The Workouts
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One of the best things you can do for your personal safety and physical and mental health is strength training. As I mentioned in a previous chapter, starting my freshman year of college, strength training became a lifelong passion for me. It deters people from attacking you and allows you to respond more effectively if you are attacked. As the great war strategist Sun Tzu said, “Sweat more while at peace and bleed less in a fight.”
The Persian conqueror Cyrus the Great was asked why he didn’t move Persia’s capital from inhospitable Pasargadae to one of the luxurious cities the Persians had conquered. He responded “Rough country breeds tough people. Soft country breeds weak people.” Strength training is “rough country” for your body. It makes you tougher by increasing your pain tolerance and your body’s ability to withstand stress. As you gain muscle, that also increases your calorie burn, so you stay thinner and healthier even while resting.
You do not have to be a big guy to start strength training. I was skinny and could barely bench press 45 pounds when I started. Two years later I was a competitive body builder and power lifter. I started to see results within a few months. If a sorry weakling like me could do it, you definitely can do it!
The keys are consistency and variety. Some tips:
- Find an aerobic activity you enjoy. This can be a competitive sport (soccer; basketball; crew; etc.), a martial art (karate; boxing; wrestling; etc.) a game for fun (dodgeball; disc golf; etc.), or just moving on your own (jogging; running; walking; hiking; kayaking; etc.).
- Break a sweat every day.
- Strength train 3-6 days a week but still do something aerobic on the off days.
- Vary your strength training workout.
- If you cannot make it to a gym, strength train at home.
- If short on time, squeeze in a short strength training session; a little is better than none.
Repeating: consistency plus variety will get you results! One without the other will fail you.
When I was a fitness trainer during college, a regular came in and he did the same machines every time. He was crazy strong on those machines, and not so strong on anything else. The gym manager used to tell me, “He’s strong, but he doesn’t look it.” How sad. Had there been a contest on the Nautilus bench/fly machine, he might have won it. But otherwise, his hard work had little utility.
Weight lifting also teaches you to cope with pain, which is useful if you are ever attacked. Try and look as stoic as possible when lifting, or, if you need to react to the pain of muscle fatigue, smile. The more it hurts, the more you smile. If you feel pain other than muscle fatigue, like a joint popping or something tearing, stop immediately. If you keep going, you might really hurt yourself and be forced to miss more workouts, setting back your fitness efforts.
I have provided some basic workouts to get you started. You don’t need a gym or much equipment to do these workouts. Be sure and consult a physician before starting any exercise program, and a personal trainer or PE teacher can give you help in maintaining proper form, which is important to avoiding injury. You can also consult online resources to give you examples of how to do a particular exercise.
You can also turn to exercise videos to help you start. I recommend www.strongestmom.com. The trainer, Niccole Maurici, starts with very basic workouts for beginners and moves to more advanced workouts once you are ready for them. Her workouts also include punching practice!
If you already workout or you have access to a gym, use these when you can’t get to the gym, or to mix things up. If not, these are a great start to strength training!
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