Muscle, Part III
Patience + Prioritizing
Building Strength is a long-haul game. It’s not ever done in the time we’ve been conditioned to think (6-Week Challenge, anyone? <<<eye roll>>>).
Deprogram, Please
There is literally NO (zero, none) complex skill that can be fully mastered in 6 weeks. You can lay some really great foundations (simple skills/concepts) in that amount of time, but those need to be methodically practiced, nonetheless, to be acquired and used to build the next layer. Most of us have a kind of amnesia, brought on by the rapid information loops in our Age of Media, around reality and the passage of time. Everything seems to move much faster than it actually does and it makes us forget that time has a spatial component. IMHO!
We’ve also been conditioned to get things very fast. And when it’s not happening accordingly, there must be a blip in the system. OR we’ve been conditioned by savvy media campaigns/product culture — Lose 30 pounds in 6 weeks with a metabolic jumpstart or The 6 Habits that Everyone Needs to <<insert desired outcome>>. It’s exhausting and, while I’m all-for a jumpstart or a significant motivator, if you don’t have your basics in-tact, chances are you’re heading back to where you began in 6 weeks, once you finish your 6 weeks…I realize that sounds a bit cynical, but I think there’s a better, more sustainable, more fulfilling way to go.
The truth is, there is no product that will get you fast results that last, unless you invest time putting in your own reps. AND, if you’ve spent a lifetime (or at least a good chunk of time) cultivating unhealthy habits, you’ll have to put in a lot of time to even get to a baseline of building the kind of body/lifestyle/level of health you want to have.
That said, if you choose 1 point of entry to initiate significant change to your body, it should be building strength/muscle. I’ve outlined some reasons in Part I of this series, but I want to flesh this out a little more here.
Strength is a Process of Deepening, Remember?
If you do the 3 things I mentioned in Part II (show up consistently, eat a nutrient dense diet + sustain your effort/adequate stimulus), you will start to notice something pivotal: You want more of whatever you’re building. For some of us, it’s the increased energy/strength we’re feeling, for others it’s noticing what happens when you start to nourish yourself, some of us love the feeling/endorphins we get when we move our body. Whatever it is, it starts to change your baseline of how you feel — you feel more connected to yourself, more in-control.
I typically notice this shift in everyone between weeks 12 - 18. It’s like clockwork for those of us that are putting in the time (consistently showing up), eating for nutrient density (nourishment) and can give the right effort to get adequate stimulus in the body. It’s never perfect, but it’s always noticeable. This is the time most of us are unlocking from the old limiting beliefs/behaviors that were once keeping you in pain or in constant exhaustion or feeling defeated or just not feeling as strong. Basically, you’re being consistent with a few key habits.
Let’s pause and consider the timetable. 12-18 weeks is about 3-5 months. This is just getting started…
When we focus our energy on strength/muscle-building, we start to calibrate the physical body to function as it should. The quickest way to target metabolic health is to target building muscle. Once we do this, we start to see a cascade of things fall into place: hormonal shifts start to happen, energy recalibrates, neural REprogramming happens, better movement patterning +/OR just better awareness about our old, unhealthy patterns. If it takes about 3-5 months just to get started, then it would take about a year or two to really see significant health changes. After year 2, you’re becoming a completely different person, should you choose to stick with your focused journey.
Priorities + Patience
No two bodies are the same. Therefore, no two journeys take the same path of growth. I often say that the present moment is an accumulation of your choices up to this point. What you’ve prioritized will often dictate those choices, and then, your chosen outcomes (current state). Life isn’t linear, so what we have to attend to changes from one season to the next, though the big question we all need to ask is, when we’re carefully examining our health: “What are the opportunity costs of my priorities?”
Jobs, families, life responsibilities are important. They create a toggle of prioritizing that can leave us feeling all-over-the-place at times.
This never changes.
Harnessing the responsibility to yourself, should always be the first few tasks in the To-Do List for the day. While for some of us that seems silly, or even selfish/privileged, I would say take a hard look at the data on longevity or conditions plaguing the health of the majority of adults in America. Or better yet, take a look at your own health metrics to decide if you fall into any of these categories:
chronic inflammation (ie: autoimmune disease, hypertension, diabetes)
obesity/significant weight gain
substance abuse (yes, that’s alcohol/marijuana more than 1-2x/month)
anxiety/depression
chronic pain (especially in the hip/shoulder/neck)
sedentary lifestyle (EVEN if you train 3x/week)
blood sugar dysregulation/energy imbalance (see also: prediabetes, Type 2 Diabetes)
hormone dysregulation (due to a lot of the above conditions)
The list goes on. But the research is very clear: Lifestyle Factors play a huge role in these conditions. And, choices can be made to not only reduce the symptoms, but to get rid of the conditions all together. The act of Radical Responsibility — taking full responsibility for all of our choices (or lack of important choice-making)— is the point here. How we prioritize our choices is a huge self-awareness task. To take inventory and consider our blindspots is essential to actually growing.
We can’t take careful inventory of anything if we aren’t actually honest. And then we can’t make an efficient set of priorities to target the change we want, when we don’t have enough integrity with ourselves about how we sabotage our healthy rhythms (See Pillar 1, Pillar 2, Pillar 3 to get some good feedback loops established).
Prioritizing efficient habits we need to grow + Patience = sustainable growth . Real change doesn’t happen in a year. Good change happens incrementally though, over at least 9-12 weeks of consistent practice. Layer by layer we deepen our practice to fortify it into mastery. What we decide to practice should come with some careful, honest self-examination, some good old fashioned discipline and a willingness to continue that cycle over and over. The long-haul process + mentality doesn’t come easy, but when we step back to look at things, we’re really just getting back to basics.
One very efficient habit to train is Strength/Muscle. Along the way, you will build consistency, adequate stimulus, energy balance AND the patience it takes to sustain your fullest health. And then, we see the real gains: more peace, more trust and more at-home-ness in our own body. I think that is the pinnacle of strength.
Much Love,
Kate
