It Feels Silly to Write About Fitness
It’s difficult to write about things like fitness when there are more serious and urgent issues that need to be addressed, like the state of the environment and climate change. Many systems in our society directly contribute to a feedback loop that adds carbon to Earth’s atmosphere. The changes caused by this have been growing more extreme. As part of these systems, individuals do have responsibility to do their best to live environmentally cleaner lives. There are actions we can all take to minimize our impact while acknowledging that as a society we do rely on things like cars, cheap power, and package delivery. No matter how much individuals reduce their carbon footprint, what matters the most is legislation which disincentivizes wasteful emissions.
Why Is Lifting Weights Objectively More Fun?
Resistance training is the most fun and empowering way to train because strength gains are more immediate, noticeable, and can be easily tracked. Progress and results that are more nebulous and subjective do not give the same sense of accomplishment, which is why making fitness goals around something that constantly fluctuates like bodyweight is generally unsatisfying. Strength training and other skill based exercises can help people live the lives they want to, and it’s important to find what works best for your life and body.
Why 30 Day Challenges Aren't All Bad
30 day challenges are commonly mocked in the fitness industry for being a bad tool for developing sustainable, long-term fitness habits. 30 day challenges encourage short-term thinking, which is unlikely to help with long-term development. However, it’s important to remember that long-term thinking is just a combination of all your periods of short-term thinking - and thus, sometimes, short-term thinking can set the right standard for your future behavior.
Learning To Hold Back
Most people believe that the real struggle is in motivating people to put in hard effort - I find from experience, that often it is the exact opposite. Many people struggle to hold themselves back, want to push themselves too hard, and as a result, suffer from suboptimal results and burnout. Learning to hold back and pick your battles, is an important skill in long term success in fitness and self-improvement efforts.
Neck Training - Weird But Useful
The neck is an often overlooked area of training - and largely, this is justified because there’s minimal reason to train it in many sports. However, if you participate in any sport which involves heavy contact, or if you want to maximize the appearance of muscularity, there are still ways that neck training can be useful. I cover my recommendations and experience with this weird training method.