Chapter 7 physical exercises
Physical and mental health through movement
A healthy mind in a healthy body. That's how an ideal story begins. The real story says that no body is perfectly healthy, so, first of all, do a general overhaul—a few sets of medical tests for your whole body so you can put on paper what is functional and what is non-functional. It's not a mistake, so we'll say it again: we list what is functional first, and then we list what is non-functional.
How to listen to your body when it needs you
Regarding the medical system, we must admit they are very good at testing and analyzing various substances in the body that serve as markers for certain diseases. Regarding treatment methods, everything changes because financial interests often become more important than the patient's health. If your health permits, then you must perform physical exercises every single day.
Your most valuable ally: movement
This is not an obsessively repeated cliché, but a truth. Your body is made of muscles and ligaments. If they aren't used, they atrophy, they shrink, and in the place where they once were, the organism replaces them with fat. There's no point in going into every detail; let's summarize: physical activity is overwhelmingly responsible for the immune system and the metabolic system.
The power that comes from within you
This means that if you don't move constantly, over time you will move less and less—not as your choice, but because of inability. Separately, the side effects of physical activity are self-confidence and self-respect, as well as positive thinking and the body's energy level. Thus, the following question arises: Do you want to be strong, energetic, and positive?
A difficult road, but full of rewards
If your answer is yes, know that you won't like the solution. It will involve a recipe of patience, perseverance, work, and suffering (muscle soreness should become so common that you welcome it with joy, thinking that it doesn't make you suffer, but strengthens you and makes you more powerful). You will probably say you don't have time. Of course, that is a lie.
Give yourself the gift of a little time just for you
Because you choose a part of your daily schedule yourself. Let's move forward anyway and find you some time: in the morning, before chores and obligations begin, allocate one hour for physical activity that you do for yourself and for your health. If you leave for work at 7 and wake up at 6, then subtract an hour. Wake up at 5. Is it really such a big effort?
Why go to the gym – or exercise at home?
A different perspective on movement
When I speak of physical movement, I don't mean going to the gym, because there it isn't necessarily about physical activity, but rather about socializing, comparing yourself to others, and relaxing. I'm referring to physical activity at home, and the most useful physical activity is dancing. Why is it the most useful? Because it trains all muscle groups without putting too much pressure on the body.
The joy and energy dance offers you
As an energetic state, there are published studies on the benefits of dance, including: well-being, vitality, energy, attitude, reduced anxiety, and better emotional management as a result of increased self-confidence—which, of course, comes over time as you repeat the activity and notice your muscles beginning to tone beautifully, and you see that your stomach is no longer barrel-shaped.
A free mind in a strong body
For a rational person, physical activity is mandatory. It is essential to be able to focus on rational choices and not on the problems of a weakened body that demands mental priority for a solution. It's not about convincing anyone of the training's utility; that's exactly why I recommend doing it at home. Alone.
Privacy and the freedom to be yourself
Why at home? Because you can't use the excuse of the commute—"I'm not going today because it's too far." Your motivation won't be distorted—you do what you do only for yourself and your health. You don't care about other opinions, whether that exercise is better or not, and you don't care who says you look good or who says you don't.
Dance, a space just for you
If you choose dance as your movement activity, you can choose how you dance; it is your decision alone. You can pick a playlist with the songs you like most and listen only to that set every single time, without anyone complaining that it's boring. You can dress appropriately for dancing: sporty, provocative, or, why not, in pajamas. Or you can ditch the clothes and dance naked. It is your choice and it's for you, so the choice is yours.
You are your own best trainer
The recommendation for dance is a universal one. Almost everyone, regardless of age, can practice this type of training. Although it's good not to stop at just dancing, but to also compose a set of exercises for whichever part of the body you want to develop. Study which muscles are trained by certain movements and write your own workout. Why do this?
Your health is a personal journey
Because only you care about yourself. If you go to an instructor, they will put you in the same group with other apprentices, without considering that every organism is unique. Better developed in one area, weaker in another; the training recipe must be individual. Of course, they won't have the patience to do that; instead, they will show you sets of workouts and tell you: "You want a physique like mine? Do as I do." They won't understand that it's not about muscles, but about health. Related, yet distinct. Health means much more.
Availability to effort
Comfort: the small enemy of your progress
Let's continue. You shouldn't think that you've solved everything through training. You must address your willingness to put in effort. Humans have a very well-developed predisposition toward comfort. Let's look at a few examples. If you go to the store for groceries, you tend to park as close as possible, don't you? That is the predisposition toward comfort. Why carry heavy bags all that distance?
The small traps of modern life
Another form of comfort-seeking: you order food from the couch, on your phone, so it comes to your door. You find the justification that you don't have time to do the shopping, yet you spend an hour on social media after ordering, waiting for the delivery. You get to the office and group up with several colleagues to send someone to get lunch or you order it in. Anything to avoid activity. All for the sake of comfort. The next stage would be to hire someone to chew your food for you, just to avoid the activity of chewing.
Honesty regarding your own choices
There are many examples, and I assume that if you think honestly, you will find even more situations where you chose comfort over effort. Now I hope, however, that you understand what you need to work on to gain a willingness to exert effort. Arm yourself with patience, because these are things that don't change overnight, and there are no shortcuts.
Listen to your body and avoid rushing
As I was saying, it is a long and hard road, but sprinkled with true rewards. However, I feel obligated to ask you not to rush your organism. Precisely because it doesn't change overnight after years of decisions leaning toward comfort, rushing will lead to muscle tears or other injuries. Therefore, postponing the moment will no longer be a choice, but a necessity until you recover.
Small steps for big achievements
Also, learn patience well. Set monthly targets, then targets for three months, six months, and one year. Never more than a year, because it is too far off and you risk falling into despair, where you'll say it's too hard, it's too far, and there's no way you can reach that target. It's like a 100-story building. If you look at the top floors, they seem difficult, if not impossible, to reach.
The joy of every step climbed
If you take each floor individually, one to climb for each objective, then you achieve something. In time. You realize that, no matter how much time is required, you have the capacity to get there. Take each floor as an objective and always just one floor, until you gain the self-confidence that if you take it step by step, you will go far.
What do I earn and in how long ?
How you transform energy into power
Let's correlate physical activity with the transformation of the food you eat. During your activities and workouts, you consume energy. Your own energy, produced by your body as a result of processing the macronutrients you ingest. Like any organism, you are adaptable and comfort-oriented. This means that once you have finished a set of demanding activities, your body will establish new rules.
The signals you send to your body
If the activity was demanding, your energy levels will increase, muscle capacity will grow, blood flow will improve, and much more. If you repeat the activity, the body will maintain these new rules, but if you stop and don't repeat it, it will scale them back. In reality, it is the body's natural tendency toward comfort: if an activity is hard, the body will make it easier with each repetition until it becomes comfortable.
The path to a stronger organism
Constant activity will force your body to become stronger so that the discomfort of the activity decreases. Regarding timing, this usually happens between 6 and 9 months of sustained and fairly intense activity—5 days a week, with a training duration of 1-2 hours. after this period, the level of exercise drops from demanding to acceptable, and this is a signal that you have become stronger.
The challenge that helps you grow
That is the moment when you must add something to your workout to make it demanding again. "Demanding" actually means that it requires you to develop, to become stronger. This is where the rule applies: if the path you are on is too easy, it means you are on the wrong path.
Mental construction
The energy and strength coming to life within you
Physical development is accompanied by energy development. The charge/discharge cycles become more intense, and thus you will store, generate, and use more energy. Energy is pleasant and can have various uses. Consider what perseverance really is. As I said, 6 months don't pass that easily. But 6 months in which you are in pain, you suffer, and you feel your whole body changing will feel even longer.
The patience to see real change
There are several ways here to approach the big picture. The first would be to analyze the results only over a longer interval. Miracles won't happen overnight, but in 30 days, let's say, you will see some changes. If you look every day, you won't notice any improvement. To keep the big picture on track, I'll give you an important tip: take a break when your body asks for it.
Listen to your body like a dear friend
A break is useful for recovery and is an internal report that you receive. If you ignore the break requested by your organism, you might push too hard and need a total shutdown to heal. Therefore, it's better to hit pause and let the big picture stand still for a day than to be forced into a break for several weeks. Another method you must consider relates to your mental construction.
You are your only true motivation
You must realize that you are doing this only for yourself. You must realize that it doesn't matter what anyone else says about you or your training. Because they will say things. You can be sure of that. They will speak out of hate and envy. They don't actually hate you; they hate themselves. You become their example because you are doing something for yourself and putting in the effort, and they are incapable of doing that.
Your power will inspire others
Because they see you putting in the effort to become better and they are unable to do so, they will try to discourage you. If you succeed, keep your direction, and become better and stronger, they will be forced to follow in your footsteps. Maybe even ask you for advice. That is the moment when, after all the nastiness, they actually admit they are beginners compared to you.
The foundation of your inner success
This is the mental construction you must build: patience, perseverance, and awareness in choosing and respecting your chosen path.
Start from the bottom to reach the top
The secret of joints: repetition
Let's go back for a bit to what the workout consists of. I recommend anything that involves movement; however, when choosing exercises, start with those that train the joints. Regarding joints, we have: the ankle, the knee, the hip, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrist, the neck, the fingers, and the jaw. Use rotations, stretches, or any other element that helps the joint. These should be done repetitively, but without pressure or weights. Strictly to work the joint.
Repairing and caring for your own body
I assume you've done a neck rotation and it cracked. That is what you're trying to clear, to repair. If you do 30 neck rotations a day, it will crack for about 2 years. After that, it will move as if it were well-oiled. Over time, you will see the benefits become increasingly visible. I cannot help but point out the complexity of the human organism. It does miraculous things if you ask it to. You must show it what you need.
The dialogue between mind and pain
You must show your body that you need your joints in order to do the workout. How do you show it? Through pain. Only when it hurts does the body take action. That is when it will strengthen and repair the painful spot so that, in the future, it becomes stronger. You choose this objective when you choose which activity you want to do.
The infinite power of human adaptation
If you think you cannot do something, perhaps you should take the example of a woman who carries a pregnancy for 9 months. During those 9 months, maybe you should read and understand the incredible changes she can achieve. Then, perhaps you will understand that your adaptation efforts will be crowned with success, because your organism's limit is very high. Also, recovery is incredible; you can take the same example of the woman who resumes all her activities just a few months after giving birth.
Small steps for long-lasting results
We are humans, whether we are men or women; therefore, the capacity for adaptation is similar. You just have to choose, to want it, and to follow your path. After the joints, you can start with the muscles, but it would be useful to always keep the goal in sight. You don't need to lift 20 kilograms all at once. To grow muscle, you must lift 1 kilogram 20 times to create a high-quality, unforced muscle fiber.
Uniting the mind with every movement
Repetition instead of force also helps minimize the risk of injury. Go ahead and choose complex physical activities where, alongside movement, you also use your mind to find strategies that the body must then apply. Sports are one of these types of activity, with different benefits depending on which part of the body is trained more, but all sharing one thing in common: the mind-body unification in conscious and total action. This is perhaps the most important thing to achieve.
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