Soon a whole explosion of this type of information flooded the internet. I wasn’t alone. Instead, I was just a small voice among many. I decided to switch over to covering other topics, ones where I could have a competitive advantage. I rebranded. Thus, the Renaissance Man Blog was born.

However, my fitness journey continued. I am a firm believer in the ancient adage of having a good brain in a healthy body. Of course, being a constant learner, I am always looking to soak up new (and old) information when it comes to fitness. There is so much contradictory information out there now, that it’s hard to tell apart what is good advice and what isn’t. However, there are a few fitness channels which for the most part put out good information. They are my go to source, when I need a bit of advice.

Here some of the main fitness channels I follow.

Athlean X

Juggernaut Training Systems

Shredded Sports Science

Jeff Nippard

Buff Dudes

Rob Riches

Jeremy Ethier

Overtime Athletes

PJP Performance

Calisthenic Movement

Tao Physique

Bob and Brad Physical Therapists

Knees over Toes Guy

Corexcell Sports Training

X Pollination Productions

The Prehab Guys

Lee Weiland

Conor Harris

If you read some nutrition “gurus”, insulin gets a bad rap. Especially guys who argue that carbohydrates are evil and push low-carb diets, try to point the finger at insulin as one of the main causes of people getting fat. They argue that carbs are bad and insulin is bad by association.

However if you look at their arguments more closely, you can see that they make pretty sketchy connections and their conclusions are pretty much BS.

In order to be able to analyze all the different diets that people are hyping-up and make an informed choice on which is the best for you, you need to know what insulin is and how it works.

Let’s start by listing the main roles of insulin in the body:

1) push glucose into cells, in order for it to be used as energy

2) push other types of nutrients (for example proteins), in order for them to be used by the cells

3) store excess glucose for later use (either as glycogen or fat)

Remember these roles when reading the rest of the article, as this is crucial for understanding the importance of insulin in different bodily processes, and especially in what role it plays in getting bigger muscles and losing fat.

Insulin is one of the most important hormones for your metabolism. The different cells in your body need glucose for energy and insulin promotes the absorption of glucose by them (either for energy or for storage – glycogen, fat).

It is a peptide hormone, which means that it’s a functional protein. It is produced in the pancreas by beta cells and serves many functions in your body. You can think of it as the main regulator of your body.

Insulin is released into the bloodstream when glucose is present, whether due to food getting ingested or due to different stress hormones flooding the body.

What happens is that when you are eating, the food is broken down into its more basic constituent parts, and the pancreas starts releasing insulin into your bloodstream. The insulin then directs the transport of these nutrients either into the cells or for storage. Once the level of these nutrients in the blood drops, then the amount of insulin drops as well.

Let’s use an analogy in order to illustrate how insulin works. Imagine that insulin is a small spaceship that travels through your blood and muscle cells are big space factories. These space factories have docking stations (insulin receptors) that the insulin spaceship periodically visits and docks at them.

In the process, the insulin acts as a sort of key, unlocking the doors to the cells. Once these doors are unlocked, nutrients such as glucose or amino acids can enter the cells, bringing energy and also different building blocks for their internal processes.

When insulin is released, the body gets a signal to stop burning fat for energy and instead use the new food that just came in. At that point, insulin also begins the process of energy storage.

Once again imagine insulin as a small spaceship and fat cells as big storage depots. The insulin spaceship docks at the fat cell and tells it to start the process of storing all the excess energy for later use. This thereby increases body fat.

This role of insulin is why it is often depicted as one of the main reasons that people get fat. However this argument is based on a very simplistic reading of the situation.

Insulin is just a hormone which has a certain role to perform in the body. The way it performs it is based on external factors and especially on the choices that people make with their habits and their food.

High vs. Low-Glycemic foods (fast vs. slow absorbing)

The type of carbs you eat, has an effect on how your body controls insulin. If most of the carbs you ingest are high on the Glycemic Index, then you might have a problem. High-GI foods pass through the blood quickly, which can cause insulin spikes. This can result in reduced insulin sensitivity and higher storage of the excess glucose as fat.

Low-GI foods release their nutrients more slowly, meaning that insulin is released slower as well. Most of these nutrients then go into being used as immediate energy or to replenish glycogen stores, instead of for fat storage.

One problem that can occur through living a bad lifestyle and having bad eating habits is insulin resistance. If insulin is released in large quantities very often, the cells lose their sensitivity to it. This means that more and more insulin is always required to perform its function. At the extreme level, it can lead to a total loss of response and diabetes.

The loss of insulin sensitivity is one of the main culprits of obesity. One way this happens is because your liver loses insulin sensitivity as well.

One important function of insulin is that it tells the liver to increase production of glycogen. It also suppresses the liver’s capacity to produce new sugar. This process is called gluconeogenesis in fancy scientific language.

If the liver loses its ability to respond to insulin, the result is too much glucose (sugar) in the blood. This excess sugar then gets stored as fat and makes people put on more body fat.

Another important factor in reducing insulin sensitivity is the modern lifestyle. A bad lifestyle can cause several problems, including insulin resistance.

What many people don’t know, is that insulin can also be released without a person having to eat anything. This takes place when an outside stimuli causes the body to go into reflex mode. When this happens, the body starts releasing stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol.

These hormones then command the body to produce more sugars. In evolutionary terms, this was very beneficial, since stress hormones were released due to some dangerous outside stimuli. For example, a lion could be attacking or an enemy force could be heading your way.

In a moment like this you needed to be able to react quickly and with as much power as possible. So that’s why the body developed a mechanism to supply energy to its cells fast. Stress hormones gave a signal to the body, which then quickly released sugars in order to have more energy available to respond to these threats.

However in the modern world, stress is usually due to BS things like pressure at work, which puts the entire system out of whack. The body is constantly releasing sugars, causing the system to become more insulin resistant. The end result is that all that excess glucose gets stored as fat in the body, and people end up looking like Humpty Dumpty.

The Role of Insulin in Muscle Building

Insulin is needed for getting bigger and building muscles. Insulin is anti-catabolic. When it is present in the blood, it slows down the break-down of muscles proteins. Without insulin, muscle protein would start breaking down (in a process called proteolysis).

Insulin is also anabolic in that it aids the building up of muscles. It promotes protein synthesis and helps different nutrients (including amino acids) to get into the cells. In this way, they get different building blocks that they can then use to build bigger and stronger muscles.

Remember glucose is the basic source of energy for your body as well. Insulin helps in getting this energy-source to the right destination. When the different cells get the energy that they need, they can also work harder and longer, further enhancing the effect.

Also let’s not forget one little side-benefit, which has an impact on external aesthetics. Insulin saturates the muscles with amino acids and glycogen, which then gives them a fuller look.

So you see, insulin is incredibly important to how your physique will look like. Another important element that often gets forgotten, but is crucial for any budding Renaissance Man, is the fact that your brain is the biggest user of carbs and so insulin is needed for transporting glucose to the brain, not only to strengthen your willpower, but also to help you do all that thinking.

Read more:
What are carbohydrates?

Which nutrients are needed for your brain to function well?

In a future article, we will explore what types of strategies you can adopt to heighten insulin sensitivity and get a lean body. Stay tuned!

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I wrote a free guide on how this can be done, outlining the basic steps that need to be taken in order to do this and what type of information you should know before you begin:
How To Gain Weight

However basically all this can be summarized in 3 easy words:
1) Eat
2) Workout
3) Rest

Yes, it’s that simple!

For all of you that want to know more, here is some further information that can help you on your quest to become the big, strong dude you always wanted to be:

Motivation
First thing is motivation. If you are not motivated, you will never get anywhere. Your mindset is the key to achieving whatever you want to achieve. Figure out the bigger picture. Who do you want to be and then try to fit what role gaining weight and muscle will play in that.

Who do you want to be?

Then try to figure out who you are. Some nice little concepts from psychology and especially its branch, neuro-linguistic programming, can help you in that.

Personality types and why you are the way you are

Doing these two thing will reveal what your strengths are and what you still need to work on. You can then perform a personal gap analysis.

This will help you in the next phase of your journey and that is setting actual goals. Actually many people fail in this initial phase, because they never set any goals!

How to set goals and actually achieve them

Nutrition
If you don’t eat big, you will never get big. The number one reason why most hardgainers fail at gaining weight and muscle is because they don’t eat enough. You need to eat more than your maintenance calories in order to gain weight. You should be eating from all three basic macronutrient types: proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

What are carbohydrates?
What is protein?
What is fat?

Most of your calories should come from normal food, although you can sometimes use supplements, such as whey or casein protein, in order to help you pack on the calories. However remember that these are just supplements and that means that they only supplement your eating efforts, not replace them.

The different types of protein supplements

Workout
Working out is all about the effort you put in. It’s not about what type of a routine you do, but instead about consistency and coming in and working hard (and smart). There are just some basic principles that you should follow, the main one being progressive overload, meaning increasing the weight you are working with.

Your routine should be based around compound exercises, as these recruit the most muscles.

Compound exercises to do if you want to gain weight and muscle

Before starting any fitness routine, try to figure out what your imbalances are. Most of us have some sort of imbalances, largelly due to our sedentary lifestyles. This means some muscles might be out of whack and if you don’t work on correcting these imbalances, you could get injured pretty easily, thereby undermining your entire effort.

You are imbalanced and so do something about it

Lifestyle
And remember all this should be reflected in your lifestyle. Your lifestyle has a huge impact on who you are and what you look like.

Your lifestyle will influence whether you get fat

Read the articles above. They will give you the basic information that you need in order to help you get started.

Good luck!

Today I got to my parent’s house. I live far away from them, so visit just a few times a year. The scale at my house is broken, so I wasn’t really aware of my weight. I thought I had actually lost weight, as I had not really been eating right and my working out routine has been severely limited due to the fact that I am still trying to strengthen up my knee after the ACL operation I had in the fall of last year. My focus this year has been recovering from my ACL injury and not gaining weight and muscle.

So today for the first time I had access to a functioning scale. Imagine my surprise when the scale showed 86 kilograms! That basically equals my all time high weight ever. And I had actually thought I had lost weight and was probably howering somewhere around 80 kilograms.

That’s great news, since not only am I close to my biggest weight ever, my abs are showing as well, and all this after not even trying to eat properly.

What can I thank this to? I think it’s due to my routine now heavily relying on pullups and deadlifts.

This is what my routine consisted of:

I would go to the gym after work and started off with some light stretching, usually of the chest. Then I would do 5 to 10 riding on a stationary bike (sometimes stretched out to 20 minutes). After that I would go over to the pullup bar and do 4 sets of 10 reps of pullups. My most frequent grip was the wide grip, but sometimes I would vary the grip.

Then I would go down and do stuff focused on the legs (with some back work thrown in). Since my gym has no squat rack, I can’t really go too heavy on the squats, so I would always squat with 10 kilogram weights on each side of the barbell (so 20kg in total). I would usually do 4 sets of either 10 or 20 squats. Sometimes I would do the full squat, but sometimes a 1/4 squat, depending on how my left knee felt. I am recovering from an ACL injury and I still don’t feel really secure with my knee and sometimes feel things moving around in there. That’s why I am a bit afraid of doing squats.

After the squats would come the deadlifts. I started off with using the same weight as for the squats for 4 series of 10 repetitions. I should also add that these are stiff-legged deadlifts that I was doing. However over time, I started putting on more and more weight and at the end I was doing 4 series of about 8 repetitions of 80 kilogram deadlifts. After the deadlifts, I would do 3 series of barbell bend over rows. Sometimes I would finish off this part of the routine with very light-weight overhead squats.

Then I would move upstairs and do some work on a bosu ball or with some other types of exercise balls. Remember I am still trying to rehab from my ACL injury, so I am doing these exercises as well. After this when I still had power, I would go do some dumbbell bendover rows. I would finish off the routine by doing anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour on those stationary skiing elliptical machines.

Even with all this cardio work, I still blew up to my biggest weight ever without even trying. Remember that all this what I am telling you is bro science, meaning my observations after having followed a certain workout routine. All fitness advice is basically bro science and so you might or might not get the same results.

Even my eating routine wasn’t really something that I was paying attention to. I would usually eat a sandwich and an orange juice for breakfast. Then have a big lunch of whatever was being served in the cafeteria. A few hours before training, I would eat a chocolate bar. After coming back home after training, I would eat some yoghurts. Sometimes I would skip dinner, but sometimes I would have a steak with some vegetables, and sometimes I would just have hard-boiled eggs.

My explanation of this phenomenon is that I was probably getting enough nutrients in order to have proper muscle growth. My breakfast and lunch were big enough to sustain my body and the chocolate bar a few hours before training provided some
needed sugars in order to train hard. The Greek yoghurts after training, then gave me some good protein. Whatever I ate for dinner after just added to this. Also a lot of times, I had steak, which includes things which are precursors to testosterone.

Also a big role in all this played the fact that big compound lifts are good at releasing things like testosterone, HGH and other good things in large numbers, leading to your body swolling up and getting huge.

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In order to gain weight, you need to eat more than your maintenance calories. This is the most important advice that anyone can give you. Most people always want to know what kind of a routine they should do, how many reps, what exercises and stuff like that. It doesn’t matter what type of a routine you are doing, if you are not eating enought. Eating above your maintenance level is the basic prerequisite for any routine to work.

For most beginner and even intermediate lifters, basically any type of routine will help them pack on weight and muscle. Of course some might be better at it than others, however if your routine meets some basic principles, then it will help you. It’s the eating part that will be the main difference maker.

The importance of eating cannot be understated. Most of the time when people failed to gain weight, it is because of the fact that they were not eating enough. If you are lifting hard and still fail to make progress on gaining weight, then you need to reexamine your diet. Track it for a week and see what you are eating and how many calories per day in total it is.

Based on this tracking, you can then prepare your diet plan. Calculate your maintenance calories and try to eat anywhere from 500 to 1000 calories above that one. Start off slow, the first week, maybe add just 250 calories above maintenance and consistently keep adding more, until you reach an optimum level, where you are adding weight, but not too much fat. When packing on weight, you are bound to gain fat as well, however by eating clean, you can minimize this fat gain. You can always lose a lot of this fat in a fat-cutting phase later.

It is amazing how much of a difference your diet makes. I had an ACL surgery back in September of last year and during that month I lost almost 8 kilograms, a lot of it being muscle.

I basically stopped eating the usual amounts and just lay in bed. For some people, the lack of activity causes them to eat more and gain weight. For me, it had the opposite effect. Since I am still in rehabilitation mode, I am concentrating on getting my knee stronger and so am not really watching what I eat. This means I am way below the weight I was before my injury.

During this period I lost a lot of weight, but unfortunately, the fat that I had on my stomach stayed.

Even a lot of skinny (skinny-fat) people, have this layer of fat around their stomach. Some of them even go on cutting diets to try to lose it, which just ends up making them look even thinner, but the fat stays. If you are skinny fat, don’t worry, just go on a gaining routine (with the same nutrition, workout, lifestyle components as a skinny person).

You will gain weight and then can go on a cutting phase where you will lose that extra fat. This cutting routine will have you lift heavy as before, however now you can also incorporate HIIT elements, such as short intense sprints, or hill sprints. This way you will get bigger and lose fat at the end too!

However before any fat-cutting phase can occur, you need to have added a good solid amount of weight and muscle. This means that you have to eat, eat and eat. This is the hardest part for most people.

Many so-called hardgainers are not used to eating that much food. So that’s why when they start eating more, they might feel full quickly and think that they are stuffing themselves. In reality, it’s just their perception that makes them think that they are eating a lot. One strategy that you can adopt to overcome this problem is to eat more smaller meals spaced out evenly throughout the day, instead of 3 big meals as tradition dictates.

So remember, if you are not gaining weight, the most likely problem is your diet!

Learn more about nutrition:
What are carbohydrates?
What is protein?
What is fat?

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For some reason whenever I read the words “GOMAD“, I tend to think of the guy that transforms himself into the Incredible Hulk. I have a mental picture of a huge green guy growing larger and then ripping off his shirt and screaming. Actually with GOMAD you won’t turn into the Incredible Hulk, but you can come close! GOMAD is not some super secret military program, but instead stands for “gallon of milk a day”. This means drinking a gallon of milk a day in order to gain weight. It’s a simple, yet very effective strategy.

This is actually the strategy that some people (for example Rippetoe) advise for hardgainers who are struggling to gain weight. It means basically to drink a gallon (or around 4 liters for all of you outside the US) of milk a day, in addition to your regular meals and exercise routine. That is a huge amount of calories!

This strategy has its pros and cons. First of all, it will be really hard to force down all that milk. It’s also not really a good strategy for those that are lactose intolerant, but even those that are lactose tolerant might have some side-effects. For example, it might make you feel bloated and gassy! So don’t use this strategy if you plan to be around people too much. We don’t want you to stink up the room.

Milk is a very good source of all kinds of macronutrients and micronutrients. It is made up of carbohydrates, proteins and fats. So you get all your basic macronutrients there. For example both whey and casein protein come from milk and so if you drink a lot of milk, you can get them in that way, instead of buying expensive protein powders. Milk also contains such goodies as vitamin A, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium, iron, calcium, and many other healthy things. It is also a good source of fluids and can keep you hydrated.

So if you are a hardgainer, one strategy you can use to turn into the Incredible Hulk is GOMAD!

More on gaining weight:
How To Gain Weight

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It’s here! If you want to get all the essential information that you need in order to gain weight and lean muscle, then you are in luck! I wrote a big post on all the basic principles for gaining lean weight. You can use it to start your own journey to have the body that you always wanted.

Read it here:
How to gain weight

It’s still a bit of a work in progress, however it should give you all that you need to know to get started.

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You are lifting and one bro comes in and states: “Yo bro, you lifting too fast. You gotta go slower to increase time under tension!” The next day another bro comes in: ” Yo bro, you doing it all wrong. You gotta explode up fast in order increase explosive power!” This leaves you confused and you just go home shaking your head: “WTF?”

One of the basic questions that people lifting weights ask themselves is: How fast should I lift? In order to be able to answer that question, we have to look at some basic terminology and analyze the different stages of a repetition (rep) first. Then we will go into the different arguments whether rep speed matters and if so, how fast should you perform a lift.

There are two words that are important for this discussion:

•  Rep tempo: how fast you lift
•  Time under tension: how long each set of reps lasts.

The individual rep can be broken down into four parts:

1. The starting position: this is the position where you have the weights when you are starting the rep. For example in a dumbbell bench press, this would be when you have the upper part of your arms parallel to the floor, the elbows are bent at 90 degrees and pointing up.
2. The ending position: this is the position where you finish the rep. For example in a dumbbell bench press, this would be when your arms are extended straight up in the air and you have finished the movement.
3. The concentric (positive) portion of the rep: this is the lifting part of the rep and you are moving the weights from the starting position to the ending position and experiencing resistance. In a dumbbell bench press, this is when you are moving the weights up.
4. The eccentric (negative) portion of the rep: this is the lowering part of the rep and you are moving the weights from the ending position back to the starting position. In a dumbbell bench press, this is when you are lowering the weights.

The speed of reps is often measured by giving 3 numbers, for example 2-1-2, meaning speed on the concentric phase, time of pause up top, speed of eccentric phase.

There are some people who argue that you should lift slow, while others argue that you should lift fast. Even scientific studies are divided on this issue, with some showing results that support the slow camp, while other results support the fast camp. Some studies even came up with mixed results. For example a study on the velocity of weight training for kayak spring performance, had one group perform lifts at a slow speed, while another group was performing lifts at a fast speed.

The conclusions were: “Slow weight training is likely to be more effective than explosive training for improving the acceleration phase of sprinting, when force is high throughout the length of the stroke. Explosive weight training may be more effective in speed maintenance, when forces are developed rapidly over a short period at the start of the stroke.” So basically, both methods were good, they just differed on which portion of the race they were more beneficial for.

The main arguments for slow lifting speed are that it lowers the risk of injury and promotes good form when lifting. This type of lifting promotes control of the weights. With slow lifting, it is argued, you also get increased extrasensory muscle control. That means that when the major muscles worked begin to get fatigued, other smaller muscles are recruited in order to do the work for them, resulting in better overall muscle efficiency and size.

A particular type of slow lifting is called super slow training and was developed by Ken Hutchins. The idea here is to keep the muscles loaded for as long as possible and thereby induce them to grow. He argues that by doing things super slowly, you are fatiguing the muscles and by doing this the body sends signals for them to grow bigger and stronger.

One of the big proponents of control and the slow negative was Mike Metzner. He was one of the most successful bodybuilders of the 1970s and built a body with very large muscles. He advocated slow controlled reps to induce muscle growth.

The main argument for lifting fast is that it allows you to lift heavier weights, which makes you stronger and builds functional muscle. In order to develop power, you should move the weights quickly. Explosive lifting leads to increased agility and power. Lifting fast is supposed to recruit the fast twitch muscle fibers more effectively.

Another proposed benefit of fast lifting are proprioceptive gains, which means better knowledge of where your body parts are in context of other parts. The body needs to respond quickly and so it learns how to do that through fast lifting. Some also argue that by lifting fast, in order to stabilize your lift, you fire up little stabilizer muscles fast as well. This then helps your body become stronger and better performing.

Both Mark Rippetoe of Starting Strength and Mehdi Hadim of Stronglifts argue for lifting fast. For them, it is the most efficient way to train. Especially Mark Rippetoe disparages the use of slow reps and is very vocal about lifting heavy and lifting fast.

What should we make of the different arguments? Sometimes, the different camps are not arguing about the same things. In order to better understand the reasoning behind some of the arguments, we need to make a distinction between powerlifting (and strength) and lifting for size and getting your muscles bigger. You can see that most people arguing for lifting fast, have the strength component in mind, while many people arguing for slow lifting have the size component in mind.

So you can argue that lifting slowly generates more size growth, while lifting fast generates more strength. However it’s not so simple. Some arguments state that the best way to achieve a particular goal are by lifting slow, while others argue that the same goal is better achieved by lifting fast. So bro science is not in agreement on the lifting speed (tempo) and neither is real science.

What should you make of all this? Lifting speed doesn’t matter, or at least it is not really a big factor. Whether you lift fast or slow is completely up to you. Try to experiment and see what is better for you and what gives you better results. Maybe try to mix it up and sometimes lift slow, while other times lift fast. I would argue that for beginners, it is better to lift slow, in order for them to learn how to lift properly. It is form that is the most important thing and not the tempo.

For gaining weight and bulking up, my reps are usually done in a mixed manner. I go slowly on the eccentric (negative) part of the lift when lowering the weight and explode back up fast on the concentric (positive) part of the lift.

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It is a time of troubles. The Empire has taken over the Galaxy and you are the only one who can stop them. First however, you have to fight the demons within, in order to become the person you want to be.

You are embarking on an epic quest. One that will change your life for the better. You can take inspiration from the characters of Star Wars (the original trilogy) to conquer the universe, or at least be the master of your own domain. Luke Skywalker went from skinny moisture farmer to a powerful Jedi knight who brought down the Empire. You too can rise up from being a skinny nerf herder to a guy the size of Chewbacca (but not as hairy though ). You too can use the wisdom of Yoda, Obi Wan Kenobi and other wise men (or wise guys ) to guide your quest for getting bigger and gaining weight and lean muscle. However remember that this quest to gain weight will only be a side quest on the entire journey of transforming your life to become the master of the galaxy.

“May the Force be with you!”
Old Jedi saying

The Force is supposed to be an invisible energy field created by all living beings. It is similar to the concept of ch’i (or ki) in East Asian cultures. The Jedi use it to do incredible things. Unfortunately I cannot teach you how to use the Force, but I can give you some pointers on how to apply the principles behind it. In the Star Wars Universe, some beings are born with a natural sensibility to the Force, while others have to work hard to develop this sensibility. However for all beings, training is necessary in order to be able to harness the Force. In order to be able to use it, you need to train.

It is similar with training your muscles. Some people are born naturally big and have great genetics, so for them it doesn’t take too much effort to train and get big and muscular. For others, the ones that were not born big and have shitty genetics, it takes a lot more effort. You can get there too however.

Every journey begins with a first step. Whether it’s a long journey or a short journey, it doesn’t matter. You still need to take the first step. Many people hesitate on taking this first step and end up never taking it. You need to be strong and have faith. Whether you carefully prepare that first step, or plunge head first without thinking much, you are way ahead of most people already by actually having the courage to take it.

The journey will be difficult, but hopefully you will have luck on your side. We cannot escape from it, luck is a big part of our lives. However luck will never come, if you don’t give it a reason to come. And sometimes hard work can make luck happen. Hopefully luck, just like the Force, will be on your side.

Do not get discouraged on your journey. It will be hard and full of obstacles. Some people might start off later than you and surpass you, but you need to keep on going. Luke Skywalker also had to overcome many challenges in order to become a Jedi Master. He had to face his own fears by battling what he thought was Darth Vader, but ended up being himself. He failed that test. However he got back up and continued on the journey. You too may fail a few times, or suffer a few setbacks, the important thing is to get back up and continue in the same direction.

If you feel that the direction that you were heading in was not the right one, then it is ok to change it, as long as you continue moving forward. After all we all have different needs and goals and we cannot all be heading the same direction. However we do need to be heading in some direction, a direction that will fulfill us. For example if you decide one day that you don’t want to focus on size and getting bigger, but instead want to focus on strength and getting stronger, it is ok, you changed the direction you were heading in, but you are still continuing on your journey.

“You must unlearn what you have learned.”
Yoda

Unfortunately for many of us, our previous lifestyles have come with a bunch of baggage. This baggage weights down on us and prevents us from growing. One of the major obstacles here are our habits. We have developed many habits, which quite frankly are not very good. We might scrounge at our desks with a bad posture, we might have the habit of eating potato chips while watching the television or maybe we go a bit too wild and drink too much.

You need to unlearn all the bad habits that you have acquired. This is a very hard part of our journey, maybe even the hardest. We feel comfortable in our habits and don’t want to let go of them. However it is a necessary part of our journey, one that will be one of the pillars of success at the end. The strategy on doing this depends on what type of a person you are and what your preferences are. Some people may change from one day to another and do a complete turn around of their life really quickly. For some people it might take longer. They might need to take small steps. For example starting a few beneficial habits first, going with them and then piling a few more new beneficial habits on top of those.

The quote above also signifies a need for a new way of thinking about things. Sometimes we have negative perceptions of things. Some of these can be based on bad experiences. Sometimes we just make excuses why something cannot be done. So you need to change that. Instead of seeing the cup half empty, you might start seeing it half full. Instead of complaining how skinny and unhealthy you are, look at all the opportunities that are out there that will help you change that.

You also need to learn to do things differently. Try to be more efficient and effective. Experimenting is good, but you should observe carefully and note what works and what doesn’t. Then you should actually apply what you learned.

“Do…or do not! There is no try.”
Yoda

In order to achieve something you need to be committed to it. A half-assed effort won’t help you achieve your goal. In every gym, you can see those guys BSing around, going from one machine to another haphazardly, and then pushing out a few puny reps with bad form. If you see them at the gym a year later, you will notice that they have progressed very little and still look puny. Of course it’s better to do something than nothing, however that something needs to be done correctly. These guys have taken the first step, but have not followed up on it. They are trying, but not getting anywhere.

Yoda told Luke to use the Force to lift the X-Wing out of the swamp. Luke thought it was going to be impossible, but said that he was going to try. He tried, but was not committed, and ultimately failed. With Luke agitated, Yoda, with a calm demeanor, set out to work. Through the power of his mind and the use of the Force, he achieved something that Luke a few minutes ago thought was impossible.

You need to be smart about training and nutrition. It doesn’t really matter what type of a workout program you choose, as long as it respects a few basic principles and you adhere to it religiously without slacking off. The few basic principles that any training program for gaining weight and muscle needs to adhere to are:

• lifting with correct form
• progressive overload
• cut down on the cardio
• shorter workouts
• plenty of rest

The number one advice is to lift with correct form. If you don’t, then you might get injured and your journey will end right there. In order to grow, you also need to keep on lifting heavier and heavier things. That’s how you will grow in size and strength. You should also cut down on the cardio and do shorter workouts in order not expend too much energy. You also need to get plenty of rest, as it is during resting that your body grows.

Also do not forget that eating is actually more important than exercise. In order for your body to grow, it needs the necessary nutrients to do so. Carbohydrates, proteins and fats are the building blocks for your body and you need to ingest a lot of them.

“Never tell me the odds!”
Han Solo

Some people might tell you to give up on your goals, because you are not built for it or some other reason. Don’t listen to them. Even scruffy looking nerf herders like Han Solo knew that the odds are just numbers and they can be overcome. You might have the odds stacked against you, but with hard (and especially smart) work, you can overcome them. The sense of achievement will give you ultimate confidence. At the end of that journey you can also become a master of witty remarks, just like Han Solo. Wisdom and wittiness can sometimes just be the opposite sides of the same coin.

“You will find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi

Don’t get caught up in all the fitness battles that are happening out there. Many fitness gurus have their wisdoms that they try to preach, but often preach it in a way as if it was the only “truth”. Learn from them, but always keep an open mind. There is no such thing as the “truth” in fitness. Every person is different and what works for one person, does not work for another one. Everything depends on the point of view you take. Just like Obi-Wan Kenobi was both right and wrong at the same time, when explaining to Luke the story of his father, so are the people on this planet. Each person has their own experiences, beliefs and agendas, and all those have an influence on their actions. Remember this, when reading about the latest greatest workout, diet or supplement.

“Don’t give into the Dark Side!”
Old Jedi saying

And seriously don’t give into the Dark Side. Without pain, there is no gain. Don’t take steroids or similar things, just to get big muscles and gain weight fast. There will be negative side-effects and they can possibly mess you up bad. So stay away! Just like Obi-Wan and Yoda tried to instill in Luke the discipline needed in order to succeed, by taking the longer way, you should too. They could have taught him all the tips and tricks straight away, but that would have just made him cocky and would have led to the Dark Side and his own downfall. Instead he learned the hard way and had many “aha” moments on the way. That made him a stronger person and at the end was the key towards him defeating the Emperor.

So take from this what you will. You don’t need an Imperial Stormtrooper telling you that yellow is yellow or green is green, or Yoda looking over you. You just need to apply a few common sense things and develop a plan to achieve what you want to achieve. Actually, on second thought, I think George Lucas was probably high when he came up with all those quotes above. However it is of no importance of how all this came about, it is the message that matters, or rather how you interpret the message. If you interpret the message positively and apply its lesson, then you can be on your way to achieving great things. Maybe even bringing balance to the galaxy. However it all begins with a single first step.

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