Applying Ideas for Health and Strength

Categories: Blog Feb 28, 2022

I collect things, ideas really. We all do. It’s the ideas we collect that shape us. As I get older, I’m learning to collect useful ideas and discard harmful ones. For example, If something makes sense to me, if I think something will be useful to my goals or my happiness, I absorb it. Dan John’s Easy Strength is an example of that. Really, it’s the essence of Easy Strength that I hold to the most: Show up every day. 

 

Some ideas cut through the clutter, they whittle away the fat and they leave you with clarity. Dr. Joan Vernikos, the former Director of NASA’s Life Science division, gave me one of these pearls of wisdom: to stay young, change positions often. Her research on the effects of zero gravity, the equivalent of zero stimulation on earth, on aging the human body made too much sense to me. Move often to stay young. 

 

Another idea that fits well with these two is one I got from reading one of Pavel Tsastouline’s books (I don’t remember which one): Grease the groove to improve your strength. Greasing the groove was taking deliberate breaks throughout the day to practice a particular movement, like a pull-up. The idea, like Easy Strength, was that if you show up enough to practice a particular movement, or skill, you would become stronger and adept at that movement or skill.

 

It’s these three ideas that guide my daily movement, or daily being, routine. I show up every day, I change positions often (sitting, standing, inverting, etc), and I grease the groove often throughout the day. 

 

Back-bridges, handstand holds, hanging, dips, squats, breathing, crawling - it all takes about 8 minutes. Done a few times a day, when I need a break from whatever, it all adds up. I feel good and I’m never tired. If anything, this invigorates me. It leaves me feeling GOOD. And as you know, it feels good to feel good. 

 

This makes sense to me. It’s a collection of great ideas from great minds and it serves well to point me towards my goal: to feel good, always.

 

Does it work? 

 

Well, yeah. But then, I believe it does, mostly because I believe the ideas behind it. Belief is the life power of the actions: show up, change positions often, be deliberate throughout the day. 

 

Don’t you need to lift heavy weights? 

 

No. Not unless I want to be good at lifting heavy weights. But I don’t. I want to feel good. I want to unlock the untapped strength potential that I already have stored up in my body. My body is as strong as I could ever want it to be, I just need to unlock enough of that strength that allows me to live my life and express it the way that I want to. I want the strength to engage in life, to sprint up hills, to climb rock-walls, to play flag football, to help a friend move furniture, to be useful to my neighbor. I don’t need to lift weights to do these things. I need to keep myself young and release my strength potential. 

 

How do you keep yourself young and release your strength potential? 

 

Honor your design. Show up, change positions often, be deliberate, and believe. 

Believe in the process, believe in your design, and believe in yourself. It’s that simple, which means it may be extremely complicated, especially if you’re believing a lot of other things or if you’ve collected a lot of other ideas. Which brings us to this question:  

 

Are your ideas useful? 

 

Are they yielding the fruit that you want? Or, do they keep you bound in perpetual frustration? What are you believing? What are you doing? Do your ideas, beliefs and actions serve you or hinder you? Are you able to engage in life the way that you want to? 

 

If you just want to feel good, my collection of ideas may be very helpful to you. 

 

Show up every day, change positions often, grease the groove and be deliberate, believe in yourself and the process. 

 

You don’t have to do the things that I mentioned above. Maybe you just want to Press Reset: practice breathing with your diaphragm, moving your eyes and head, roll on the floor, rock on your hands and knees, and crawl a little. That’s all you really need to do. That’s really all you were designed to do. It’s a sure fire way to learn how to feel amazing in your body, your mind and your emotions. 

 

 

 

 

 

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