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The Constant Awesome

Are you too tall for Bodyweight exercises? Why Height Affects Bodyweight Exercises

Since my previous blog post on how great performers don’t necessarily mean great teachers was very popular, I will continue with a sequel going in depth as to WHY height and weight makes such a big difference in bodyweight exercises!

Your ability to perform bodyweight exercises are highly dictated by your strength to weight ratio, which is ruled by your height and weight.

From the most basics such as pushups and pullups to the most advanced such as front levers, planches, iron crosses and so forth, the human experience and journey of calisthenics is so wildly different when it comes to shorter versus taller folks. You could have shorter folks gaining front levers without ever training for it while taller folks training for it for years with little to show for it.

Absolute Strength vs Relative Strength

  • Absolute strength is the maximum force you can exert.
  • Relative strength is the maximum force you can exert relative to your weight.
    • This is also known as your Strength to Weight Ratio

When you are tall, your absolute strength is an advantage which is why there are weight-classes for many sports, otherwise it would be unfair. But your relative strength is at a disadvantage compared to shorter people. So the taller person will have greater absolute strength but lesser relative strength.

Think of an ant versus an elephant. An ant can carry many times its own bodyweight. An elephant cannot. The elephant is absolutely stronger but the ant is relatively stronger.

The taller or heavier a person becomes, the harder bodyweight exercises become because more strength is required to perform the same exercise relative to a shorter and lighter person.

If you look at the height/weight chart, it is obvious that as height increases, the ideal weight increases as well. But it doesn’t increase linearly. As people get taller, their weight increases at a much faster rate (exponentially).

Height-Weight Chart for Adults. Notice how weight increases more rapidly as height increases.

Galileo’s Square-Cube Law Rules You

To best understand the relationship between height and weight, we must understand Galileo’s square-cube law which states that as the surface area (height) increases by the square (^2), the volume (mass; weight) increases by the cube (^3).

  • For example:
    • If surface area is 4 meters, the volume is 8 meters.
    • If surface area is 8 meters, the volume is now 32 meters.
    • Doubling the surface area results in triple the volume.
Note how the blue line Volume (Mass; Weight) increases much faster than the red line representing Area (which coincides with your height).

So in calisthenics, height has exponential effects on the weight which in turn affects the strength to weight ratio.

It is for this reason all the more imperative that a tall person should strive to be lean to be able to perform advanced bodyweight exercises otherwise the handicap from the excess body-fat will be even greater. This makes them struggle more, requiring more dedication and often necessitates more intermediary progressions. A shorter person, on the other hand could not only breeze through progressions but even skip major progressions. They can even reach many goals without even adhering to a good routine before hitting plateaus.

Thus, shorter people have much greater advantages to bodyweight exercises.

There was a great Ted Talk by David Epstein that talked these differences in body shapes in the Olympics. People think that playing basketball when you’re young makes you taller or doing gymnastics when you’re young makes you shorter because those are the people that are in those sports. But neither of these are true. That is simply a form of survivorship bias where the successful athletes mask the failures of the others. Gymnastics favors shorter people and the sport of basketball favors taller people. These are the people that tend to make it into the spotlight and those that can’t make the cut won’t be around.

Note: Not all bodyweight exercises require lots of strength.

Something like a handstand, for example, is more skill based and doesn’t require tons of strength, so the height shouldn’t matter. Same for any other skill-based exercise, such as slacklining, for example. I’ve seen a number of people who used to hold handstands when they were younger and got old and overweight but kept handstanding and they can still do it regardless. On the other hand, I’ve never seen anybody remotely overweight (not even the slightest bit) be able to hold a high level strength move like the planche or front lever.

What is considered tall or short?

Since I started frequenting the Original Muscle Beach since 2013, I trained with countless folks and I noticed after a few years there was a huge disparity in progress between certain people. I started to notice a very obvious pattern. The shorter and lighter folks generally experienced continually linear progress even without proper programming. The taller and heavier folks had the completely opposite experience: longer drawn out plateaus and more frequent regressions even when following a robust program.

5’9″ (175cm) seems to be the tipping point

If I had to choose a cut off point where the balance tips in ones favor or out of favor, I would say around 5’9″ (~175cm). People shorter then 5’9″ (175m) will have a distinct advantage at the rate in which they progress in bodyweight exercises over those that are taller. The shorter they are, the more extreme the advantage. The taller they are, the more extreme the disadvantage.

Note: Do not let this information deter you! There are plenty of people in the world taller than 5’9″ that can and do impressive things in the world of calisthenics.

What role does age play?

Age does not seem as big of an issue in this context. The biggest issue older folks have is that by virtue of simply living longer, they might have racked on more injuries and have compounded issues. I will say that, when you see people doing a lot of explosive moves on a bar (like 360 degree muscle ups that require abrupt release and high impact regrabs), you will notice they are often not only in a certain body size but also a a certain age range (in their teens to 20’s). Older folks with joint issues do not fare well with high impact moves.

Pros of being tall:

  • Greater absolute strength potential.
  • If one is truly dedicated and motivated, they will have to dig deeper in finding technically superior workout routines to ensure optimal, more efficient ways of getting stronger. For some, this is actually even more motivating, because while it may take longer to get the move, it is that much more gratifying when they do.

Cons of being tall:

  • Decreased relative strength. (Absolute strength divided by bodyweight)
  • Slower progress; More plateaus and times of regression
  • Aesthetics much slower to show
  • More intermediary progression exercises required
  • For some, this is demoralizing and they move onto weightlifting.

Those who are shorter can get away with attaining moves without having to train for them in very methodical ways. They can skip entire progressions. They often will not experience the same struggles taller folks do.

To put it into perspective, the taller folks will have to grind away for weeks, months or even years on a particular progression exercise before being able to progress to the next one, while the shorter person may not even need to train it and entirely skip it.

My personal benefit of being taller is that I can be a better teacher

As a coach, this is more-so a blessing than a curse. I know many people who achieved certain high-level strength moves quite fast, whereas I had to figure out how to scale the exercise in novel ways to get there. As a result, it’s a blessing in disguise because the more I struggle with it, the more I understand the anatomy of where the weak-points lie and I can relate to many people as I’ve experienced the struggles every step of the way.

Being taller does not mean you cannot achieve greatness!

  • Regardless of height, just make sure you workout consistently and at a sufficient intensity to ensure progressive overload.
  • If you are tall and overweight, strive to be leaner otherwise the excess body-fat makes for a greater handicap.
  • Overall, don’t be deterred and remember that life is all about the journey. Just because something takes longer to achieve, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive for it. When you do achieve your goal, you can be very proud of yourself and nobody can take that away from you.

And last but not least, it is your mental fortitude that will determine your success. If you really want something, you will get it. Just think back to anything you’ve ever wanted in life. You probably got it and it should be no different with your physical training. If you need extra help, I offer online-coaching as well to help optimize your training. Hope this was insightful!

Don’t be fooled: Why the best performers aren’t automatically the best teachers

Simonster holding a full Front Lever, one of the most difficult, straight arm bodyweight exercises.

Recently I went to the Original Muscle Beach to workout and in the distance I saw 2 guys repeatedly holding a full front lever (FL; pictured above) doing it for the ‘gram.

Seeing a full FL hold in the general population is extremely rare (probably a <0.1% level of rare). Even amongst the extremely able-bodied muscle-beach-population I would surmise that less than 3% can hold a full front lever, just to give perspective as to how uncommon it truly is. The reason for this is because it requires an obscene amount of strength to pull it off. There is no “trick” that will help you. It requires an excellent strength to weight ratio.

I went up to them to commend them on their excellent display of strength to which they were very thankful. Now being up close to them, I quickly noted how lean they were and, not surprisingly, on the shorter side (less than 5’6″ or <170cm). One of them had such low body fat actually that I could’ve used them to give lessons in muscular anatomy.

I told them where I was at with my personal front lever progress (full front lever negatives) and I asked them what worked for them. They both basically said “just do everything and you’ll get there” and that it took them only “about a year or 2” to get there. It was then I realized again, that they didn’t struggle with achieving the front lever whatsoever in the same way I did.

If you’re short and lean, the human experience and journey of calisthenics is going to be very different than your taller, heavier brethren.

Being short and lean makes for a huge advantage with bodyweight exercises. So much so that you can go through progressions with such little fuss that you might actually skip the very progression exercises others may be stuck on for months. You can achieve goals with suboptimal programming or no legit programming at all. You don’t have to be as methodical or precise in your training. You literally just need to put the work in and you will experience consistently linear progress with shorter plateau’s or regressions.

On the flipside, somebody very tall and heavy, no matter how methodical they are with their program adherence, will experience long, drawn out plateaus. They will need to figure out the intermediary progressions to help them bridge the gap, use solid programming and have extra mental fortitude to persevere through the extra months and years of arduous, slow progress.

5’9″ (175cm) seems to be the tipping point

From observing and training with hundreds of people of different sizes and shapes I’ve come to realize that 5’9″ seems to be the line in the sand. If you’re taller than 5’9″ (175cm), everything becomes significantly more difficult. Go much taller and the progress becomes exponentially slower. Shorter than that height and progress is  more compressed, steady and linear. If you’re much shorter, progress will be exponentially faster! To put it in perspective, someone who is 5’3″ & 120lbs might take 6 months to achieve a front lever while someone 6’3 & 190lbs might take 3 years.

Just a few pounds makes a noticeable difference…

In a year I typically fluctuate between 175 and 182lbs (summer and winter). And when I’m 182lbs, my front lever performance takes a massive hit. When I start losing some weight and I am at 178lbs or lower, everything becomes so much easier it’s actually ridiculous considering it’s only a difference of 4lbs. (Any lower weight than that and I start to feel like I am a different body entirely.) So I can imagine if 4-8lbsmakes that much of a difference, how much being 20-40lbs lighter would with shorter limbs for greater leverage!

To put it into greater perspective…

My friend, who is particularly quite short (5’3″) and also very lean (6 pack and all) was doing pullups and I asked if he ever worked on the front lever. He said no, never and that he just does pullups and dips and that’s it. I was training for the front lever alongside with him and he tried it out and was actually able to hold a full front lever for almost a second with literally zero training for it. Meanwhile, it took me a solid year and 150+ workouts to get to that same level to put things in perspective. So if he trained for it seriously, he wouldn’t need to dig as deep and figure out what it takes to achieve some of these moves. He can most likely get there by literally just doing random exercises and reach his goals.

The lighter/shorter folks will often master bodyweight exercises faster. However, it doesn’t automatically mean that they will be the best coaches or teachers, despite their incredible performance abilities.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been disappointed by the teaching skills of a high level athlete or gymnast. It seems like they can’t relate to the struggles that taller/heavier folks have to go through. They may not realize that what worked for them, doesn’t work for others. They also might not realize how much more refined and granular the progressions must be for success.

Note: At this point I should say that these are my sincere observations and not meant to be an attack nor meant to discount any one particular persons abilities. And I am not saying that if you are short, you didn’t put the work in nor that you’re not a good teacher. I am talking about the finer nuances within this topic. And if you disagree with me, definitely leave a comment below! I encourage discourse!

Ironically the taller/heavier folks who have mastered these difficult moves are often able to teach intricacies of how they got there because the journey was so much longer and drawn out that it’s very difficult to forget the struggles one had to go through to achieve the breakthroughs.

Personally, I had to implement a very strict regimen. I couldn’t just put the work in willy-nilly without very well thought out programming and expected to level up. And I couldn’t do that with the handicap of excess body fat either, so body-fat reduction was even more imperative to increase the power to weight ratio.

I’m not discounting anyones abilities at all. Everyone had to put the work into it too, for sure. But just be aware that the people who achieved these strength-moves easily, are not automatically the best at teaching it to others. You would think they are, because they can perform very well and some of them are indeed very good teachers, but most of them are not, unfortunately. Ironically, the worst ones seem to be the gymnasts who learned everything at a very young age. The people who could relate the LEAST to adults are gymnasts who learned everything when they were young!

This concept applies to flexibility and weight loss as well!

Flexibility: Somebody born with hypermobility can have the splits or show off flexibility that fall into the realm of contortion. Does that mean they can teach someone who can’t touch their toes with legs straight, how to get there? Not necessarily. Especially if they were never in their shoes to begin with. Alternatively, the people who couldn’t touch their toes and now can do the splits may be the best person to ask for advice. Alternatively, the person who was inflexible to begin with and later gained flexibility will better be able to help those because they were once in the same position and know what it takes to get there.

Here’s an obscene level of flexibility! (Btw this picture is CGI!)

Weight Loss: Similarly, a person that struggled with obesity and is now very lean is probably more qualified to teach people how to lose weight than the person who was underweight their whole life and never struggled with any binge-eating disorders to begin with.

This is a blessing in disguise

I want to make it clear that I am not looking for pity, nor wishing I was short or anything like that. I exceedingly enjoy the training that I do and love my body. I just find the paradoxical nature of this topic very interesting. I actually see my tallness as a blessing in disguise because my struggles make me a better teacher. I know that when I achieve a difficult move, I am very well acquainted and qualified to know what it takes to get there. And that, my friends, is how you must always see the silver lining to things, otherwise life will be really dreary.

So now I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter! Did I strike a chord with you? Do you agree/disagree? Let me know! And if this topic was interesting to you, let me know and I’ll write up an indepth article on why and how the concepts of relative strength and height/weight play such a huge role in bodyweight exercises!

Top 8 Tips To Stay Fit Without a Gym

I haven’t had a gym membership for a decade, yet I’ve never stopped being active during that entire time, so I’m going to share with you all the things I do to stay physically active in a balanced manner without ever needing to go into one. (Note: I have nothing against gyms, if you love gyms, good!)

1. Make space to lay and sprawl on the ground.

This may be an odd tip to start out with but I believe it is very important to make space in your home to lay down. I have been to peoples house and clear they don’t have a place to really stretch out their limbs as wide as possible and that’s really weird to me. It tells me they don’t do many scrumptious moves. The floor is firm and it is therapeutic to roll around on the floor, stretch and twist in all sorts of ways. This kind of sprawling around is not the same as laying on your mattress.

In my apartment, I have to move my ottoman to the side to have enough space to move around freely. Maybe for you it’s the coffee table.

All sorts of options open up when I make space such as you’ll see in the following GIF: My dog Medax chilling supine while my friend teaches me Hammock Pose of acro-yoga:

 

And then below you have Rod Cooper of the Movement Collective (follow him!) demonstrating some of his floor-massage and play:

2. You must have a place to hang even if you do nothing but hang

Even if you never do a pullup, simply hanging is worth having a pullup bar. I actually don’t think I could live without it at this point. Hanging is very healthy for your shoulders, decompresses the spine and maintains your grip strength. Install a pullup bar such as a doorway pullup bar. Or if you have a yard where you could hang some rings from a bar or tree can work as well. (For more ideas, check out the hanging month where you try to hang for 7 minutes a day.)

And on the flipside, if you hang regularly and pullups are easy for you, you can make them a lot harder by going for one-arm-chinup progressions with a towel as demonstrated on the right of this text. (As you get stronger, you just need to hold lower on towel until eventually you may be able to do one-arm-chinup negatives.)

3. Stick to one solid strength training routine

Our modern-day lifestyles don’t require much physical effort, but exercise is required to keep our minds healthy and if we don’t provide that stimulus, our muscles and bones will get weaker and waste away. Increasing your strength is a journey that should never end because like a plant,  if you’re not growing, you’re dying. And since change is the only constant, if you don’t try to ramp yourself up to a new level, you’re going to regress.

Most minimal-equipment exercise routines are trash with zero progression exercises and terrible programming.

Here are some very well thought out bodyweight exercise plans that require just a pullup bar and the floor:

4. Flexibility-focused sessions and self massage are necessary to alleviate stiffness.

Just as important as strength training is to stretch once in a while to maintain your level of mobility and alleviate accumulated stiffness. If you aren’t sure what to do, I have a bunch of options such as my…

5. Take up a skillful hobby or 2!

A skill is anything that requires a lot of repetition to finesse and get good at but strength is not the limiting factor.  They’re very healthy for both the body and mind as they increase body awareness and can double as a form of meditation. Handstands are a classic bodyweight-exercise skill. I just recently started to try my hand at juggling. The ultimate in skill-work is dance as it’s super complex and great at loosening you up as well! What’s important is you choose something you enjoy getting better at! I associate a lot of the “flow arts” with skill-work, which are fantastic to help you get in the zone.

  • Some ideas:
    • Walk the Slackline. (Then, hoop on the slackline.)
    • Learn to Juggle. (Then, juggle on the slackline coming soon)
    • Master the freestanding handstand.
    • Dancing is the ultimate in skill and movement complexity. Look up dance tutorials online!
    • Other flow arts: Hula Hoop, Spin Poi, etc…

Then you can combine your skills and do things such as hula hoop ON the slackline!

6. Choose something FUN for Cardio!

Personally, I prefer low-impact exercises such as bicycling. Make sure you review my articles on how to ride your bicycle safely on the street and how to mountain bike.

Ever since traffic has been lower on the streets during quarantine, it has been even nicer with the lower smog

Running is fantastic in terms of cardio, however just be aware that that it is a high impact exercise on joints and could hurt them if you’re overweight or doing it on a hard surface. Try to find a grassy field or park you can run around instead. Same goes for if you’re jumping rope.

Swimming is also a fantastic low impact exercise. If you hang out with a friend, you can play frisbee or kick a soccer ball or play volleyball or tennis. Now that I can’t go ice-skating (due to covid19), sometimes I will go roller blading as a completely different activity. Change it up. It’s good to find new ways to get the heart pumping. But what’s most important is that it’s fun and enjoyable. No point in doing things that you know make you miserable.

7. Expose yourself to the sun during non-peak hours

It’s a great practice to get some sun everyday, weather permitting. Go for a walk and try to expose as much of your skin as possible for a few minutes each morning. Obviously, the sun can be harmful during peak hours and hot days but after sunrise or before sunset, the ultraviolet light isn’t harmful and it’s very therapeutic. Plus, magic-hour (just around sunset) when the clouds light up different colors is an awesome time to be out.

When the Overly Attached Girlfriend Meme Combines with the Sun

8. Find ways to connect with nature regularly.

Being stuck indoors is really not good for mental and physical health. The antidote is nature. Even if you have to go far away to find a hiking trail or go to a secluded beach, it’s worth it. Or it can be as simple as walking up the hill or find a rooftop to catch a nice view of the sunset. I most frequently get a taste of nature, sun and some cardio most frequently by bicycling. Oftentimes I setup my slackline and rings at the local park and get both my skill and strength training and feel the grass on my barefeet at the same time. Nature is medicine. Don’t ignore it.

My favorite thing in the world is to find trails with water-features (lakes, rivers, waterfalls, hot springs). Go explore your local world!

In conclusion

  • Make space to lay and sprawl on the ground.
  • You must have a place to hang even if you do nothing but hang.
  • Stick to one solid strength training routine.
  • Flexibility-focused sessions and self massage are necessary to alleviate stiffness.
  • Take up a skillful hobby or 2
  • Choose something FUN for Cardio
  • Expose yourself to the sun during non-peak hours.
  • Find ways to connect with nature regularly.

That pretty much covers everything that I regularly do to stay active and healthy without needing to ever step into a gym! As you’ll notice, I rotate through many different activities and that’s because I believe that play and variety is the spice of life! But there is a method to the madness and I hope that helps you to optimize staying active without ever needing to step foot in a gym as well!

The 7 Minute Flexibility Routine

This is a free flexibility routine meant to mimic the short but frequent sessions of my minimalistic upper body strength training routine. The body can be stretched in literally countless ways but I have narrowed the routine to 7 sections that will cover the major muscle groups. As a result, this whole thing will take only 7 minutes once you get used to it. The first couple sessions will take a bit longer since you’re learning the stretches, but after that it’s a breeze. This can be a solid way of alleviating stiffness from prolonged inactivity to limber up, maintain or exceed your current flexibility in a short amount of time.

Instructions:

  • Below you will find 7 sections. Some sections have multiple options. Start with the first one.
  • Do ONE stretch from each section for 30secs and you’re done. If it’s a unilateral exercise, do 30secs per side. Use a timer or breathe for 5-10 breaths. The order is not too important.
  • Do it daily or multiple times a week and build the habit. If you don’t have a flexibility practice currently, these short but frequent sessions will work like a charm.
  • If you have prefer a different stretch for any muscle group, do that instead!
NeckChest/Shoulders/HamstringsHip FlexorsSpine/Upper Back/ShouldersGlutesHamstrings/CalvesLower Back

This is a simple, scrumptious neck stretch when done correctly.

This forward fold with the arms behind you, coming overhead, are one of the most accessible stretches that stretch multiple muscles at once. All you need is a towel or band if it’s too restricting to do it with hands together.

  • Forward Fold Shoulder Rinse (30secs)
    • Level 1: Static: Forward Fold with Arms Overhead
    • Level 2: Dynamic: Bend one knee and pull arm down to the side.
    • Level 3: Do it with a weight in your hands (not pictured)


The hip flexors are the muscles at the front of your thighs and hips that lift your legs up in front of you. They are always flexed when seated. These are probably the most important to do daily to undo sitting, alleviate lower back pain and excessive anterior pelvic tilt.

No matter which level you are at, the cues in this follow along video can and will be applied to ALL the hip flexor stretches you will ever encounter, so start here with Level 1:

This will stretch your lats, provide spinal mobility and increase thoracic extension to help oppose any excessive rounding of our upper back. Watch this 3 minute video to get acquainted with it in detail and know you’re doing it correctly.

  • Cat Cow with Hands Elevated (10reps):

The glutes are hip extensors (opposite of the hip flexors) and this is a knee friendly way to stretch them.

  • Level 1: Figure Four Stretch
  • Level 2: Grab shin instead of thigh

Standing splits require zero equipment and are a fantastic way to stretch the hamstrings by actively using the glutes and hamstrings of the lifted leg at the same time. You could hold them statically or try any of these dynamic variations to help pass the time if it’s excruciating.

Dynamic Standing Splits Variation #1:
Tap here for Dynamic Variation #2

Dynamic Variation #2: Focus on keeping the standing leg straight as you tuck the other knee in and out. In the beginning it may be hard to keep it straight but it will be in no time.

Tap here for the Regression

Regression if one is unable to perform the above variations:

Tap here for Advanced variation

Advanced single-leg balancing variation:

I recommend you end the session with one or both of these. The following 2 clips were taken from this 20min yoga video.

Childs Pose

Feet Together, Knees Apart, Sit on your heels and rest your forehead on the ground.

Supine Twist

Lay down, put the hands in a T position, lift the knees and twist to one side as you look the other way.

The End

I hope you enjoyed that little routine of wonders! As you probably know, I have a ton of follow along yoga and flexibility videos but this routine is for people who want to do their own thing by just looking at a gif or video and doing it on their own (similar to my splits or toe-touching routines which are a bit more complex). If you prefer my follow along videos and would like the cream of the crop in regards to maximizing effectiveness of your flexibility training, check out my ultimate flexibility bundle.

Let me know how you like this routine! If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below and thanks!

Top 5 Tips to Transition from the Gym to “At Home” Bodyweight Training Successfully

Since a ton of people are now looking into working out at home and investigating how to transition to bodyweight exercises to maintain their gains (and their sanity), I’ve been noticing many recurring misconceptions that should be cleared up so that you can workout effectively at your own home!

1. Don’t mix up concepts of endurance training and strength training.

For some reason a lot of people (especially young folks) discover bodyweight-fitness and the first thing they think of is “I’m going to get really strong by being able to do 100 pushups in a row.”

Why would you think doing 100reps of something would get you so much stronger? It would increase your strength initially (after you’re able to do, say 20-30 reps). But the rest of the way toward 100 will just increase your endurance, not your strength. And if your goal is to have a better physique with larger muscles that pop, then you need to work on getting stronger.

If you were at the gym and wanted to build stronger and bigger biceps, would you choose an extremely light weight and do 100 bicep curls non stop? (Your answer should be a big fat no.) Instead, you would choose a weight of significant resistance that would allow you to do only 6-12 reps per set.

So why is it that when people discover bodyweight exercises and want to get really strong, they try to make a goal of doing 100 pushups? Maybe it’s because they don’t understand the concepts of progressive overload or know how to increase the intensity with bodyweight exercises? Well, no worries, because if you were in that boat, you’re about to get lifted!

2. Progression exercises are the key to getting stronger.

An example of progression: Tucked L-sit moving toward Full L-sit.

Sadly, I watched a few famous YouTubers trying to take advantage of the COVID19 situation by recommending “at home” workouts filled with a bunch of superfluous exercises that were to be done to failure without providing progression exercises to help you level up (or regression exercises to make them more manageable). This was really unfortunate because it’s just adding more bull-shit to an industry already rife with bull-shit.

The concept of progressive overload needs to be present in your training plan to have good results.

When strength training with bodyweight exercises, you cannot add/remove plates of weight, so to change the intensity (load), you would need to increase the difficulty by moving to a harder, more difficult variation of the exercise:

  • If pushups are too hard, you could elevating your hands and do incline pushups.
  • If pushups are too easy, you could elevate the legs and do decline pushups.
  • When that becomes easy, then you could move onto pike pushups.
  • When that becomes easy, you could do pike pushups with feet elevated.
  • When that becomes easy, you move onto handstand pushups against a wall. See where I’m going with this?

You need to pick a progression exercise that is appropriate to your strength level, rather than simply doing an exercise that may be far too easy to make you get stronger, or far too hard to do properly. For more help on how to do that, read my blog post on how to make any bodyweight exercise easier or harder.

3. Train the movements, not the muscles. Or in other words, don’t focus so much on the individual muscles.

Many gym-goers work the body in isolated parts because they have access to machines or weights that allow them to. However, most bodyweight exercises are compound exercises, meaning they use many major muscle groups all at once. (Even in weight lifting this is true where people focus on the “big lifts” of squat, deadlift, bench, and overhead press.)

If you want to get better at pullups. Do pullups. The movement will take care of any weak links.

Think of graceful athletes, dancers, gymnasts, acrobats and martial artists: Do you think they got that way because they did bicep curls and tricep extensions? Or did they train the body as a whole, so that the muscles work synergistically all together in coordination? With bodyweight exercises, you’re often going to be using most of your body in that holistic fashion. The only time that a muscle truly works in isolation is when you’re using a machine or weighted exercise that isolated it on one axis of rotation.

Now, with that said, isolation exercises do have their place if your goal is to maximize your size and strength because they help you eek out more volume than you normally would get. For example, my hypertrophy routine uses isolation exercises because it’s a hybrid routine that utilizes both weights and calisthenics and is meant to maximize size and strength. My Smart Core program focuses on the core as well, because it’s a huge goal for many.

4. You could train your entire upper body with just Pulling and Pushing movements.

Instead of thinking of the muscles individually, if you focus on pushing and pulling exercises, that takes care of the upper body.

  • Pushing exercises:
  • Pulling exercises:
    • Pullups, rows, front levers and all their variations.
    • Work the back (lats, rhomboids, rear delts), biceps and core.

Structural balance takes care of itself if you train these two major movements. I would recommend you do slightly more pulling work than pushing, to counter our modern day sitting culture because we’re often stuck in a “push” position. My free, minimal routine offers a structured way to train these two together in a methodical manner.

A pullup bar is all you need. But the ultimate bodyweight fitness tool is if you get a pair of wooden gymnastics rings and find a place to hang them from. They’re pretty cheap and will keep you humble for life because there’s literally no limit as to how difficult you can make things on them. (I hang them from my basic doorway pullup bar in these quarantined days just fine.)

In regards to legs: Nothing compares to a barbell squat but the Single leg squat (“pistol squat”) progressions are pretty good and build balance. Start with chair pistol squats (with single leg squats standing up and down from a chair). When that becomes too easy, do them from a lower platform until eventually you need no platform. Holding a dumbell outstretched straight out in front of you will mitigate the ankle flexibility requirement when you get to the very bottom.

5. Common Complaint: “I don’t feel my chest working when I’m doing [insert pushup variation here]!”

Oftentimes I read statements like this. Just because you don’t feel it working there, doesn’t mean it’s not working there. Two people can do the same exact exercise and feel it in completely different places. Where you feel it, usually means you’re just weak there and that’s going to be super personal. But if you’re doing some sort of harder pushup variation and not feeling your chest, trust me, it’s still working. And it will get bigger if you keep putting in the work consistently and at the right intensity.

For most, it’s hard to feel the lats being worked during pullups but that doesn’t mean they’re not working! Make sure your form is good and they are!

Final thoughts

Personally, I workout because I want to do fun things and impressive things with my body and my good physique is simply a reflection of my capabilities. Instead of working out to get buff for looks, I workout because I enjoy it and getting buff is the side effect. When I need to pack on strength and mass, I do it because I need to achieve a move that requires strength. I find this way of thinking to be the most aligned with my personal goals. And with more people flocking toward finding ways to workout at home, I hope this blog post helps to make the transition into bodyweight-training a lot easier. If you’re looking for complete, comprehensive routines and tutorials, check out my previous blog post on how to get stronger and more flexible at home.

Get Strong and Flexible at Home! 💪

A lot of people are stuck indoors and can’t go to their gyms due to the coronavirus pandemic and are now searching for ways to workout at home. Well, you’re in luck because I’ve been training like this with minimal equipment and sharing how it’s done for the past 8 years! I have literally hundreds of free resources listed below so pick what section you’re in the mood for and go for it! No excuses!

Comprehensive Bodyweight Training Routines

Follow Along Yoga/Flexibility Videos

Follow Along Bodyweight Fitness Videos

Compendiums

Flexibility Training Tutorials

Click here to expand

Strength Training Tutorials

Click here to expand

Rehab / Prehab / Joint Strength

Click here to expand

Self Massage

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Motivational / Inspirational Workout Videos from Muscle Beach

Click here to expand

Weight Loss and Nutrition Series

Part 1: How Weight Loss Works: Calories, Diets, Exercise, Physique and More

There is so much misinformation and outright BAD information in regards to weight loss, fat loss, diets, calories, exercise and so forth that I am really happy to make this video talking the reality to dispel myths and set you on the right path! If you don’t want to watch the video, the transcript is below as well.

Click here if you prefer to read the information in the above video.

What’s up everybody, I’m excited to share with you a whole new series and this one is gonna be on nutrition. This is a long time coming so I’m really happy to be doing this. This first video is all about how weight loss and fat loss works and I’m excited to be doing this because it’s a topic with a lot of misinformation and a lot of people need help because let’s face it, everybody is fat all around us. Not just with adults but also with kids, so this is a huge issue.

Calories, Calories, Calories

The major thing you gotta keep in mind is that calories are the number one predictor of whether you’re going to be gaining weight or losing weight. Basically, your body burns a certain amount of calories per day. It depends on how much you’re burning based on your gender, weight, age, height and activity level. If you eat more calories than you need per day, you’re going to gain weight and vice versa.

Some people might say that doesn’t work because I’m old or my metabolism is slow. Well, if you keep making those excuses the reality is that you just need to eat less.It’s very possible that you’re not calculating things accurately. Like, for example, the calculators themselves that tell you how many calories you’re burning per day, are estimates. They’re just a guideline. If you’re eating slightly less and still not losing weight and you’re accurately weighing and measuring everything then it’s likely that your metabolic rate is even lower than that and you need to eat less. So, that is a big deal.

Patience

Also, a lot of people are not very patient. A lot of the weight you gained happened very slowly over months and years until you saw an old photo of yourself and realized how much you’ve changed. You’re not going to lose that weight in a few weeks. It’s going to take time. You’re going to lose some weight in the beginning and it might take months if you’ve been struggling with this for a long time and you have a lot to lose. You’re going to have to trust the process, if you are losing some weight and stick to it.

Diets

There’s so many different kinds of diets, weight loss diets, lifestyle diets. There’s a bunch of different diets listed here and a lot of times they work because they’re restricting certain foods that you can eat or maybe the time when you can eat and that in turn is creating some sort of caloric deficit and that is causing you to lose some weight. What’s important here isn’t the diet itself. It’s which diet is suitable for your lifestyle. One could work great for one person and a different one can work great for another one.

You cannot out-exercise a bad diet!

One of the first things people think of when they wanna lose weight is that they need to exercise. They say, “I gotta go to the gym” or, “I gotta start working out.” Working out is great and highly recommended but the reality is you can’t out-exercise a bad diet. You need to get a diet in check otherwise you’re gonna keep spinning your wheels.

Exercise is great. Work on your abs. Work on getting a strong 6-pack but it’s actually not going to show itself until you actually lose the fat that covers over it and the only way to do that is by getting your diet in check and eating less calories than you need.

Like this infographic below shows, let’s say you do an intense kickboxing class and burn 500 calories in that hour. But what if you have one cheat meal of 1,500 calories afterwards because you feel like you deserve it. The reality is that one cheat meal easily negated all the work you did that day.

This is why it’s important that you focus on the diet. If you go crazy with the cardio everyday nonstop everyday, and don’t change a thing with your diet, sure, you’re going to lose weight. But what ends up happening is that cardio makes you hungrier overtime because your metabolic rate not just for that day but the day after and you end up craving more food. Eventually there’s going to be a rebound effect. In the beginning you might say you don’t feel hungry cause you worked out and you feel good but eventually there sill be a rebound effect and you need to be aware of this.

I have a detailed blog post on the topic of abs being made in the gym and revealed in the kitchen here.

You should always do strength training

In regard to exercise, everybody should be doing strength training because if you are losing weight, that’s great, but it’s also possible you’re losing muscle if you’re not strength training at the same time.

Don’t be this guy who lost fat AND muscle!

You want a high quality weight loss which ensures that you’re losing mostly fat and minimizing the muscle lost. If you’re losing weight and not working out, you’re also going to be losing weight in the form of muscle and that’s not good because your physique is going to look worse. You’re going to lose a lot of your muscle definition and you don’t actually want that. It looks good to lose bodyfat but you want to keep the muscle you have and you do that by doing intense strength training. It doesn’t have to take a lot of time, and there are many ways to go about this and  it should be done. So that is one huge point that should never be neglected.

How little should you eat?

The more severe your deficit, the more extreme you go, the less sustainable it will be and eventually it will have a bad rebound effect so you have to find some sort of balance where you’re eating slightly less each day to make this sustainable. Because you didn’t gain all that weight in one day, you gained it over a long time and you want to take your time losing it so you can stick to whatever you’re doing that’s working for you.

Now, I tackled a lot of different nuances in this whole topic of weight loss and I would like you to know how you liked this article. Let me know what questions you have. Let me know what you would like me to cover and maybe I’ll cover exactly that next time. Now, I’d love to see what you have to say as well and I’ll see you in the next video.

Part 2: How To Lose Weight Without Exercise Or Dieting, Guaranteed

In this video you will learn how to lose weight in a guaranteed fashion by using an app such as MyFitnessPal that will help ensure you’re eating less calories than you’re actually burning. I go over the pros/benefits and cons/downsides to this guaranteed weight loss method and then give a bunch of tips on how to help you succeed with it.

Click here if you prefer to read the information in the above video.

Do you want to know how to lose weight in a guaranteed manner so that you don’t waste your time trying diets that might work or might not work? Well, you’ve come to the right place.

Calories in versus Calories Out (CICO)

The first concept you need to understand is very simple: Calories in versus Calories Out

Your body burns a certain number of calories everyday to live, survive and do all the processes it needs to do. This is dependent on your age, weight, height, gender and activity level and there are calculators that will estimate how many calories you burn on average per day. And the food you eat has energy in the form of calories. So you’re eating throughout the day and if you’re eating less calories than your body needs, then you’re going to lose weight. If you’re eating more calories than your body needs, you’re going to gain weight.

An example of a “TDEE” calculator that shows how many calories you burn per day.

Logging your food is the answer (Counting Calories)

Now we just take that concept and count our calories. Get the app called MyFitnessPal and it has a database of 10’s of thousands of foods. And even easier, if the food you’re eating is in a package, you just scan the barcode with your phone camera and put the number of servings you ate and it counts how many calories you’ve ate. People used to do this with pen and paper but now there’s an app on your phone that does it for you, and you use your phone throughout the day anyway.

Benefits of Counting Calories

The benefits are huge. The biggest one is that you could eat anything you want. You could have your ice cream, your cereal, etc, as long as you stay under a certain number of calories. Another thing that’s very important; this is a lesson that stays with you forever, is that it’s going to teach you how many calories you’re actually supposed to eat and how many you’re actually eating. This is HUGE. You might not realize that the breakfast you’re eating is a massive amount of calories until you actually count them. You have to go through this process to see where your excess calories are coming from. It’ll make you more aware on so many things. For example, you may not realize how frequently you’re snacking until you do this.

It’ll make you super aware of when you’re eating, why you’re eating, what’s causing the impulsiveness, what are the triggers. You’re going to start to notice patterns you never noticed before.

I wrote exercise is not necessary because whenever people want to lose weight, the first thing they think is “I gotta go to the gym.” No, really, the first thing you gotta do is control your diet. Control how much you’re eating. And that’s what’s going to help you to lose weight. Everyone should be exercising regularly all the time, whether they’re trying to lose weight or gain weight or whatever. It doesn’t matter. That part should just be a constant presence in your life. But the diet part is what you need to get in check, okay?

Negative side of Counting Calories

Let’s face it, it can be a little bit stressful to have to log everything that goes in your mouth. It’s a bit tedious, it could be cumbersome, however, it does get better with time. The first week might be annoying as hell, but when you start to see the results and you start to understand how much you’re actually eating, this is an important lesson that outweighs the negatives.

And I’m gonna be frank with you, the people who don’t want to count calories or say it doesn’t work for me without even trying, often have the biggest issues. Because they’re not facing reality. They don’t want to face the reality that they’re overeating and they just stop doing it. So you really need to be honest with yourself. If you actually want to lose weight, you’ve gotta like actually want to be aware of where your excess calories are coming from and it’s going to take work to stop it. And honestly we have the technology that makes it super easy, so enough with the excuses!

The other drawback is, if you’re making food at home, you need a food scale, so that you know if you’re eating 6 ounces of chicken or 12 ounces of chicken. It’s hard to gauge meat, nuts, cheeses most especially if you’ve never weighed them before. And the other drawback is if you’re eating out or eating out at a friends place, it’s hard to know how many calories are in that food if it’s not in the database. However, I would always recommend you round up to be on the safe side.

How much of a deficit should you eat at?

The general recommendation is that you should eat 500 calories less than you need per day. Now if you’re a petite woman, 500 calories might actually be too extreme. Maybe 300 calories less, something like that. Because you don’t need as much to begin with, so in terms of percentage, maybe you should be eating about 20% less per day.

If you’re eating 500 calories less per day, you’re going to lose about 1 pound of fat per week. So keep that in mind. It’s a nice, sustainable number for most people.

How to ensure you’re on the right path?

Now, to ensure that you’re on the right path, you want to weigh yourself every week. And you want to do it under the same circumstances. So for me personally, I only weigh myself if it’s morning time, I’ve just pooped but I haven’t ate anything. If those 3 conditions exist, only then will I weigh myself. Because if I weigh myself in the evening, after a big dinner, the weight is going to look very different than all the previous times I’ve weighed myself. It’s not going to be meaningful, comparable data.

And the other thing is in the app you could log the weight and take a photo of yourself at the same time which I recommend as well because it’s great to have the before and after photos.

Weight Loss is Non-Linear

Another thing you gotta keep in mind is that your weight is not gonna drop off a cliff. In the beginning it’s going to drop off fast but that’s mostly going to be water weight. Don’t expect an accelerated rate of weight loss in the long term. You’re going to plateau and then sometimes come back up before you go down. Sometimes you have to go 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Expect that the weight is not going to go down in a straight line and you’re not going to give up: You’re going to stick to it because this is a numbers game.

And that’s another thing, you don’t have to weigh yourself everyday. Maybe once a week, twice a week, but you don’t need to obsess over it because you’re going to lose weight slowly overtime and it’s all about the long run.

Tips to make calorie counting easier

  • Even before you eat something, log it. Don’t say I’ll do it later because you’re going to forget. It’s going to be shocking how easy it is to forget what you’ve ate. Extremely mind blowing, actually. These things add up so fast it’s just uncanny. I like to log things while I’m heating things over the stove top or in the microwave.
  • If you’re going to have a cheat day, it’s really important that you keep logging your food. You have to be honest with yourself. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel ashamed because it’s not really important that you’re going over your calories on one day. What’s important is that you are going to be in a deficit over that week or over that month. It’s not really important that you are under your calories every single day. Some days you’re going to be over and some days you’re going to be under. As long as the days you’re under are outweighing the ones where you’re over, you’re on the right path. So don’t stop doing it just because you went over one day. Keep at it. That’s one of those big things that we gotta psychologically be honest with ourselves.
  • Another cool thing is if you have a measuring cup, learn what 1 cup or 2 cups is like in your favorite bowls that you use frequently so that if you just pour something in your bowl, you know if it’s at a certain level that’s 1 cup or 2 cups. So you don’t have to meticulously use a measuring cup each time.
  • Another thing that makes it way easier is if you do intermittent fasting. So for me personally, I don’t eat breakfast, so I don’t need to log 3 meals a day. All of a sudden I don’t need to log 3 meals a day but just 2 meals a day.
  • If you’re the kind of person that eats a ton of snacks all throughout the day, maybe you should reduce the frequency of how often you’re snacking because if you do that then you don’t have to log as much, as often.
  • If you are not sure how much food you’re actually eating, be on the safe side and round up.
  • If you’re logging an exercise, the MyFitnessPal app actually overestimates how many calories you’re burning so round down on that so that way you’ll ensure you’re still on the right path.

Now I want to read your comments. What do you think of calorie counting? Have you tried this? Have you succeeded? have you failed? Are you going to try it again? Is this your first time hearing about it? Please let me know what you think and if you’re going to do it, try it and what your results were in the past. I’d love to hear and thanks for reading. Much success to you!

Bonus Part 3: Body Image Perceptions, Body-Fat-% vs Strength, Online vs Reality, Fat vs Ripped

The above video has received, and continues to receive, the most engagement from the YouTube audience. It all started when a user asked why I’m not concerned about getting leaner… so here’s a video answer. It’s a complex issue I can talk about forever, so here’s just 7 minutes. I recommend you check it out as it ties into the same topic of nutrition and weight loss but more-so about finding comfort in your own body image.

Reflection of the Month: What is the story you tell yourself?

I recently realized that when it comes time to reflect on the year, I find it very enjoyable and the more I think about what to write, the more the ideas keep flowing. That opportunity gets me into a very healthy creative flow which is rare because the perfectionist in me usually overthinks about what to write about. Henceforth, I’m going to transmute the concept of reflecting on the year, and apply it on a monthly scale and see what I could come up with and try to make this a monthly must-do because whatever you focus on, expands. And expand I will!

One of my ambitious goals for 2020 is the Swing to Handstands on Parallel Bars.

This exercise is frightening and challenging. Practicing it makes me feel a bit of anxiety. And that’s a good thing. I remember I used to get this anxious feeling a lot more often before when many gymnastics-related exercises were new to me and I had to overcome them psychologically. It feels good to experience this emotion again. It makes me feel alive to do things at the edge of my comfort zone.

My coach that’s helping me to perform the swing to handstand says I don’t even need to have a long enduring freestanding handstand to perform this as you’re only in the position momentarily.

However, since I want to gain confidence, I do want to hold a freestanding handstand again too. I used to practice it a ton in the past but I haven’t for a long time. I realized a couple years into handstand training, that the reason the freestanding handstand was so difficult for me, despite having a very good bodyline with open shoulders and a strong core, was because my right elbow does not straighten like a normal elbow. I had a bicycle accident 12 years ago where I messed up my wrist and elbow and it never healed back to normal. So basically when I’m holding a handstand, the right elbow is slightly bent during lock-out, which tips my entire body to the right and breaks my bodyline in a deceiving enough way that I can’t correct it.

The story you just read above is the story I’ve been regurgitating for several years already. While it’s true in factual history, I’m quite bored of it. The stories that we tell ourselves and to others define us and frankly, this story creates a very limiting mindset. It is literally just an excuse for why I can’t do something. These narratives have the power to shape our future and we need to be mindful of it.

The reality is, it’s not that I can’t hold a handstand ever because of my asymmetry. I just need to work a little bit harder to compensate for my unique anatomical circumstance.  So I’m going to work on it. I’m going to figure out what I need to do to stay in a handstand indefinitely. (I already know I need to master the scissoring drill from my handstand tutorial among other things.) The puzzle may be more difficult for me to figure out but I’m just about done saying this story. I want to prove that I can overcome this.

Besides, I used to have wrist issues and tennis elbow and I overcame all of them. Why should this stop me?

For 2020, I hope to capture many more handstand photos of me such as this!

So for 2020, I want to tackle mastering the handstand head on and this desire got sparked-up because I want to perform the Swing-to-Handstand on the parallel bars. I am also well on my way to having a full front lever and mastering dislocates on the flying rings. But I’ll leave those for another time.

So now you need to ask yourself… What is the story you keep telling about yourself? Is it maybe time to change the story?

Instagram Butt, Anterior Pelvic Tilt and How to Fix Bad Posture in 4 Steps

Ever since I released my shoulder and upper back flexibility program, I wanted to make a blog post about posture so this is a dive into excessive anterior pelvic tilt: one of the most common postural issues in this day and age and how to fix it.

What is excessive anterior pelvic tilt?

Excessive anterior pelvic tilt is when you stick your ass out like an Instagram-model trying to show how giant your ass is by also arching your lower back as if you’re a cripple. The opposite, posterior pelvic tilt is when you flatten your butt by squeezing your glutes to tuck your tailbone.

Is she actually thick or suffering from excessive anterior pelvic tilt or temporarily sticking her ass out for the ‘gram? 🤔

If that Instagram-butt-pose is close to your “normal” posture, your lower back would be in pain, gut will stick out, shoulders will roll forward and head will jut forward. Unfortunately, these symptoms are an actual reality for many people and they aren’t trying to do some weird pose for the ‘gram.

Since your hips are the foundation of your spinal curvature, if they are tilted forward (anteriorly), they affect the whole chain up. Many people are afflicted with this condition and here are the main reasons why:

  1. Tight hip flexors (quadriceps and iliopsoas; the thigh muscles in front of you)
  2. Weak hip extensors and core (hamstrings, glutes; thigh muscles behind you and abs)
  3. Tight upper back (lats)

Your hip flexors are probably too tight from sitting too often or never stretching them. Tight hip flexors are a problem for most people in the modern world. Some people also have some “glute amnesia” where they not-only don’t workout their glutes, but they’ve also lost the ability to engage. The glutes and abs are the foundation of your core. It’s very important that one keep them strong. As for tight upper back, if you don’t stretch your lats, they’re probably tight and contribute to your shoulders rolling forward.

The solution:

Do these four things almost everyday:

  1. Stretch your hip flexors with my low lunge tutorial.
  2. Strengthen your core with my 5 bodyline drills.
  3. Strengthen your glutes with glute bridges.
  4. Stretch your upper back muscles with this incredibly feel good lat stretch. 

Other tips?

If you want more in-depth understanding pelvic tilts, watch my video below where I share how to remember the differences and to know which tilt to do for which exercise.

I tried to keep this blog post short and sweet and to the point, explaining what it is, the issue and how to fix it. So I hope that helped you! If you have any questions, always feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you! Thanks for reading.

Reflecting on 2019

I want to reflect upon 2019 in a novel way by opening up a little bit. It’s been a rollercoaster of a year in a good way because I’ve been growing as an individual, my online presence, valuing my self worth and learning a ton about everything by living with my girlfriend. I’ve had a lot of trouble writing really open blog posts for the past year but I do really well on these yearly reflections so I’m going to follow the writing advice given by Sean McClure:

“Assume nobody in this generation will read your work. It keeps your writing authentic, maintains your focus on ideas that are timeless, and prevents the dullness that comes from trying to appease an audience.”

That statement really helped me to put this blog post up. I’ve been increasingly struggling with blogging openly for the past few years, trying to fruitlessly figure out what the people want to read, trying to figure out where to draw the line with what I should or should not say and overthinking what other people will think. So fuck all that noise. I will try to go back to my roots of not giving a shit and type things out pretending nobody will read this anyway to ease the mental pressure. (In the same line of thought, apparently when Mark Twain wrote his autobiography he had instructed that it was not to be released until he was dead so he could speak his mind frankly.)

The world is noisier than ever

 

Let’s face it. There’s too much shit going on. And most of it is bunk. Everything wants your attention. Everything on your phone wants your attention. And you’re connected to your phone like your head is to your neck. The social media sites are engineered to keep you coming back with the likes you get for making a post in return that gives you the nice hit of dopamine. The engagement you get from people commenting and praising you feels good as well, like as if you’re socializing IRL, but it’s overall still too isolated compared to in person human interactions.

We have access to too much information and most of it is noise. Noise that detracts you from your well being. Noise that detracts you from your lifes goals and missions. Noise that drowns the pure signal your mind would be easily aware of without it.

So what can we do? Well, we can meditate more often. And meditation doesn’t require anything special. Just do nothing. Don’t fiddle with anything. Don’t watch anything. Just do nothing for 10 minutes. I do this simple breathing meditation while standing in lines at stores. You’ll find that it’s actually hard to do nothing, ironically, but it’s really healthy to make that a habit. Also, the notifications should be turned off on most of your apps because they’re just going to distract you and your attention span has dwindled to that of a fly.

Something I read recently by Naval was extremely beautiful, he said:

  • If you want to be rewarded, you have to be irreplaceable.
  • If you want to be irreplaceable, you have to be unique.
  • If you want to be unique, you have to be authentic.
  • If you want to be authentic, stop listening to everyone and everything else.
  • It’s drowning “you” out.

Facebook vs Instagram vs Twitter vs Tik Tok

I got that quote above from a tweet. When Twitter first came out I scoffed it off as a lame site that further promotes the dumbing down of society with its purposely limited characters that discourage depth, but there’s actually a lot of good stuff on there when you find the right people. Twitter turns out to be full of some really, really smart people but it takes time to curate such a list.

I used to hate on Instagram too, saying it was just Facebook with pictures and thus, surely more superficial, but it turns out to be a mixed bag. Well, there’s definitely a ton of superficiality on IG, and I hate the influencer trend because it’s simply the modern version of being a massive sell-out which is as far away from ingenuity as you can get. Oh and watching Instagram Stories have got to be the most mind-numbing and downright depressing activity ever to exist that surely makes me feel sad and destroys my ability to focus after just a few minutes of watching other peoples lives on hyperdrive. And with the amount of ads that are on IG, this is a fairly strong signal that IG has peaked and people will move onto another platform soon as it plateaus and dwindles.

Now the newest thing is Tik Tok and it seems to be the new hip thing all the young kids are pouring their creativity out onto since they’ve left Snapchat. I won’t be going on Tik Tok. I can’t spread myself that thin. My focus is YouTube, Blog Posts and Instagram, in that order.

I’ll just continue to be an old curmudgeon shaking his fist at social media sites even though I hypocritically use them as well to update the world on my latest content. So yes, follow me on Facebook and Instagram if you don’t already… However, if you want to stay up to date with my content without having to check my site or social media sites, make sure you’re part of my mailing list.

Hustling

Speaking of mailing list… You may have noticed if you’ve joined my mailing list that you get an email every week updating you on my latest content or giving you a heads up on some discount or sale I’m running. This is all thanks to a friend who excels at marketing that I’ve hired to help me stay consistent on that front.

I don’t think I’ve ever hustled this much before. I’ve been hustling to make this online business sustainable as a full time job to support my dream of helping others which is partly driven by a fear of becoming another “failure to launch” millennial and I want to be able to support a family one day. I do not want to be a loser. And if I’m going to be successful by todays standards with ever increasing housing prices, I have to keep excelling at new levels to make myself stand out from the noise. Funny enough 2 years ago on my 34th birthday I made this video talking about how it was the first time I felt like an actual adult for some reason, and it was not even a month after that, where I got a girlfriend… who I now live with.

Videos that capture authentic flows are rare

It sucks when I’m working out at the beach and listening to music on my headphones that I really love, and the music makes me get into a flow that I otherwise would not have gone into, and I think, “Hey, I wish I could record what I’m doing right now and show others what just happened or what is happening.” Yet the moment you decide to do that and setup the phone to record a video… is when the music goes off and the magic is immediately lost. Even if the moment is replicated, it has lost that original spark and that’s too bad.

Importance of having a wind down hour

Best thing I changed recently to improve my sleep quality is to have a transition phase by not watching any screens (tv or phone) at least 30 minutes before sleep and to do only non-digital-things like writing a to do list for the next day, cleaning the clutter around the home, tidying up my desk, washing all the dishes and maybe finishing off by reading a book in bed. When my eyes start to get droopy, I will put the book away and sleep soundly.

Look at everything as a blessing in disguise

After returning from a vacation earlier this year, I was inspired and yearning to create content as soon as I could. But I came back home and my computer wouldn’t turn on which was very strange because I specifically unplugged my computer so that there won’t be any electrical issues if there was a thunderstorm while I was gone and yet, it still wouldn’t turn on.

I ended up painstakingly having to replace every single component until I figured out it was the motherboard. Luckily, I did not lose any files. (By the way, I use BackBlaze to back up my hard drives, in case you’re wondering what my backup system is for all my photos and videos.)

Now, I was really pissed off about the whole thing because by the time I got my computer up and running, I had lost a week of time with no new content, spent a bunch of money to fix it and I had lost that built up motivation to create content. What helped me was to realize that this was simply an opportunity to upgrade my computer. Now I have a much faster processor and video editing is much more efficient.

Here’s another example…

I went off to the local mountains scouting for the perfect spot to shoot a yoga video. I finally found a good spot, set everything up, got my mic on, started rolling and after 30 minutes of recording, I found out my camera didn’t record anything.

After all that effort, I felt annoyed and downtrodden. I remember thinking, “It was such a good take, too. And now sun is going down, it’s colder and I have nothing to show for it.” I was going to leave but then I said you know what, everything is setup and ready to go and I have enough battery power on the microphone and camera, so why not do it again. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Maybe I will do an even better session cause I practiced it already once. This kind of thinking has helped me to not kill myself many a times.

By the way, I released that video on Christmas Day as a gift to you all here:

The volatility as an entrepreneur plays a number on my head

As I mentioned earlier, this year I pushed more than ever to monetize my online presence so that I could continue creating blog posts and videos for free in a sustainable manner without having to constantly do gigs on the side to make ends meet.

It was a very good year in hindsight but throughout it, very difficult going through the motions. When my Smart Core Program came out in the summer, I got a flurry of sales on unprecedented levels and I was very happy. But that euphoria was very shortlived as the sales fell off a cliff as the summer came to an end. That volatility played a number on my head and got me feeling down.

Looking back at my numbers, it is clear this cycle happens every year. The fitness world is extremely seasonal and predictable. People simply stop working out in the fall when the weather gets colder and the days get shorter. Then come January, there’s a big spike in interest due to new-year-resolutioners, but this is ultimately a fake-out as resolutions lose their fervor and there isn’t a rekindling until the mid Spring when things start warming up. Summer is the only time when things are consistently poppin’ cause everyone is showing more skin cause it’s so hot out and they all want that beach-bod. Human nature is interesting like that. I workout year round, but even for me, it becomes harder to workout consistently in the winter, so I understand.

There were many times when I deep down wished I had a stable source of income and wondered what life would’ve been like if I had just stuck with the system like “normal” people and clocked in and out at a 9-5, getting a consistent paycheck, working for someone elses dream as opposed to mine in exchange for consistent, predictable income.

Luckily I am a very optimistic person overall and I try to see everything negative as a blessing in disguise. I also like the saying, “Your greatest weakness is the pathway to your strengths.” These downtimes and the eventual coming out of them, were the impetus that helped me create the mindful motivation series to help others battle depression.

It’s always darkest and coldest just before dawn.

I just want to reiterate this quote because it’s one of the few that kept me afloat when my mind was going to dark places and I felt like I was dying inside. Oftentimes when you feel like you’ve hit rock bottom mentally or spiritually, you have to remember that that’s most probably the bottom and things will only get better. Things always get better when you’re at your lowest point. Besides, after dawn is typically the most glorious sunrise you’ve ever seen.

Space and distance increases attraction.

When I’m not feeling motivated, I find that taking a break is the best thing ever instead of pounding my head against the desk trying to force motivation. I’ve noticed that bike rides are a cure-all for creativity. And thus, stepping away from work is very healthy to recharge and get inspiration again as opposed to trying to force things to get better. This also applies to relationships too. Being together with your significant other feels great but be together 24/7 and you will lose the spark that kept you together and you might even forget who you are and lose yourself. I even made a video of this:

On top of a To-Do-List, keeping a training log has been crucial

You know me, I’m all about to do lists as I’ve talked about them here, here and here. But lately I’ve also been keeping a training log meticulously and it’s fantastic. I’ve logged every workout for the past 16 months without fail. Anytime I feel like I had a shitty workout, all I need to do is look back at the log and realize how far I’ve come. Almost every single time, the shitty workouts precede the breakthroughs to new levels. It seems that you have to persevere through the bad to get to the great almost as if it’s a requirement to feel bad.

Now, there’s so much more I have to type about. Typing this blog post out has opened up my appetite for sharing a ton of topics. In the next one I’m going to do a deep dive and talk about the one move I’ve been strength training for nearly a year nonstop: the front lever. I’m in a good groove in everyway and I want to keep this momentum up. So keep revisiting my site and you’re going to find new stuff real soon, per usual! Leave a comment with your thoughts and let me know you exist if you read this! And kudos to you for making it this far. You have impeccable attention! Thanks and have a happy new year!