Do You Deserve It: The Ugly Truth About Getting the Body You Want

February 24, 2016 by Andrew Ferreira 1 Comment

Wolf urine.

I can buy that on Amazon and it can be on my doorstep in two days.

Now I’m not sure I could find some good use for some wolf urine but before you write me off like some kind of weirdo, stay with me for a second.

It’s Tuesday night and I’m sitting in a Harvard Square Starbucks.

I’m surrounded and through some weird osmosis probably inspired by the level of weirdness and hipster that only a place around my great institution could provide.

While wolf urine could be a hipster staple (I won’t judge), it is not the point of my thought experiment.

Rather, it is to illustrate just how much is available to us at the click of a button. Forget ipods, flat screen TVs, and girlfriends, I can buy fucking wolf urine on the line from the biggest on the line retailer.

Anything and everything is available to me at a moment’s notice.

It’s one of the benefits of living in the age of consumerism where we are sold something every minute every day of our lives.

The problem with the age of consumerism is that we are not just sold goods, we are sold ideas too – many of which feed our primitive brain that wants success now.

Need evidence for the short-term wiring of our brains?

Salt, sugar, fat.

Beyond tasting awesome, those are the foods our brains are programmed to seek out and devour because they provide high short-term survival value.

We’re Sold False Ideas

The effects of food are evident in the obesity epidemic and America’s growing waistline but the short-term reach extends past food. Think about the recent best sellers in business and entrepreneurship.

The 4 Hour Work Week and The Lean Startup come to mind. Selling the notion of efficiency is fine but it’s the idea framed within the title that prompts me to reflect – work less, outsource, and build systems so you can sloth around on a beach all day sipping pina coladas.

Will Durant, one of the great thinkers of our time, said, “A nation is born stoic and dies epicurean.”

As a society, we’ve become obsessed with getting more out of doing less.

With the advancement of science and the rise of charlatans like Dave Asprey, bio-hacking is the next logical cultural progression. But should it be able to displace the virtues that breath life into great achievement?

Have we not become exactly what Durant has said would destroy us?

A nation fixated on the fulfillment of pleasure, whose identity has forgotten what it means to be stoic in the face of accomplishing something meaningful – in this instance, maximizing our health.

In the attempt to satisfy our epicurean ethos, we’ve been sold an idea – the wrong one – about health and our body.

From New York Times’ Bestsellers about dropping 17 lbs in 10 days to Dr. Oz promoting raspberry ketones as the next fat loss cure, in the age of consumerism, we’ve been programmed to buy a lie.

Not Exactly War & Peace

Smart marketers have capitalized on the realization that humans are addicted to the dopamine rush that comes with being sold short-term success plans.

We feel good when we go on 10-day juice cleanses or when we type in our credit card information to buy the latest weight loss cure that’s reached the top of the bestseller charts. We see a means to a short-term reward, and we’re all in.

Our default instinct as humans is to run from pain and to pleasure.

Why do we fail in maximizing our health and getting the body you want?

Because we’ve been using a lottery approach to try and be successful.

Every time we try the latest cleanse or buy the book full of skewed science and superfluous claims, we’re taking another spin of the wheel hoping for the right combination of numbers to pop up.

We wake up everyday hoping that we came across the latest secret to solve our health quandary while not having other areas of our lives suffer.

People in our consumer driven society are more likely to buy the new turbo fat burner Starbucks sells alongside their pumpkin spice latte than they are to put in the blood, sweat, and tears necessary to make necessary changes.

We are continually offered the mirage of health at the click of a button and most of us take it every single time.

A New Approach

The age of consumerism isn’t going anywhere and lamenting upon the uphill battle that we encounter on a daily basis in order to achieve our health goals is a tireless exercise that does not need to be further expounded upon.

The cards are stacked against us, now what?

Charlie Munger, self-made billionaire whom Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have called the smartest man alive, said, “To get what you want, you have to deserve what you want? The world is not enough a crazy enough place to reward undeserving people.”

Everyone wants. To want is to be human. We all want the granite abs, Schwarzenegger biceps, and the ability to fit into college skinny jeans for the ladies out there.

But do you deserve it?

To lose 100 lbs, you have to deserve to lose 100 lbs.

If you want a better body, stand naked tomorrow morning in the mirror. What do you see? This isn’t an exercise to lower your self-esteem or to guilt you to take action.

No, be objective. Give yourself an honest assessment.

What you see doesn’t reflect failing to know the ins and outs of carb cycling, the sensationalized demonization of saturated fats, or the knowledge base to perform metabolic resistance training.

There are a million workout programs out there. There are even more diet plans.

They all will work.

Quick aside on the nutrition front, have you attempted to master the basics first?

Have you been limiting processed foods? Keeping the sugar overload and fried food at bay? How often do you exercise and/or train?

This isn’t rocket science. It’s not even about the science. Bad science has gotten tons and tons of people ripped over the years.

Do the Work

There is a caveat of course.

The truth is if you haven’t showed up everyday and put in the work, any work, you haven’t tried yet. You may want to look like the guy on the cover of Men’s Fitness, but you don’t deserve anything yet.

Get off TNation and bodybuilding.com. Get off Show Me Strength. If you’ve visited a fitness site more than half a dozen times, you know more than enough.

Wake up. Fail. Show up again tomorrow, fail. Improvement isn’t linear.

If you’re not failing everyday, you’re not trying.

This isn’t about being efficient. Our whole lives have been hacked with shortcuts; it’s time to take the circuitous route.

The one filled with pain, suffering, and failure. The one that’ll take a lot of blood, sweat, guts, and tears to overcome.

The one that will build a process that’ll feed a lifetime of success.

Pain today or the pain of regret tomorrow. Either way, there is no avoiding pain.

Do all of that and a year from now when you stand bare before yourself, what will you see?

Someone who has earned what they wanted.

P.S. Chad and I wrote a book on overcoming fear. It could change your life. Get your copy here.

How to Build Muscle: Divorcing Ego From Training

February 16, 2016 by Andrew Ferreira Leave a Comment

The Problematic Male Ego

Freud referred to the “ego” as the realistic part of the brain that seeks to mediate the demands of both the “id” and “super-ego.”

Others have thought ego to be the manifestation of testosterone and the inner circuitry of the male brain that has propelled the masculine identity of arrogance and confidence over “weaker states” like that of humbleness and self-reflection.

While I would love to spend an entire post psychoanalyzing the male ego, I unfortunately don’t have my Freudian cap on today; rather, in my years of training, I have come to understand that there is an intimate connection between the ability to divorce one’s ego from the process and the ability to build muscle.

At the advanced levels, there is an intimate difference in intent between trying to get outrageously strong and building slabs of muscle. Contrary to popular opinion, most bodybuilders are really strong but their intent while training can be much different than those chasing maximal strength like elite powerlifters.

For our purposes, getting strong and “being strong” requires one thing: the completion of a rep or reps at a weight that would make mere mortals cringe in fear.

If you compete at a powerlifting meet with 750 lbs on your back while you squat the judge nor your total will reflect that it was a 15 second grind where your knees experienced enough valgus collapse to make your ACLs cry and your back experienced so much flexion that it felt like a silverback gorilla just rode you to the promised land.

315×1, just for shits. Haven't benched in four years but figured I'd see what the madman @jasonkanzler's programming has done for my overall silverback status. Not too shabby my friend. #juggernaut #silverback #pitching #gainz #johnrocker2.0

A video posted by Show Me Strength (@showmestrength) on Mar 18, 2015 at 5:35pm PDT

340×3 With @miggsybogues programming, @thestrengthhouse shirt, and my boy @smurrrr training with me, knew it was going to be a good day. Weight felt real fast.

A video posted by Show Me Strength (@showmestrength) on Nov 28, 2014 at 12:06pm PST

Not powerlifter strong by any means but back in the baseball days where performance and strength but not muscle were a priority. No stringent rep cadence control. My ego and hubris probably forced their inclusion.

Despite how unsightly the squat I just described is, it still counts as a successful squat pinning you as one strong motherfucker regardless of the fact that in all likelihood you won’t be very strong for long because of your abysmal attention to biomechanics.

The ego, in this instance, likely aided your quest for strength allowing you to undertake and successfully complete a weight that in a non-competition setting with human like levels of adrenaline would have stapled you in the hole and taught you a good lesson in humility.

The Pursuit of Muscle

Let’s contrast this to the pursuit of building muscle.

Studies have shown that the optimal range to build muscle is between 70 and 85% of one’s 1 rep max which translation from nerd speak means between eight and fifteen reps. It’s unfortunate that our friends in the white coats don’t qualify these studies with the fact that not only is it a certain rep range that’s optimal to build muscle but it is how these reps are performed that matter most.

The GOAT

Bouncing the bar off your chest with a hip drive so powerful you wouldn’t dare try on your girlfriend with the lights off (or on since you’re jacked) is not in the same stratosphere as a bench press done with a slow descent, pause on the chest, and a controlled completion of the rep just short of lock-out to stimulate maximal tension on your pecs.

Fast-forward years and several hundred workouts down the road with these two styles of training in mind. Who do you think will build more muscle? Who do you think will inevitably be stronger because a bigger muscle is a stronger one?

The answer is clear.

Ditch the Ego

If you want to build an impressive physique, you must divorce your ego from the training process. While pursuing added strength should always be a training goal, how much weight you are lifting is a secondary consideration.

What matters is what those reps look like. Are you maximally contracting your pecs on a dumbbell fly to initiate the concentric swing or are you jerking the weight up like an adolescent boy? Are you completing a set of 8 rows in 15 seconds when if you were really serious about building muscle, it would take upwards of 30-40 seconds.

Notice the control and then watch every video on John Meadow’s channel

For this reason, commercial gyms could be the perfect breeding ground for muscle wannabees and mediocre results. It becomes almost impossible to divorce one’s ego from the process when you throw 30-40 testosterone-fueled men in a weight room. When you see your mortal enemy benching 25 more pounds than you and doing it easily, what’s your natural inclination?

“Fuck this baby weight, I can’t let that asshole show me up. Hey Sean, throw a 25 on there” – Your Ego.

What started as a stimulating, engaged training session where your pecs were under hellacious fire from your dedication to each rep, turned into a humping session where the only thing accomplished was a temporary saving of your ego.

Fail.

I can think of no faster way to stay mediocre in the pursuit of muscle than to let the training of others dictate how you approach each session.

So what can you do about it?

First off, stand in the mirror, look yourself in the eye and ask yourself why are you doing what you are doing? Is it an exercise fueled by a relentless desire for self-improvement or are you chasing muscle to impress others? If it’s the latter, pick a new hobby hombre because you won’t last very long when the training gets hard and progress is all but non-existent.

Go to your commercial gym (better idea – train at a private one) during dead hours. Do this for a couple weeks to a month and start to understand what it’s like to train properly. With no other bros around, you’ll be able to remove your ego and start to understand the importance of “feeling” the muscle and why a controlled rep cadence and time under tension is far superior to the 8-second jerk fest you’re accustomed to.

Rather than utilizing rep ranges, train for time. For example, instead of the typical 4×8 rep setting, replace it with 4 x 30 seconds. This all but eliminates the ego-fueled desire to lift heavier weight with egregious form because you’ll have a next to impossible chance of completing the lift. Not only does it divorce your ego, but also it maximizes time under tension, which is imperative for muscle growth. Mass by Pat Davidson is an outstanding resource.

Get a training buddy that will keep you honest. Preferably, he will be a bit stronger and bigger so you will be incentivized each training session but not so much further in development that you’ll start to try and compete with him when you are not ready.

Become mindful. Our ego is allowed to take over when we get stuck inside our own heads plagued by self-deprecating thoughts about our current inadequate state. Anxiety is allowed to build and manifest itself in poor reps because you failed to be mindful. If you are present, truly present, then there is no time for debilitating self-talk. You are engaged in the moment where nothing but you and what needs to get done matters.

Give these a try and consciously work at being better at your state management. Building muscle is as much mental as it is physical and ultimately your mindset may be the limiting factor in whether or not you see a different creature in the mirror years from now or the same mediocre body plagued by the same over-bearing ego.

P.S. Chad and I would love to help you on your pursuit on building muscle, losing fat, and journey to become your most diesel self. Email us at showmestrength@gmail.com. We also offer online coaching.

How to Improve Your Mental State: Movement is Medicine

February 4, 2016 by Andrew Ferreira Leave a Comment

December was a dark month.

I didn’t train once; and by train, I should really clarify what I mean. Us fitness snobs love to differentiate between working out and training because it inflates our elitist muscles. No. I didn’t do fitness once. No sweat, no movement.

To understand why that matters, let’s take a quick detour for some context.

Harvard is a place of many things: brilliant students and faculty, equally impressive student-athletes, a famous statue covered covertly in urine, (don’t rub his foot), and a breadth of history that is hard to comprehend.

What you don’t usually find are the stereotypical meatheads – the dudes closely resembling the “I pick things up and put them down” Planet Fitness cavemen, or our beloved patron saint of serial hydration, who obnoxiously carries around a Poland Springs galloon jug in fear of going 30 minutes without a voluminously clear piss. Cause gains.

Funny thing is, to my friends, and everyone else that knew me at Harvard and still know me today, I’m sure I was associated with all those clichés at one point or another. I was shirtless way too often at parties, would read Mike Robertson’s Bulletproof Knees through class while proudly lugging around my galloon jug, consumed more training books than actual assigned literature, and definitely spent more time in the weight room than a classroom. In case you think I’m kidding…my nickname on the baseball team was Meat.

So yes, I liked lifting weights, but my relationship with the Iron transcended the superficial vanity-chasing process of “getting jacked”. I had found an outlet and a tangible metaphor for my struggles in life. When pain and disappointment came my way, it was a means to violently express myself and divulge all my anguish. It was my panacea and a beacon light to keep me on the right course when the seas got rough.

And then, this December, it was gone.

In truth, I can’t tell you how many times I set my alarm for 5:00 am to finally break the streak and give myself some positive momentum only to find myself a slave to the comfort of the snooze button until I had to finally, begrudgingly, get moving to work.

Pharmaceutical aids, brain drugs if you will, utilized for studying and passing licensing exams, left me with minimally functioning dopamine and androgen receptors. Otherwise not a big deal except dopamine and testosterone (androgen) are the very things that make you want to do things, like take over the world, have sex, work hard.

I had none.

The aftermath was a vast hole of psychological torment, utter mediocrity, and depression that penetrated like a cemented dagger.

Since the dawn of our species millennia ago, we have always been products of our environment. Make it known, however, there is a stark difference between proactively shaping one’s environment and being a passive victim.

I had become a self-inflicted victim to my environment and circumstances, and had morphed into something I always promised myself I wouldn’t be – another zombie cog in the corporate America machine. The Walking Dead isn’t just another television show, divorced from reality. Want proof? Go stand and observe the lifeless souls boarding the train heading into any city on a Monday morning.

We like to preach habits and gradual shifts of behavior as the appropriate means to create lasting change but not this time. I needed to mount a full physiological and psychological assault on the forces that had been shaping my precipitous demise. I needed to bump my rider, shake the elephant and get a entirely new path (a reference for all the Switch fans out there). Whatever jargon you want to use, I needed to get moving.

Reading a passage of Gorilla Mindset by Mike Cernovich (get this book) served as my kick in the ass. To understand why, see below:

To dismiss Mr. Maybe, I needed action. I needed to rewire my brain and my habits to create a physiological cascade of fucking awesomeness.

I needed to move.

So I made a commitment (because I hate resolutions) to move everyday in 2016. Every single day I would do some sort of physical activity – including but not limited to lifting weights, running, and playing quidditch.

Why?

Because, to quote Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, movement is medicine.

It’s only fitting that I recently finished reading Born to Run and then immediately started to reread The Story of the Human Body.

Both phenomenal books that share a central thesis: we are who we are because we evolved to run.

Let that soak in for a second.

We evolved brains that have allowed us to essentially take over the world because of our ability to run.

Movement is in our DNA. It is so intimately woven into the fabric of who we are that to take it away, to divorce ourselves from our innate passion, is a recipe for catastrophic disaster.

Look around you and see the results of the largest failed experiment in human history.

Chris McDougall, author of Born to Run, argues our health problems have manifested because we’ve stopped becoming a running people. While the issues are far more nuanced than that, our lack of movement has played a vital role in our demise.

The rates of obesity are exponentially increasing. We die predominately from diseases of opulence and modernity – heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, and staggering amounts of people suffer from depression.

This isn’t normal.

Our biology does not dictate these ends to be inevitable. Death, yes; but diseases of modernity are not fixed manifestations of our DNA at work.

Ido Portal has lead a movement revolution. Not abs or biceps. Movement.

Movement is medicine. It is who you were and it is who you can be again.

Words cannot begin to express the profound difference I have experienced over the last month or so.

Sure, I look better but ultimately that doesn’t matter. The vanity of aesthetics doesn’t matter. Anyone who has gotten in great shape knows it can be a hollow feeling at the end if you solely derive meaning from your looks. Process, not outcome.

My acute depressive state has dissipated. I’ve had worse in magnitude and duration but my mindset and mood have never been greater. Each day, I wake up with my soul ablaze about the potential of the day, a new opportunity to tackle, and any other Elite Daily cliché that you want to throw in there.

I no longer board the train on autopilot amidst the other zombies in corporate America. Instead, my eyes have been opened to the disconnect we experience as humans when we distance ourselves from who we are as a people born to move.

This isn’t some magical placebo effect either.

This is science.

Things change when you exercise – neurotransmitters in your brain (dopamine and serotonin) get up-regulated, stress is reduced, and testosterone elevation are just some of the underlying mechanics of why we experience such a profound sense of well-being when we get back to the basics. Something so simple. So innate.

I challenge you to join me. Move every single day for the rest of the year. Find something you enjoy, whether that be running, yoga, sex, P90X, it really does not matter.

For the time being, forget the aesthetics. The vanity. Commit to moving. It can be 10 minutes or two hours.

I guarantee if you take it upon yourself to undergo this simple change, in a matter of weeks you won’t recognize that person in the mirror. You’ll look better, feel better, and you’ll no longer be a zombie come the Monday morning “grind.”

Because movement is medicine.

P.S. I read every message I get at showmestrength@gmail.com. I’d love to hear about how you’ve overcome adversity in your past and what you’ve done to keep moving forward.

Monday Motivation!

July 6, 2015 by Chad Rodgers Leave a Comment

Its Always Your Fault by Roger Lawson

Accountability seems to drift further and further away from our society each day. It seems as if everyone is a victim, and everyone wants a perfect life without working for it. Rog knock some sense into them will ya? Great read.

Man up Monday : The Art of Developing Brass Balls by Chad Howse

Stress and responsibility get a bad rap these days for their negative health benefits. Everyone wants to relax, but no-one wants to suffer for what they want. This article from Chad hopefully will kick your butt into gear showing that it’s in fact ok to have a tough life. It’s ok to work your balls off, and we all should grow from hard experiences rather than get buried by the difficulties.

My body Has a Story by Neghar Fonooni

Neghar has made an incredible difference in the female fitness community not only with her expertise as a coach, but as an inspiration for women to begin loving their bodies instead of critiquing every little thing. She does a great job in this article by embracing the body she has instead of hating it. She will work hard on it, yet not obsess over it. A great message here.

Student Spotlight : Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is by Hanna Riley

April 1, 2015 by Chad Rodgers Leave a Comment

A note from Chad – “Hanna and I started our training journey a little over 5 months ago now. She frequented one of the gyms I work at, and right away upon seeing her was impressed by her quiet determination to train hard. You just don’t see that very often anymore. She also moved so well through difficult exercises even before I got to her, so I immediately knew she would be a very fun challenge in regards to programming for such a skilled person physically. It’s very rare to get athletes (and I see everyone as an athlete in their own way) who combine their innate physical gifts with sheer determination to get better each day. Those people are special. Hanna is special. She is a great person, wonderfully caring friend, and a very, very strong willed, physically gifted woman who impresses me more and more each day.”

Without further ado, Hanna take take the mic…

There’s an oft-quoted line by Shakespeare that might be one of his most famous of all, “Though she be but little, she is fierce!” Little certainly can pack a punch, and as small as they might seem, the following six letters have left a rather large mark on me: t-h-e g-y-m.

The gym used to just be a place I drove past. That’s all it was, just a pile of bricks with lots of bars and ‘bells and boxes and benches, and weights that just sat there strangely. The only gym I knew was portable in the sense that it came in the form of a hot pink yoga mat, always at the ready to be unrolled to receive my bare feet, my grounded palms, my upside down self. For a solid seven years yoga studio floors were the only thing I felt underneath my body as I bent, folded, twisted and balanced in every direction possible. A decade steeped in yoga has also taught me much beyond bending, including the deep inner practice of contentment, yet what brought me to the doorstep of a bona fide gym was intense inner discontent and a highly honed self-criticism skill worthy of a gold medal. My critical perception of myself makes me squirm, but I credit my propensity toward commitment plus what I had learned of karma, or action (essentially, the sage advice of “put your money where your mouth is”) with armoring me in the bravery and hope it took to venture out of the world I knew into the curious-looking woods of Something New.

Yoga had taught me (among many lessons) to honor and be grateful for my body in a way that I had previously never been exposed to. How I even got there was 19-year-old me stumbling into a gym- after never having been aligned with a physical discipline in any way, no sports, no dancing, no exercise, nothing- bereft in deep heartbreak, thinking, I’ve gotta do something. At that time my body had become the only thing I felt like I could control in a chaotic time and, like a sad statistic and a story you’ve heard too many times, I danced around the edges of anorexia, dropping to 100 pounds and obsessively eating less than 1,000 calories a day. In the newness of the gym I frequented the corner that had the scale in it and I flirted with running and some eight-pound weights for a few months. It was there I found yoga, falling madly in love and dedicating my life (and my eventually no-longer-100-pounds body) to the practice. That practice is still very much my cornerstone, and I have been teaching for the last ten years. But as miraculous as I’d come to view my body as, standing on my head, standing on my hands as solidly as my feet, my body with it’s inconceivably amazing systems, like a universe within, the temple for my soul… All that, yet my mind still struggled with loving my outer form, like wrestling a very cranky alligator. These feelings started long before I earned 19 years of age- I vividly recall wrapping duct tape around my ribcage when I was in elementary school, trying to look, feel, be smaller than I was. What’s most perplexing about that is I’ve never not been averagely-sized, nor had anyone in my life ever taught me to feel physically inferior. It was just some nasty, craggy barnacle I picked up along the way and hadn’t succeeded in scraping off yet. What was different now than 10, 14, 18, 26 was I really, really, really, really wanted to do something about it. At 27 I spent a year committed to five days a week of cardio. I learned, as I’ve learned before, as I keep learning most every day, that I am a hard worker. You can call me many things, intense being one of them, but committed another. At 28 I started getting scientific about the food I chewed up and swallowed. I became a slave to measuring and while that gave me some sense of control and purpose it also stockpiled worry and alienation, toward myself and others. I believe that many people can pull that specificity of diet off with ease and calm, but I haven’t been able to achieve that gracefulness yet.

As 28 turned into 29, during my three days a week spent in my neighborhood gym, away from my yoga mat (that’s all it felt like at the time- time away from my yoga mat), I found I was starting to need heavier weight. I needed a squat rack, somehow I just knew this. As much as I loathed the prospect of venturing out of my often-private gym, and I put it off for months, it was those two words that finally made me cave: squat rack. That, and four other words: ten dollars a month. I could swing that, I reasoned, ten bucks for one day a week out there in the wild abyss that was sweating around other people…

Little did I know that squat rack would become my siren call.

I hear it now, calling me, Hanna… Hanna… Grip me, that cold metal barbell says, perched all alluringly on its rack like a beautiful woman. Duck under me. You like that feeling, don’t you? Yes. Place me against you. Look at your own eyes in the mirror. Close them. Exhale. Open them. Tell yourself you’ve got this. Stand on your tip toes. Push me up. Step backward. Take me under your own control. Get set. Sink down. Explode up. Like there’s a great white shark under your ass (a personal favorite from my coach’s mouth). But at that time, ten months ago, the squat rack didn’t talk to me like that. It said, oh look, the rookie’s here. Damn right I’m a rookie, I said, but a yoga teacher I once had taught me, “do not despise the days of small beginnings.”

The point of all this back story (and, God help me, there’s more) is this: when I reached for my first dumbbell, it was out of desperate hope that it might be my salvation. This would later turn into fierce dedication, but that treasure was yet to be discovered. What I want to cry out to you is this: I did not trip and fall into the gym already athletic, I did not skip in carefree. I was strong to a point, honed in a way from the skillful practice of the art of yoga, deeply body aware, but mentally weak (between my ears is still my weakest link). I did not slide in seamlessly amongst the Hammer Press machines and 45 pound plates, the confident girl, the ex-track star, a PR holder at my high school, no. I was the girl who got in a car accident at 17 and felt like she’d won the lottery when she got to, thanks to a note from her chiropractor, sit out of gym class for a marking period. All I had, and I realize this story parallels many people’s stories, was my willingness and my work ethic. Pretty soon my neighborhood gym was a thing of the past. My nerves and neuroses still walked over the threshold and the mud mat with me, but I started to crave the clanging, the people, the energy, the accountability, the inspiration. Enter: my coach. You may all know him here as a showmestrength guru, but all I knew him as was a guy who quite possibly may have had a backwards ball cap surgically attached to his head, but boy did he look like he knew what he was doing. Lone wolf that I am, hermit that I can tend to be, opening my space to him wasn’t exactly easy, but I am so glad he’s on my team now. He uses words like potential and athlete and strong, all in conjunction with my name. He’s taught me that you should never (ever) have hundred dollar shoes and a ten cent squat. He’s asked me to eat like I mean it, sleep like I mean it, treat myself like a Ferrari, feel the weight and commit to it, trust myself, trust him, that the greatest ones know how to turn it off and on like a light switch, and think act breathe dress walk talk like a major league player. I hear him in my head often. Coupled with his faith, intention, and eyes that can see things I can’t, I’ve held 200 pounds on my back and 300 pounds on my hips. I never knew I wanted a coach, I never knew that I needed one, but I did, and I do.

While I still press my kettlebells in hopes of a force-to-be-reckoned-with physique, I know, even more so now, what I knew before, that my greatest muscle lies beneath my hair, under my scalp, below my skull. My mind, your mind, our minds, can be our ally or our foe. Beyond thoughts though, I’ve put my money where my mouth is. I’ve worked toward something I wanted, and I still want. I showed up. A lot. I laced up, suited up, pulled-up, hair-tied-up, hopes up, pushed up, jumped up (one legged and two), woke up, and just basically did that shit up. Anything I have has been earned. I did it, but I didn’t do it alone.

What I realize much more clearly now as 29 is on the cusp of 30 is when I wrap myself around something, I sink my claws in. In the gym, those six letters that have become a most hallowed haven, it’s not just my hands that grip the barbell, it’s my heart. My spirit force deadlifts too, not just my glutes and hamstrings. I’m still a rookie, I still squirm sometimes, I occasionally try to wiggle around what’s been programmed, but I am braver, bolder, happier (happier!), more confident, more passionate about the days that mark my life, more unabashedly and unapologetically myself, and I daresay I’m even a little louder too. I have learned that stepping up to my deadlift requires my presence and fortitude just as the first Samasthiti asks me to ready myself and open myself to the coming yoga practice. It’s not such a black-and-white dividing line, it’s not just time in the gym or time on my yoga mat, because how you do anything is how you do everything. I am practicing the skill of being me anywhere and everywhere, whether my bare feet are on a sticky mat or my hands are clinging to the chin-up bar. My foray into the gym has reminded me that life is for creating and adventuring, and curiosity at what the truth really is. If there was once a time I thought I’d never step foot back into a gym with the sole purpose of picking heavy objects up off the ground, moving them around a little, then putting them back down, what else about myself is there to discover? I didn’t think I’d ever exercise for pleasure, not punishment, but here I am finding myself uplifted, mighty, and fulfilled. It’s not all roses and clover, though, believe me. In fact, it’s rarely roses and clover. Training is hard. It kicks me to the curb, it sometimes spits me back out. It reminds me there are higher peaks. Oh, you think you’re good? You think you’re fit? Watch this, it says. Watch her. Watch him. But that’s just the food chain, the trickle down effect, the honest-to-goodness reality that there will always be someone better than me in every category you could dream up. But. They’re not me. And I’m not you. As Carl Sagan says, “Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”

Though I be but little, I am fierce. Fierce… Those are six beautiful letters.

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More about the author :

Hanna Riley is a highly sought after yoga teacher in the southwest Florida area. She has been teaching the goodness of vinyasa yoga for 10 years, and is very passionate about human movement, art, and movement AS art. She loves breathing, sweating, bending, yoga-ing, crafting, creating, writing, cats, laughing so hard her face hurts, handstand, giving gifts, giving (and receiving) hugs, sprinting, lifting heavy objects, really loud music, and rainbow colored anything.

To learn more about more about her teaching, or to just tell her she’s pretty awesome, hit her up at hannarileyyoga@yahoo.com

Monday Motivation!

February 2, 2015 by Chad Rodgers 1 Comment

Work, Command, Create : Tips on Hustling, Leadership, and Hobbies by Winston Churchill – This is an absolutely incredible read, and basically cliff notes on one of the greatest leaders ever to live. Among several points I took from this was the importance of being ruthless with managing your time. If what you are doing or the people you around are detracting from you highest purpose, then cut it out. Long, but excellent read.

10 Great Things About Lifting Weights – TC is one of our favorite writers, period. If you’re ever finding yourself losing your desire to train, remember how fucking good it is for you. Here are 10 things to keep in mind when you are ready to puke from all those squats.

Women’s Corner! –> A Woman’s Worth by Molly Galbraith – Molly has been a huge inspiration for me, and several of my clients who are getting into fitness. I constantly refer back to her work, her exercises, and philosophy on training women optimally. This article is one of my favorites that she has published.

Monday Motivation!

January 12, 2015 by Chad Rodgers Leave a Comment

The Iron & The Soul by Henry Rollins – There aren’t enough adjectives to describe the greatness of this essay. Henry reaches and strikes a nerve with all of us who enjoy training, thrive on training, and become better individuals through the struggle of training.

The 100 Laws of Muscle by Chris & Dani Shugart – Everything you need to know about what it takes to be a savage in and out of the gym. This is a very entertaining piece on T-nation. Whats your favorite number? Mine’s 92. And every other one.

Ripped & Miserable by Neghar Fonooni – One of my favorite articles to send our female clientele who obsess over their training and diet. It’s admirable to push the body and mind to it’s limits, but we need balance. Neghar pushed the limits too far for her liking, and found balance and enjoyment after realizing when too much was too much. A very personal piece here and an awesome guest post on Molly Galbraith’s website.

Motivation 2015!

December 31, 2014 by Andrew Ferreira Leave a Comment

From our team here at Show Me Strength, we thank you for your readership over a big 2014 for us and wish you a happy, healthy, strong, and diesel 2015! We can not wait to bring you great more content in 2015. As we contemplate the diesel future, we present to you our top reads of 2014.

Before you do, help our brother in diesel, Matt Kramer, by voting for him before tonight as he attempts to switch professional sports from baseball into the world of Red Bull Crashed Ice Downhill racing. Check out the video below and vote for Matt!