#61: My Greatest Workout Tip [Podcast]

Welcome to Episode #61 of the Fight for a Happy Life podcast, “My Greatest Workout Tip!”

Here it is… my greatest workout tip. It took me 48 years to figure it out, but better late than never!

No matter how you choose to exercise—martial arts, yoga, weights, running—I believe this simple advice will change the way you work out forever.

Give a listen and let me know what you think! Here’s to sweatin’ smart!

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My Greatest Workout Tip

TRANSCRIPT

Today on Fight for a Happy Life… My Greatest Workout Tip.

Yeah! Welcome to Episode #61 of Fight for a Happy Life, the show that believes a little martial arts makes life a whole lot better. Ando here and… I’m in a hurry.

It happens every summer. I always think life will slow down in the summer and give me more time to shoot videos and record podcasts, but alas… it never works out that way. Ever.

I try to record one podcast per month—a routine I started over five years ago. But the last couple of summers, I missed a month… and boy, did I feel like a loser. I mean, come on, man— one podcast a month? You can’t put together one lousy podcast in a whole month?

Now, to be fair, I could easily put together a podcast just by turning on the mic and babbling about something. But that’s not in my nature. Babbling, yes, but not just about any old thing. My nature is to plan and polish. Not just because I’m deeply insecure and like to sound somewhat professional, but because I respect your time.

I want to make my point as quickly as I can and communicate it as clearly as I can. Of course, you know me—I still end up babbling a little bit, but I try to limit that to 20-25 minutes.

Anyway, the point is summer is here and I am once again behind schedule. But this time around, I refuse to miss my goal. So, today, the show is going to be a little shorter than usual, but I still think you’ll find it worth your time. In fact, I believe the idea that I’m going to present may change your entire life… forever. So, let’s get to it.

One of the most popular questions I receive in comments and emails is this—

How should I work out?

Which exercises? How many sets? How many reps? What is the most effective routine to lose weight, build muscle, increase speed, improve flexibility?

Well, I hate to say it, but to me, this is a crazy line of questioning. Crazy, but understandable. I mean, I used to ask the same questions.

When I started out, I thought there must be some magic formula to make the most of my workout time. Not a shortcut, necessarily, but a “smart cut”.

The fitness industry is built on this idea. There is never a shortage of magazines, books, or online programs selling you every variation of sets, reps, and routines imaginable to make your dreams come true. And through my early 30’s, I think I tried all of them.

But you know what? It’s all a bunch of nonsense. The fact is there is no magic formula. There is no one-size-fits-all workout program. Nope. Like most things in life, it comes down to experimentation, my friend.

It comes down to figuring out what works for you. Nobody can give you the answers.

And that’s true whether you’re just trying drop a few pounds, earn a black belt, or compete in the Olympics.

Unfortunately, I know this is not the answer people want to hear when they write to me looking for help. Could I give them what they want? Could I give them a simple program with some basic moves and conservative recommendations for sets and reps? Of course I could! But I just can’t. I won’t. To me, that would be leading people in the wrong direction.

When it comes to your body and your fitness goals, I am not the authority… you are. The sooner you start experimenting and thinking for yourself, the sooner you start designing your own program, the better.

But hold on—that doesn’t mean you’re all alone out there. I do have some advice that may help. At least one idea anyway. One idea that I consider to be my greatest workout tip. Allow me to set it up for you.

Like I said, I experimented with all sorts of workout routines from my teens into my early 30’s. But at some point, I stopped measuring, counting, and recording. Instead, I just started feeling. Instead of thinking about the exercise, I focused on how I felt when I performed the exercise. Instead of thinking about getting stronger, faster, or bigger, I fixated on my balance, relaxation, and alignment.

To make a long story short, my workouts—whether it was weights, calisthenics, plyometrics, isometrics, whatever—became a time for self-massage and self-adjustment. I’ll give you an example.

I used to spend a lot of time sitting in a chair. First, because for several years, my job required that I sit at a computer, and second, during that same time period, I wrote screenplays in my free time. That meant, very often, when I would go work out, my neck was tight, my back was tight, and typically, I hadn’t taken a deep breath all day.

So, what happened if I suddenly threw myself into a martial arts class or a routine at the gym? AGHH! I’d cramp up or pull something. At the very least, I would pump out reps and practice skills with faulty form.

That makes sense, right? If you throw punches with a tight neck and tight back, you only learn how to throw punches with a tight neck and tight back… and those aren’t good punches.

Eventually, I realized it was more important to prepare my body to work out than it was to work out… which is actually a workout in and of itself. For instance, let’s say I wanted to do some overhead presses with a pair of 30 pound dumbbells. Before pumping out a set of 10, I might just pick up the dumbbells and hold them up over my head.

That’s it. Just hold them. Maybe for two or three minutes.

Why? Because if you focus on your body, and not the exercise, your body will adjust itself to manage the pressure of that weight all by itself. Your body will correct its own posture and put you in an optimal position. It just happens. In the process, all of those kinks and knots that built up from sitting all day would melt away.

What a relief! Instead of throwing weights around recklessly just to say I finished 10 reps, I studied the way I responded to the weights.

The trick was to stop measuring sets and reps and start measuring me.

Now, to be clear, I’m not saying that holding weights over your head is a magical move. Your body can release tension and correct its alignment by simply taking a walk, rolling on the ground, or yeah, even pumping out that set of 10 reps of shoulder presses. Just remember that the secret isn’t the movement you’re doing, it’s your mindset while doing it.

Here’s another way to think about it. Do you remember how phones used to have cords? I know that’s going back a few years, but here’s some history for all you cell phone babies.

Phones used to have cords attached to the handset. And in my house, that cord—which reached six to eight feet or so—would get so twisted and tangled that it wouldn’t stretch anymore. You’d end up in a tug of war with the cord, trying to free yourself so you could stand up or walk around while you talked. But eventually, I learned a little trick…

If you held the handset up by the cord and just let it dangle, something amazing would happen. It would start to spin! You didn’t have to do anything. It just flipped and jumped around until all of the kinks were gone and the cord untangled itself. That’s what I’m talking about.

Exercise in my 30’s became a way for my body to untangle the knots by itself. I used the healthy stress of a workout to relieve the unhealthy stress that I carried around from my normal life.

Exercise became a process of adding tension on to my body so I could relieve tension in my body.

Make sense? Instead of counting 100 punches, trying to be as fast and strong as I could, I would just start throwing punches, observing how many different ways I held myself back.

Physically, I noticed how I held my breath. I noticed how I didn’t shift all of my weight. I noticed how I would squeeze my muscles or tighten my face to make me feel tough, even if it didn’t help my punch one bit.

Emotionally, I noticed that I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of really punching somebody. I worried if I was doing it right or if anyone would laugh at my technique. I wondered if I was good enough to earn a new belt rank.

Noise, noise, noise! So many thoughts can distract you from learning what you really need to learn.

The lesson here—and it’s an important one—is that my workouts improved when I stopped letting my mind lead the workout and let my body take control.

I focused less on the results and more on the process. I paid less attention to the work and more attention to the tools.

If you do that, don’t worry—you’ll still get a great workout. You still do the work. The only difference is in the goal that you set for yourself. Yes, it’s satisfying to say, “Hey! I benched 225 today!” but it’s even more fulfilling to say, “Hey! I feel great.” I mean, isn’t that the ultimate goal?

But hold on again—my advice to you today is not simply to stop counting sets and reps so you can focus on relieving tension and improving alignment. If I was still in my early 40’s, yes, that would be the end of the show right there. I would have said, forget routines and focus on feeling great. But I’m 48 now and my experiments have led me to discover yet another insight that has changed my workouts forever.

So, here it is. My greatest workout tip. Are you ready?

When you work out, don’t worry about sets, reps, or routines… and don’t focus on tension and alignment… instead, as you start to huff and puff, as you feel sweat forming on your forehead, ask yourself this one, simple question—

“Who am I?”

Or if you prefer, “Who are you?”

Listen to what I’m saying, my friend—the true purpose of exercise is not to test your strength or your skills, it’s to test your character.

Try this. Look at your face the next time you’re under pressure. Whether you’re sparring, lifting weights, holding a yoga pose, or just struck in traffic, what expression do you have on your face? Do you frown? Do you squint? Do you drop your head?

Okay—those are very common ways you might react to stress. Those are fairly subtle, though, so you may not consider them important—but they are. Still, let’s make this easier.

Let’s say you’re pinned on the ground… and getting punched in the face. In that situation, it’s very common to see people shake their head, flail their arms, and maybe kick wildly. On the other extreme, you will also see people curl up into a ball and stop moving entirely.

Either way, your face and your movements reveal what kind of person you are.

Are you a fighter or a quitter? Are you crippled by fear or fueled forward by outrage? Will you solve your own problems or wait for someone to help you figure things out?

Now, this doesn’t have to just be a thought experiment. Try it right now.

Drop to the floor and hold yourself in a plank or push-up position. Just hold yourself as straight as possible… for five minutes. Yup. Five minutes.

Remember, I’m not interested in whether you can actually hold the plank for five minutes or not. At some point, even if it’s a half-hour later, we will all wilt and fall. I’m just interested in the emotional and psychological journey you’re going to go on while enduring increasing stress.

Hey—if you want to make this interesting, record yourself on video so you can see exactly how you wear your stress.

If you do this, pay attention to the thoughts that flash through your head. Pay attention to the feelings that bubble up in your chest. How long does it take before you want to give up? Which gives up first, your mind or your body?

When you start to feel the relentless pull of gravity on your belly, do you stare at a fixed point or look away? Do you close your eyes? Do you grunt and groan? Do you start swearing?

You don’t have to be a psychologist to judge whether you like the reactions you see or not. I’ll bet you’ll have no trouble identifying which thoughts, feelings, and movements make up the character of someone on the road to success and which ones don’t. If you’re honest with yourself anyway.

Keep in mind, this is a controlled experiment. That’s how I see all workouts—controlled experiments designed to measure character traits.

You voluntarily put pressure on your system to reveal the weaknesses in your system. In the process, you will see, I believe, the real you… whether you like it or not.

This is something I do with myself all the time nowadays. First, I seek ways to put myself under pressure. Second, when I’m feeling overwhelmed and about to crack or cry, I ask myself, “Who am I?”

I don’t think about the technique or the skill—those are not the issue. The issue is my soul.

Am I whiner? Am I a quitter? Am I weak?

Am I afraid of failure? Am I afraid of success? What kind of person am I?

I ask my students the same question. In the most intense moments of drilling a technique or sparring, right when I can see they’re having trouble dealing with the stress, I ask them, “Who are you? Right now—who are you?”

Are you powerful? Are you fearless? Is that the real you or are you just putting on a show? Are you worth fighting for?

Ultimately, these questions of the soul are the only questions that matter. You can have six-pack abs and be able to bench press 500 pounds, but if you’re afraid of making mistakes, if you give up when things don’t go your way, if you make excuses instead of taking responsibility for what’s happening around you, you’re going to lose. Lose a fight, lose a job, lose an opportunity, lose a friendship, lose your smile, maybe one day lose your life.

So, remember this—winners win and losers lose. It’s not the program that builds success or leads to ruin, it’s the person.

Who you are will determine your level of fitness, success, and happiness more than what you do.

Sure, what you do can also shape who you are, but you have to be the kind of person who will do something before that action has a chance to change you. That gets a little confusing, doesn’t it, but you know what I’m saying.

The point of training in the gym or in the dojo is to reveal who you are. I learn who I am by putting myself in the context of fighting in a Kung Fu class. I take Kung Fu, but I do not let Kung Fu take me.

Did you catch that? I discover and polish my soul by placing myself in a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class.

I am not there to learn the art, I’m there to learn about myself through the art.

This goes along with what I have said before—a style should serve you, you should not serve a style. That’s why it makes me a little uncomfortable when I hear other people say, “I take Karate,” or, “I study Krav Maga.” I always wonder if they’re putting themselves before the art or the art before themselves.

For me, I don’t really think or talk about styles. Not because I don’t respect them, but because I respect who I am and who I’m becoming first.

Let me say this another way. Let’s say I never took a martial arts class in my entire life. I would still learn about myself, right? I would still have the capacity—for better or worse—to fight back against anything that would hurt me. I would still try to be as healthy and as strong as I could be. I would still live by a moral code.

The truth is I’d likely uncover many of the same revelations about life and about myself without ever having to step on the mats or tie on a belt. You heard me—you don’t have to practice martial arts to live a happy life.

That’s right. I said that. You don’t have to lift weights, either. You don’t have to eat meat, either. In fact, you could probably do the opposite of everything you’re doing right now and still find a way to live a happy, successful life. But at some point, you pick a path—your path. You find people, places, and activities that inspire you, challenge you, entertain you, comfort you, and change you.

For me, the martial arts has been my one-stop shopping for philosophy, fitness, friendships, self-discovery, security, accomplishment, learning, creativity… it’s got everything I ever wanted. And while I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way as I do about the martial arts, I am still on a mission to encourage as many people as possible to give them a try. If they can do for you what they have done for me, then I’d hate for you to miss out.

Now, having said all that, a quick warning for you. As wise as all of this “Who am I” talk may sound, you have to stay on guard against your mind at all times. The mind always wants to take control.

Believe me, even though I transitioned from a mind-led workout to a body-led workout in my 30’s, then to a soul-led workout style in my 40’s, my teenage brain still interjects and screws things up.

Example—nine months ago, I bought a jump rope. I hadn’t jumped rope in years and thought it would be a fun addition to my workout. Well, it wasn’t.

Turns out I suck at jumping rope. I suck so bad I shot right past embarrassment to raw fury. I mean, it ain’t rocket science—jump the rope, man! If you can do it once, you should be able to do it over and over again, right?

No. Not right. In the first few weeks, every time I tripped on that rope, I lost my cool. I swore, I stamped my foot, and I threw that rope across the yard more than once. I even made excuses and bought a different rope—a more expensive, professional rope.

What a nut! It made no difference whatsoever. I kept tripping and kept feeling like a loser. And then I finally made the connection. I coached myself exactly the way I’m suggesting you coach yourself. I asked myself, “Who are you right now?”

I mean, is that all it takes to make you lose your cool and feel like a loser? You—a grown man? You—a martial artist? You—a guy who trains to keep his cool even when he’s being punched, choked, or stabbed? And you’re losing your mind because of a jump rope?

Yikes. Thankfully, I realized the point of jumping rope is not to jump the rope, it’s to deal with how I feel when I can’t jump the rope. Which in turn, will train me to deal with how I feel when I trip on my way towards any goal.

Consider this—your reaction to anything is a clue to how you’ll react to everything. Working out is an opportunity to put yourself under pressure and fail on purpose, under circumstances that you control, to see how you react. Once you have that information, you have the chance to change your reactions and rewire them so you’ll be better prepared to manage the pressures that life throws at you without your consent.

You’ve heard me say before that the first goal of martial arts training is to control yourself, the second goal is to control someone else, specifically a bad guy who is out of control. Approach your workout—whatever you choose it to be—as your time to master controlling yourself.

Find your tranquility, your clarity, your creativity, and your confidence. Conquer the distractions of pain, fear, ego, and doubt. When you clear out all of that nonsense, you will be left with you… you in your most powerful form.

So, my challenge to you is this—forevermore, make it your number one workout goal to develop the best you possible on the physical, emotional, and spiritual level. Seek out exercises that will put you under pressure and provide you with opportunities to fail.

When you feel yourself losing your cool, when you feel your face scowling, when you hear a curse word escaping your lips, when you feel your limbs flailing, ask yourself, “Who am I?”

Take that same approach the next time you spar, roll, or drill with a partner. If you’re tapping, taking hits, or falling behind, ask yourself, “Who are you?” Don’t let your mind answer, don’t let your body answer… listen to your soul.

One more time—the greatest tip I can give you about working out is that it’s not about the results, it’s about the process. It’s not about your hardware, it’s about your software. Focus on that and I think you’ll not only get the results you wanted in the first place, you’ll get something far more valuable.

This is not as abstract as it sounds, by the way. There are concrete ways to measure the progress of your soul. Here’s the test…

When you finish your workout, you should feel empowered, not emptied. You should feel better, not beaten. You should feel built up, not broken down.

If you make it a goal to reveal the real you, to challenge the real you, to strengthen the real you, then you will never feel worn out by a workout. Instead, as you wipe the sweat off your head or the blood off your lip, you’ll feel warmed up and ready to step back into the world and fight for a happy life.

Yikes! That went longer than I thought! Well, I hope that changes your life forever! Even if it didn’t, hey—if you enjoyed today’s show, please share it with a friend. Leaving a quick review on iTunes or someplace is also very kind of you.

Until next time, smiles up my friend. Let your smile be your shield and your sword.

Keep fighting for a happy life!