Pillar 2: Strength

Everyone’s lifting/strength training journey has its own unique beginning.  Some stemmed from childhood athletics, other journeys were rooted in vanity.  The genesis of my own strength training journey is rooted in my early childhood insecurities.  As a kid my body had very weird proportions: large head, wiry arms, relatively muscular legs, and a somewhat prominent belly.  I can’t pin point one single event that motivated me to reach my current level of fitness, but rather a collection of memories that all played a part into forging me into the fuckin’ shredder that I am today.

One summer during middle school I went to Mexico with my dad and sister.  After splashing around on the beach I headed to the outdoor shower to remove the excess sand, where two little shit head girls whispered to each other that I was “fat”, and proceeded to have a giggle.  Embarrassed and pissed off, I vehemently stomped over to the hotel room and started banging out what felt like 250 crunches.  Fast forward another 3 or so years I hit a pretty generous 5 inch growth spurt, and my body started to lean out.  I got involved in martial arts and the confidence started to grow.  However now I’m getting my ass kicked by just about everybody in arm wrestling: my sister, my sister’s friends, my own skinny friends. (Sigh) Back to square one!  So now the belly is gone, but my strength level is embarrassing.   Once again, fueled by insecurity I started hitting the gym with my dad at the Hilltop YMCA and the rest is history.  My 6 inch earth worms grew into 12 inch pythons and life is starting to look good… right? Kinda, let me explain.

Lifting weights and getting stronger was a tool that I used to decrease my insecurities and increase my confidence.  But as I got older and more experienced I learned that those insecurities never really go away.  Sure, the confidence definitely goes up but now you’re faced with another obstacle: the desire for perpetual growth.  So you get the abs, the ripped arms, and swole legs but it doesn’t nor should it just stop there. You start to fine tune what aspects of your body you want to focus on and/or change, and with it comes a rewiring of your mind. Fitness is a journey of continuous introspection: finding out everyday who you are by doing difficult shit.  The strength you search for only in part comes from improvements in your skeletal muscle system; the rest are gains in mentality and spirituality.

Steak, iron, and facial hair does a body good.

Strength training is just one of the four “Pillars of Supreme Sexiness”, and is just a part of a greater whole.  For me, strength training started out as a way to combat insecurity but evolved into a tool that I use to measure progress and continually grow.  If you’re just starting out I would recommend committing yourself to at least two sessions a week for 4-8 weeks before you start increasing exercise frequency.  2-4 exercises per session, 2-3 sets each exercise, and anywhere from 10-20 reps per set (as long as you’re training close-ish to failure) would serve as a great launching pad into your strength training journey.  I like higher volume sets for beginners as it can promote better mind-muscle connection and can also promote improvements in exercise technique, as long as the technique is consistently good throughout each set.  Here is a sample upper body push routine you can do with 2 sets of dumbbells. Thanks for reading. Bless you all.

Incline Dumbbell Press: Start by placing the dumbbells on top of your thighs. Quickly raise each knee til each dumbbell is stacked over your chest (as pictured)

Raise your chest up towards the ceiling as much as possible, then press the dumbbells straight up. NOTE: don’t dump the weights or bounce the weights off your chest before starting your next rep. Control the lowering portion of the lift.

Dumbbell Lateral Raise: Start with a dumbbell in each hand with your arms at your side. (I’m using a bench as a chest support to reduce any momentum created from the torso.)

With slightly bent elbows raise your arms to shoulder height (or slightly higher if it’s comfortable for you). Slow the lowering part of the lift before the next rep. The load here should be lighter than the weights used for the incline dumbbell press.