Reaching for a new level in life is always a challenge. Reaching for a new level in exercise almost is even more so. The ironic thing is that progress in exercise is often far more measurable, and thereby even possibly easier to calculate.
So many people try to simply "maintain" what they have, and I'm sorry to say but that ISN'T POSSIBLE.
Your body is always in a state of flux, as it tries to achieve homeostasis. Now in order to achieve that, it is going to balance itself out. You're either improving, or degrading. One of the two, and it is your choice.
Sometimes it is even a good thing, as with fasting, it is essentially an intentional type of degrading. Allowing your body to reach a certain point, once you fasted enough, to even remove junk stuff from your body (like old proteins that aren't needed).
It is weird though, as we are breaking down our muscles on purpose. Only to then have our bodies naturally rebuild them back up even stronger.
Using progressive overload, and also getting into the state of hypertrophy; You can get yourself even stronger than you could have imagined before. At any age.
The Decay of Life
We are all floating towards the cosmic abyss that is death, and that is a bleak statement to make in a post such as this. However if we fail to realize that at any point, then our efforts are not going to be as potent as they need to be.
The universe yearns for entropy, and our bodies somehow fight against that. However if we fail to consciously work WITH our bodies, then it is a losing game. It is only once we make it a mindful decision, that we can fight the decay of life.
Exercise, and by proximity nutrition, are ways that we stave off that floating trajectory. We give ourselves not only a bit more time statistically, but more importantly an enhanced life.
You can even prolong the shelf life of the telomeres in our chromosomes of our cells, if you manage your diet well enough.
By exercising we are giving our bodies better range of motion, burned off excess calories, and increased strength. All of which come into play in our lives, whether we realize it or not. Think about playing with your kids, or even grandkids.
There is always a way to exercise more, even if it simply going up and down the stairs in your house more, to full on workouts in the gym, or somewhere in between.
There is ALWAYS another Level
Look you can never be done with exercise. I don’t care how much you do, and there is such a thing as too much exercise too. When you get to the point where you reach the latter, then your next level changes from exercise to rest and/or nutrition.
I often tell people, especially my clients as they will actually listen to me, but every decade you need to dramatically change what you are doing with your exercise. So that you can continuously push the body more. Exercise is simply adaptation, and if you don't have a strong enough challenge, then your body won't be pushed into adapting.
They come together (rest and exercise), but most people view that progress through the lens of being in the gym. That is okay for most early levels of progress.
However like the title of this post says, the insanity of exercise, is how simple yet complex it is.
We constantly need to push ourselves to a new height, and there are variables that help you do just that. I talk about them on my blog here:
Dustin Miller | PolyInnovator
Reach for the stars
This post is meant as a sort of wake up call to some people, and a motivational one to others. You can do more, and you should do more. I’m not just telling you, but also myself as I write this.
I scream this from the top of my lungs, but even I struggle sometimes at doing it too. I get that it is hard, but it is what we HAVE TO DO.
Always strive for a higher level!
If you want to keep reading:
Dustin Miller | PolyInnovator
Previous Shorter Version
This was one of my "social articles", an experiment to create medium sized blog posts, akin to newsletters. Across a variety of social blogging networking platforms. Such as Medium, Vocal Media, and Linkedin. Since it didn't quite land; I decided to take these posts and remake them into more full length creations.
Dustin Miller - PolyInnovator
