Old Masters

When sage advice is offered, listen intently.

If you know what the title's from, kudos to you. The title does serve a purpose itself. Specifically, an important lesson I learned from others this past year.

The first instance was attending a kendo practice to experience the sport. Beginning with a footwork drill, we practiced dashing across the auditorium towards our opponent. The mistake we all made was that after one person stopped short and went to the back of the line, everyone else did the same instead of dashing completely across the room.

When we completed the drill, sensei explained peer pressure can be positive or negative. An action of one person can alter the actions of subsequent peers. In this case it was negative because one person set the trend due to a small error.

Positive peer pressure would demonstrate desired behavior that would be reinforced if everyone did it - such as if that one person did the drill in full.

The second instance was meeting with Swami Radhanath. Our university's bhakti club was fortunate to have him visit for their big semester event. My professor was able to contact him to visit our class and then I heard him speak again when I attended the evening's festivities. After the main event, attendees were able to meet with the swami and have their copy of his new book signed.

When I had my chance to go up I asked him, "What advice would you have given to yourself when you were younger or someone else about to embark on the world?" He took a moment then responded, "Whatever you do, make it positive. Thoughts, speech, action, people, food, everything. Immerse yourself in positive surroundings."

One simple piece of advice I've noticed in other blogs is to keep a good social network. One that is beneficial to your own life and will only uplift it. Heck, it's so straightforward and obvious even my parents tell me to have good friends.

Unless you're a hermit, you most likely interact with other individuals on a regular basis. You have the ability to choose who those individuals are, and in doing so, set the tone of your own life. Even with the greatest environment in the world, what good is it if you are constantly around those who are negative and of bad character? It will only be detrimental to yourself.

You can easily tell who improves your own life by how they affect you.

Do they uplift your mood or bring it down?

Offer good advice?

Act in ways that aren't harmful to themselves or you?

Are they close-minded?

Stubborn?

Poor intentions?

Reinforce positive attributes and behaviors?

Make your own character grow and mature?

Do they tell you can or can't achieve something?

Who you surround yourself with will make your own personal development rise or fall.

How will you choose?

2011 Primer

Notepad file where I jot down future post ideas.

I hope everyone had a good weekend. Besides getting blasted by snow and helping my dad clean up the driveway, it apparently was the weekend for bad stories from my uncles and dad.

In this penultimate post for the year, I thought rather than recap 2010* it would instead be better to list posts slated for 2011. Not only will it hold me more accountable, but it gives readers a chance to see what's coming. Among all the topics, I'm sure there's something that will catch your interest. The titles give a description, but they aren't 100% definite yet. And don't worry, I'm confident I'll think of more topics as the year progresses.

So, shall we take a look? In no specific order,

• Immune System & Stress
• Effective Results
• Neural Plasticity & Sleep
• What Kids Want to Tell their Parents
• What's Been Exported to Women in Contemporary Fitness
• Building a Better Body [multiple posts]
• Everything Abs Updated
• Positives and Negatives of Associations & Experiences
• If You Had 5 Minutes to Live
• Problems with Advertising Fitness Products
• Cornerstones of Embarking on a Healthier Life
• Exercise Terminology/Abbreviated Dictionary (Somewhat done, but enormous amounts of adding still needed)
• Stance Progressions
• Improving Pull-ups
• Book of Five Rings for Weightlifting [multiple posts, possibly]
• More than Facts
• Supplements, Part 2 (see part 1 here)
• Iron Resiliency [multiple posts]
  
• Defining Fit
• What is Vigorous Exercise?
• 10-Hour Exercise Week
• Disordered Eating Roundtable (this is a maybe)
• Earning Merit
• Driven by Fear or Success
• Ideal vs. Reality
• Improving Training [original]
• Lessons from a Religion Degree
• ABC's of Lifting
• Greatest Moments
  
• Clean desk
• Fold laundry
• Do lab work

Whoops! Those last few are actually part of my to do list. Hopefully something caught your eye that you'll be looking forward to in the new year.

By the looks of it, I'll be busy with a lot of writing. To the blog visitors, thank you for reading! I do very much appreciate it when I run into someone and they enjoy my posts, especially if they find the advice valuable.

With that said, stop by later in the week and I'll have the final post for 2010.

*If I had to pick a favorite post of mine this past year, it would be this.

Moment of Clarity

This past Monday morning, I was walking to the bus stop to go study for a difficult exam I had at noon. It occurred to me after that exam I would be "done." Not in the sense of graduating, but that would be the last serious class of my undergrad career where I hold any interest.

I'll be spending my final semester in the spring taking a psych lab course to complete the degree and a few classes to finish up a public health minor.

All in all though, it's over. The realization and feeling are both refreshing and invigorating.

The past month or two I've received the question, "What are you doing when you graduate?" way too many times. I tend to reply with I don't know, but I do feel blog readers deserve to know my plans. For now, I'll be applying for an internship at Cressey Performance this summer. Only a few people know about this, but hopefully I'm fortunate enough to be accepted. Aside from that, I've yet to formulate anything further.

As alluring as grad school is, pursuing it immediately post-grad just doesn't appeal enough to me yet. The whole applying process sounds torturous and I prefer to know 100% for sure what I'll be doing with so and so degree. (I'm leaning towards something in Health Psychology.)

Enough delving into my life. Let me leave you guys with a few good finds of late.

Adam Rees on unconventional upper-body training


Tracy Fober with a great video here


Brendon's shows side medicine ball throw progressions


Stevo Reed shares a few core exercises

I'll be back posting solid content after the holidays.

Have a good one everyone.

How Ya Liftin'

I smell a muscle-up.

I've noticed my last few posts haven't been training-related in any way. And although the posts I have slated to write aren't either, it's only right I post something relevant to lifting. After all, the blog is to help everyone improve their own training.

Back in my wee lifting years, I never paid much attention to the subtleties of my reps. Sure I was performing the movement, but there wasn't much detail to locking the glutes, scap retraction, bracing the core, etc.

One of the big mistakes many trainees make is the lack of muscular tension during reps. From what I've observed, it tends to occur during the eccentric portions of lifts. Some familiar examples people may know are the dead hang on a pull-up, a barbell descending quickly & bouncing in the bench press, a quick drop in the squat, and a not-so-rigid torso during rows.

This is a no no. Allowing your body/muscles to become lax during a set is considered wrong. Rather, you should be keeping your body rigid and muscles contracted.

Why? From the sources I've read,* a higher load is transferred to your connective tissues (tendons and ligaments). This results in less gain for your muscles and more stress to the connective tissues.

Pull-ups: As Mike Robertson cues, start with your scaps pulled down and back "into your pockets."
Bench, squat, rows, & everything else: Keep the muscles contracted!

Bottom line: Don't become like jelly during your sets.

Have a good weekend folks!

*The sources,

• Charles Poliquin
• Jason Ferrugia
• Carter Schoffer
• Science and Practice of Strength Training
  

Taste of Success

If this quote fits you, you're doing something right.

"First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, then you win." - Gandhi

I hear about it happening to other people making progress or achieving something worthwhile. Oddly enough, they may receive hate or criticism.

Experiencing it is another thing. It means you're on the right path.

And let me just say, success tastes good.