My most beautiful and poetic bodybuilding wisdom, cautions against lifting heavy and encourages lifting light a lot:

“It is not how heavy you lift, but how long you lift your heavy for”

I want to clarify that the heavy I mention in the end, is supposed to symbolize, the weight you lift, for an hour or more.

And the first heavy, that I caution against, is sometimes referred to as “ego lifting”.

And it is absolutely devastating, lifting maximum weight, wipes out your result instantly.

Precisely, because you can no longer lift for long enough, for your body - in its 4 billion years of wisdom - to understand what you want.

15 seconds of lifting heavy, maybe equivalent to 3 minutes of lifting light, and neither is enough to make a huge difference.

Though it is critical to understand, that when lifting light for 3 minutes, your body will soon adapt to lift light for 5 minutes.

This is the human ape superpower, we are wise, adaptive, self-repairing, biomechanical monsters, rawr.

And just as critical, is understanding that lifting heavy for 15 seconds, won’t enable you to lift heavy for 2 minutes.

Heavy may mean that we are cutting off our circulation, or otherwise crushing our adaptive superpower.

But no one lifting their maximum for seconds, adapts to lift their maximum for minutes.

Certainly not multiple times, where you continue and continue adapting until you become an ape.

When you lift light, your body will eventually let you dance with dumbbells, for hours, and every day.

Just like joggers can run for a couple of hours every day, unlike joggers, you have to lift a bit heavier when ready.

Which brings us to my second beautiful wisdom, more powerful as the first, but not as short and poetic.

“Lift light, but not so light that you can lift more, and never so heavy, that you must stop”

Here you can see how this is the opposite of lifting heavy, I present lifting heavy as an error, a mistake.

What this advice unfortunately leaves out, is how long you should lift for.

Beginners, 25 minutes, skinny ladies, 45 minutes, the average folks one hour, cakes two hours, apes, three.

And to be clear, for freaky fast results, I’ll let you guess, for fast results, 5 days a week, for maintenance, every other day.

Remember you are an animal, and like a horse, if you put yourself away into a stable stall, you will deform.

You have to move, and you have to move frequently.

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Now, very important information: it will ache for two weeks, because you are re-awakening.

But let me make this clear: no gym rat, no fit girl, no cake, no ape, talks about it, or remembers that it hurts, it is just the first few days.

Normal bodybuilding, does not hurt, at all, and when you dance non-stop with dumbbells it feels like flying.

I am teaching myself a hool-a-hoop dance move, which is probably going to get me arrested some day when I get good at it.

And it feels like, uncoiling yourself, form a long car journey, it feels heathy as heck.

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My this wisdom describes, what your exercise should be, though somewhat indirectly, as I am trying to be sneaky on purpose.

“Bodybuilding is an extension of jogging.”

The couple of times I said this to a stranger I added:

“You jog with progressively heavier dumbness, and when they get too heavy, you start dancing at the gym.”

Now, I am being sneaky in two ways, first I paint a correct image of bodybuilding for young people.

Which is jogging with progressively weights, meaning they go up higher in weight as they body slowly adapts.

And the second sneaky, is for older adults, to get them to walk, then power walk, then slowly shuffle, and finally slowly jog.

Before they start lifting weights, they have to earn an hour’s worth of endurance.

They need to be able to lift light for an hour, many people are too out of shape fo that, and I would know.

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Let me give present an alternative to jogging, young ladies, may not feel comfortable doing that in odd neighborhoods.

And adults, or lovers of water like me, prefer a civilized restroom, to some unlucky bushes.

There exists a device called an interval timer, it clips onto your belts, I saw a wrist watch version as well.

And this devise is completely, horrifyingly misunderstood, I am connived no manufacturer understands what it is for.

Here I want you to imagine a trainer at your local gym, pushing your body to run for longer and rest for less.

Until you eliminate all your rest gaps, and can move straight through for one hour, no rest, non-stop.

People use it for interval training, whatever that may be, and they don’t’ understand they need to eliminate the stops.

Like the ego lifters, they are probably pushing themselves too hard, and their body has no chance to gently adapt.

My wisdom here deals with configuring your timers correctly, the interval timer has two timers rest and work.

And a countdown timer for the number of rounds, that your exercise includes.

Just as important, is a pronounced vibrate function, here you can focus on moving to your music, and wait to feel the vibration.

You can set it for one minute workout, two minutes rest, and 10 rounds at first, that gives you a 30 minute workout, that will tell you when to go and stop.

But my wisdom, tells you how to dial in the timer a bit more:

“Check how long you can lift for, and how long you need to rest, to do it again, then set the rounds countdown to fill an hour or two, and adjust to keep moving”

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The interval timer is not the only gadget that is misunderstood, the Neoprene wrap, or wide rubber belt, is not for weigh loos.

The only weight you can loose here is water, which is a very dangerous idea as far as weight lost is concerend.

Neoprene might have been initially invented to keep your back warmed up, but someone discovered it sold better, when weight loss was mentioned.

Then, for some crazy reason, everyone forgot neoprene belts, can really help your back.

And to be honest, probably aid your flexibility for long enough, so that your exercise will actually, make you flexible.

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I put on a silly costume for my Halloween workouts, and it includes a warm weight belt.

Though not as warm as neoprene, it already has an amazing effect on you.

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Your workout or gym dance shoes, must not have elevated heels, I don’t know how athletes do it, but we are not evolved for lifted heel.

Lifted shoes, even if it is just a centimeter, cause a minor deformity, called a pump bump, ladies know this from wearing heels.

But athletes, will recognize something similar, from workout out daily.

I highly recommend chap off-brand, $20 dollar zero drop shoes, which is the name for no heal shoes.

And as a side note, what is preventing you from buying wide toe box shoes, it costs the same, and your toes are never in any danger, at all.

In the more common narrow shoes, you get deformed.

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I should also mention the weight vest, Weight Vest, or more importantly the Tactical Weight Vest, which make you look really cool.

The weight vest, is a free exercise, you put it on after the gym, and you get a powerful workout, by just doing daily things.

This is another example, of lifting light for a long time, and you should get a vest that supports configurable weights.

Large people, are very muscular, Precisely because they wear extra weight, wearing a weight vest daily is an advantage that just can’t be beat.

And again, the weight vest, is a misunderstood product, because you don’t put it on during exercise like the photo on the box shows.

You put it on when not exercising, and not sweating

(which is of some note when it comes to, what is, an article of clothing, that you can’t just toss into the washer, lest you startle your neighbours.)

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And finally, we arrive at my most precious piece of advice, something that you can’t have a workout without:

“Hit Every Beat”

Which is to say, you need fresh and interesting music, that actually makes your body want to flow.

And synchronize your motion with the beats, one beat up and next beat down.

This will put you in a trance, that will make time pass faster.

Start with country at first, and move towards disco and techno as your body adapts.

You can catch your breath between songs, I almost always put my dumbbells down on the ground.

But don’t stop dancing, cycle your standing dumbbell exercises,

This means that as you work on a specific muscle group, you let your other muscles rest.

Don’t worry about muscle groups though, you can only really cycle three dumbbell exercises.

That cover all your muscles, and help them grow in the correct sequence: dumbbell lateral raise, standing dumbbell curls, and overhead shoulder press.

And here again, unlike with heavy weights, cycling muscle grownups, prevents your circulation and whatever else from being disrupted.

And you won’t be forced to stop, you’ll just keep on lifting for an hour or more, allowing your body to adapt to your fitness challenge.

At which point, you gently increase your weights, by no more than 2.5lb, and your body without ache or complaint, will adapt again.