How I implement the three pillars of life.

Having discussed the importance and holistic nature of training in the last post, you may be wondering how an actual implementation of such a scheme might take place.

Here’s the link for the previous post, a prequisite for this one:

And what better answer than one by example?

That is why in this post I will break down my personal approach bit by bit, thus hopefully shedding some light on what is actually meant by a life centered around training and seeking pleasure in hardship.

As stated in the previous issue, the ideal order, and the one I followed, was this: physicality, mentality, intellectuality.

I first tamed my mind with physical activity, then I polished the rough edges of my mindset, and only then did I begin to use my mental capacity to generate new ideas.

So, let’s start by breaking down the first step: physical activity.

My physical activity:

I started going to the gym 5 years ago as rehab for an injury I had skiing. At first I thought it was merely a useful tool to get better at sports, but I quickly developed an interest for training in itself.

Confidence going up day by day, strength increasing by the week, and looking better and better every month. I got addicted to it (thankfully).

I was lucky in that I automatically became engaged with it, without any explicit reason for it. I wasn’t trying to lose weight, I wasn’t competing; I just went.

The idea of getting ever stronger, looking better and better, and being healthy and long-lived just stuck with me to a very deep level.

5 years later (a lot happened in between, but there is no time for tales now), I’m now getting to a proffesional level, and training is certainly a pillar of my life.

The current approach consists of 5 workouts per week: 2 leg-days, two upper-days and one lagging-body-part day. I may also add cardio any day I like, but without any particuler structure. Just go out in nature and walk, run, hike, or ride my bike.

Some time ago, I used to traing legs with to-the-death intensity, but now the focus lies more in maintaining and getting more mobile and more joint-strength. One of the two days is higher intensity, having as the main movement heel-elevated squats superset with Jefferson curls. The other one has as main movement ATG split-squats superset with strict RDL’s.

The upper days always contain an invariant first block: pull ups + dips, then incline bench + rows (any variation) + overhead press (the “+“ means superset). Then, an isolation + shoulders block follows (with a TON of lateral raises). Chest and back on one of them, arms on the other.

And last, but not least, I add a lagging-body-part day. I personally do arms, neck, and upper back. This addition is extremely useful since otherwise there always remain some neglected details in every physique.

That is the outline of the training scheme. I always like to train in the mornings, and train fasted, too. The core-bracing simply feels more natural with an empty stomach, and this is the time of the day where the fasting couples with peak caffeination and overall wakefulness (~11am to 1pm).

One last point: as stated earlier, cardio may be added on any day, but only in the forms of nature-activities, in order for it to be pleasing and fun. Similarly, stretching may be added anywhere, though I’m now moving on to more in-workout weighted stretches, in order to be more time-efficient.

The benefits this brought are long to list. Besides the already-named physical benefits, it provided the pivot for the transition into mental performance and a strengthening of the mind. Thus, let’s get into that part.

Mindset: stoicism, full-perspective, mental endurance.

Once the body was on its way to mastery, the mind smoothly followed. At the same time (just a bit later actually) that muscles were growing, the mind was strengthening.

Emotions have to stop leading life, and play their true role: internal feedback from the external world.

The entirety of the world, its structure, and our importance and yet minuscule scale be taken into account at each step, in order to exist presently and mindfully.

Be resilient to challenge, unexpected hardship, and sub-optimality.

This is rather simple for me: just remind myself consistently of these facts and live according to the philosophy I’ve set up for myself.

I study these lines of thought, and make sure to apply them to real-life situations.

The gym was the first area of application, since it requires, precisely, consistency, endurance, work ethic, and discipline. Once that was incorporated, it carried over quickly to other areas and became a global aspect of life.

Now, again, once mind and body were under control, they could begin to cooperate to generate new ideas and increase performance.

Just as the body is to be trained beyond its everyday needs, so the mind must be trained too.

Learn how to reason logically and solve analytic problems: mathematics.

Read to fill it with ideas and perspectives, write to create new ones and get to know yourself fully through journaling.

Learn how to be perspicacious and percieve every little detail and contrievance in the world that surrounds you.

This type of “mental workout“ for me means some pure-maths reading to get started, before any work time-block (usually one in the morning and one in the early afternoon). This is also coupled with journaling, writing down miscellaneous ideas and feelings, and reading about any topic or story I’m interested in.

Stress the mind, then nourish it, just like a msucle.

The last point about the mental activity is perspicacity: the ability to become aware. Watch the world carefully, question everything, let no pattern go unnoticed and misunderstood.

Finally, the subset of mental activity consisting of productivity, work, consists of: the Twitter account, the Instagram account, this newsletter, and studying economics at university.

Ideas get generated, yes, but they must also be packaged, branded, and distributed; that is what work is really about: turning an already-existing concept into a working mechanism.

The Twitter account allows for the written distribution and promotion, Instagram to couple that with images and music, and the newsletter for a much more in-depth treatment.

I believe this has shed some light into an actual implementation of the idea of training for life.

Mental and physical, high-intensity activty in the morning.

Then, finishing the mental and productive activities and the light physical activity in the afternoon, and finally re-feeding the mind in the evening with content consumption, reading and social life.

Hope you enjoyed this post! Make sure to subscribe and check out the other posts if you found this interesting.