure is actually impossible.” -Grant Cardone
The is no failure if you don’t quit. In life failure is impossible. You win or you learn. Having a failure and being a failure are two very separate things. One is a moment and a lesson. The other is a decision. Look at fighters in the UFC. You can’t win if you’re not willing to lose. You can’t punch if you’re not willing to get punched. Life is about risk, rewards and lessons. Life is about energy expenditure too. And if you’re expending energy, what would you rather focus on; learning and improving or wasting energy on your ego’s need to make since why you quit and then blaming someone/something else.
Bottom line here, you win or you learn, but you are not a failure or a loser unless you quit. So remember, the goal here is answering the question, how to get STRONG. That means you being able to override the imbedded commands to give up, quit, take it easy, you’ve done enough, settle for average instead of go for great. You want to cancel something, cancel that!
FIFTH: Pump Up The Volume
There is another Cardone-ism here that I will impart from his book, Sell Or Be Sold and that is, “production yields happiness.” Now in the weight room, volume of work (effort) is a big deal especially where it comes to size and strength. How much of something you do will have a major impact on the effect / outcome.
So, where in life do you need to be stronger? You already know what you need to be doing, what those right actions are, so how much of it are you doing? We talked about frequency but what about the volume of activity level? How much action are taking toward a specific goal or target? Water boils at 212 degrees F. Water freezes at 32 degrees F. You need the right amount of effort to get the result you want. Otherwise nothing happens. This is also why it’s important to train heavy and frequently pushing your limits and learning along the way.
RECAP: How to get STRONG
- Train heavy
- Train frequent
- Push past perceived limits
- No failure (win or learn)
- Pump up the volume
HOMEWORK: Where do you need more strength in your life? Is it in your body, mind or spirit? Next find ways to use these 5 tips every day to get stronger in your daily life. Remember though, until it gets hard, it’s easy and when your comfortable, you’re not growing, in fact, your going backwards.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/111753058048352347213/posts