Muscle: Lean and Healthy, Functional and Attractive

It's the middle of July, mid-summer at my dot on the earth and the sun
is pouring down. How sweet it is. Throughout the winter I lament
pitifully, protesting the cold and dull days. What a sap. From this
day forth I shall rise above my self-centered and monotone behavior. I
shall embrace whatever weather conditions confront me and celebrate
life's cornucopia of offerings, the good times, the bad times and the
times of mystery and surprise.

Our days on this wonderful planet are brief and few, savor every
moment.

What's that, Laree? You see clouds forming on the eastern horizon and
they're heading this way? Gasp! But I was going to bask in the sun on
the deck, heal my throbbing body pounded by the iron, and deepen my
tan. Can you stop the dreaded onslaught? No. Of course not. What if I
hop in my trusty pickup and head westward away from the approaching
shadows? No. There's that ocean. Rats.

I'll go to the gym instead and work off the stress of the pending
gloom. Ah, Life and its cruel hand, its fickle finger of fate. An
afternoon of squats and deadlifts is before me. How sweet it is.

Before I grab my gym bag and be on my merry way, a word about the
latest principles in developing lean and healthy, functional and
attractive muscle. Now there's a smart and tidy combination of
incentives for exercising. Keep them in mind as you approach and
engage in every set, every pumping rep of your workout. Allow the mind
to wander, and purpose, like fuel in an uncapped gas tank, evaporates
into thin air. Talk about waste and lost energy!

Sometimes we get caught up in one or two aspects of our training and
forget (or never discover) the multiple reasons we lug our bodies to
the gym, barbell to barbell and rack to rack. Consider them all
regularly to charge your training, powerize your mind and give flight
to your heart and soul.

Training without a well-directed and positive mind is like training
without barbells and dumbbells. Training without enthusiasm is like
training without cables, benches and racks. You don't have to love the
dedicated work before you, but you've gotta want it and need it;
you've gotta believe it and trust it.

You're building muscle and trust at once. Side-by-side, well-being
and confidence are under construction. Function and capability unfold
as you stand by your convictions and push that iron. The person you
wish to be is developing and shows promise to live a long and
productive life. Lift that steel.

Today's... um... cutting edge lifters begin their iron quest seeking
muscle and might and soon find the way too narrow, rugged and steep.
They want lean muscle at once. Lifting tonnage is awesome, but
simultaneously developing trim muscle is an intrusion when hoisting
bars bent with weight. Hefty bodyweight is needed.

And health and wellbeing are too often overlooked or compromised in
the process of gaining muscle and might: overloaded muscle, injured
joints, large waists, excess bulk and compromised cardio-respiratory
condition.

Then we have the portly beginner trainees, whose mass, once
conditioned and engaged, enables them to lift substantial weight,
which they do because they can. "Forget lean-muscle, diet and
endurance," they say, "I scream for ice cream and long pauses between
sets."

Big People at Work.

As we get older – dedicated powerlifters excluded -- training for
health, muscle-leanness and body-function should be the targets of our
operations, sensible and righteous. Good-looking muscle will follow
obediently like a roaring lion.

About today's latest training principles: There aren't any, unless you
consider presses, curls, squats and deadlifts revolutionary. I sat in
the gym one afternoon last week determined to invent yet another
exercise, technique or methodology, something to stimulate my drowsy
system, something I could bring to the table of contents in this
week's newsletter. I caught myself slouched and nodding off on the
incline bench, a sorry sight before the high school soccer team.

"Can we work in, mister?"

What I'm saying is this... don't stop hitting the gym regularly and
with purpose or eventually the men in white jackets will take you
away, kicking and screaming, on a gurney or in a tote bag. Then what,
huh?

You've gotta know your training, and knowing it comes from practice --
timeless, undying, enduring practice.

Take heed, long-suffering warriors. We hold in our hands a double-edge
sword. Alas, one edge is worn and dulled by age, but its razor-sharp
counterpart is honed by time. Both share a common point exacted by
experience. A wieldy thing, it serves to clear the way ahead yet slow
us down sufficiently, while directing without fail the way we should
go. This, the sword of life, is dear.

Well actually, I drop the darn thing occasionally and it lands on my
foot with a painful twang. Swords can be slippery. Hold on tight.

Nevertheless, after a series of questionable thrusts and swipes, I've
personally made a number of discoveries that might interest a few
bombers whose wings are not of the sonic, swept-back variety. You
captains of the twin-wing craft -- the daring yet aging biplane -- are
of particular focus.

My recent journey into doctor's offices and hospital Lala-land has
taught me a several new lessons and tricks, tricks not unlike jumping
through hoops of fire and rolling over and playing dead. One is
recovery. Slow and tedious and frustrating are the descriptive words I
use primarily. Fun, you will note, is not among the list. Nope! Not
fun.

Another lesson, more of a discovery: All drugs are not equal. Some
have side-effects as subtle and insidious as an exotic snake bite. I
was prescribed a popular statin medication to control cholesterol six
weeks after a surgery I endured earlier this year (long story). To
that point my recovery was as cheery and predictable as any quadruple
bypass recovery can be. Bombing was reduced to a crackle and pop.

For the next weeks after adding a statin to the mix, my improvement
slowed to a halt and I began to slide backwards. I seemed to be
healing, yet fatigue consumed me, an all-day fog. Nausea became a
regular companion, a lump in my throat, and I felt a wall-eyed
dizziness somewhere in the back of my head. More than once I had to
pull over or sit down and hang on till the reeling passed. Recovery, I
concluded, was more of a challenge than I anticipated.

I lost weight and the gym reminded me of a barred-window sweatshop. Be
strong and courageous, I'd say, as I sank into a slump. That's my
slick advice to sinking bombers; might as well give it a shot.

It then struck me like the crack of dawn: The particular statin I was
prescribed was, perhaps, suitable for the rest of the world but not
me. The first week of this month I dropped the little white pill.
Thud. Ten days later I am a new man. Gained five pounds and can't wait
till I leap into the gym with all those squeaky iron gadgets and
stuff. Push, pull, one more rep! Oh, boy!!

Ain't it funny, how quick we forget! You don't know what up is till
you're down.

Furthermore, I have a consultation appointment with an osteopath in
Santa Cruz who will give me the once over (that's all it takes) and
determine my qualifications for IV chelation therapy. I suspect
they'll be super. I have lifted heavy metals all my life, you can be
sure I have them in my blood. Time to move them out. More on that
subject later. Laree will join me and bring her notebook and questions
and theories and suggestions and curiosity.

Remember, you're not alone out there. I've got your wing. So what, I
don't know how to fly.

Source: davedraper.com