Category: lifting
Myths about Health, Strength and Fitness
One of the myths about working for yourself is that you have tons and tons of freedom. Not really. Your schedule goes where the market goes and you’re always at work because you don’t really leave it behind.
In the back of my mind, I plan out new feats of strength. I got the idea for my “Strongman in the Box” feat by watching an escape artist a year or two ago when my wife took me to see the Illusionists 1903 show. It also dominates my mind everytime I go to Home Depot. With every bit of hardware I see I think to myself “Can I break it? and if so, would it be cool in a show?”
Strongman in the Box, I’m trapped inside of a wooden box constructed of 2×4’s and held shut with locks and chains. The only way out is using my strength and breaking out.
I also have a hard time leaving the personal trainer in me at home. A week or two ago, I was out with my wife and daughter and overheard a conversation about training and had to bite my tongue. I’ve been a personal trainer for around 15 years now, I’ve distinguished myself and was asked to teach at personal training certification courses nationally and internationally, given advice to celebrity trainers, trained people that were on MTV and am a world record holding professional performing strongman. Basically, I know a thing or two about training. They already know this but I kept quiet because I knew that even if I explained in detail, they simply wouldn’t be ready to hear it.
If you are open minded, keep reading 🙂
Myth
“Strength training makes you inflexible.”
Nope. Here’s the deal. Your strength and your flexibility aren’t really about the muscles themselves. Both of them are regulated by the central nervous system.
Just like this gif illustration shows the central nervous system telling the muscle fibers to “contract”, it can also tell them to “relax” into a longer length. They are like a yin and yang of each other. Your muscle fibers are already long enough to perform full splits and things that contortionists do, but what stops them is that your central nervous system doesn’t perceive what you are doing as being safe and hence puts the breaks on. Your nervous system remembers the positions you are in habitually (if you don’t use it you lose it). With regular strength training, alongside regular flexibility training, you don’t have to rob Peter to pay Paul.
Myth
“You need to do lots of different stuff”
Nope, variety in training is overrated. Everything you do, competes with every other thing you do for growth and adaptation. The jack of all trades is the master of none. The high bang for the buck exercises will carry over to the things you don’t regularly train (we call this transfer and it’s the reason athletes have strength and conditioning coaches and not just skill coaches). Doing heavy deadlifts, transfers to making you better at most things.
Myth, kind of
“You don’t need to lift more than 5lbs”
Technically, yes. You need food, water, air, and to a certain extent human connection. You don’t need to lift more than 5lbs to survive…but why just survive when you can thrive? Thriving is partially about growth, improvement, and expansion. If you want to change your body, you need to challenge your body. You need to do something that tells your body “Hey, we need to get stronger so that we are better equipped to handle this (the stimulus) in the future”. And strength carries over to multiple goals. Using weight loss as an example, heavier weights burn more calories than lighter weights. They also deplete more glycogen and tell your body to release more of those hormones that keep you lean. You don’t “need” to get stronger, but you “should” get stronger if you want to improve yourself.
I also find that many people come to me for weight loss, and they lose weight but are more excited about the all-purpose strength they gained training with me. And as Mark Rippetoe famously said;
Strong people are harder to kill and more useful in general
If you need help with this, I have a one-week trial membership available. Text me at 973 476 5328 to get started.
Eric Moss is a world record holding professional strongman, author, speaker and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is in Boonton Township New Jersey with Lewandowski Chiropractic and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, and Parsippany New Jersey.
Avengers Infinity War and the “secret” behind superhero physiques.
So this past weekend I finally got a chance to go out and see Avengers Infinite War. Don’t worry I won’t spoil it, but I do recommend you watch all of the movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe before checking it out.
Now having watched it gave me a chance to discuss it with some of my clients and of the topics to come up was the topic of casting. I think everyone was cast very well…with the exception of Black Widow and that’s mainly because she’s supposed to be a Russian agent, but doesn’t have a Russian accent.
In this discussion, came up the topic of the physiques behind the characters, notably Thor and Captain America. When they were cast, they weren’t well-known actors. Chris Hemsworth (Thor) had Star Trek to his credit, even though his part was short, and Chris Evans (Captain America) had Fantastic 4, which wasn’t very successful.
Basically, they were a blank slate. They were a fresh start that could make or break the actor’s career. The big names in their origin movies were supporting cast members. In Thor, it was Natalie Portman. In Captain America, it was Tommy Lee Jones and Hugo Weaving.
And following the origin stories were sequels and cameos that I’m sure were written into the contracts. For Captain America, there were 3 movies as the leading role, plus 3 appearances in Avengers. For Thor, there were 3 movies as the leading role, plus 3 appearances in Avengers, and a cameo in Dr. Strange.
And there are more movies to come.
But the original’s success was hinged on the actor’s physiques, which brings me to the main point of this article.
A multimillion-dollar movie career is one heck of a motivating force to get in shape. Add to that the guidance and support system of having a personal trainer, plus nutritionist etc. and that is where their success comes from, though I can’t deny that there is a high likeliness of PEDS as well as there is always risk of this whenever money is on the line.
When people say to me “The only time I have is in the morning, but I just can’t get up.” I know it’s not completely true. They just don’t have the same mindset. If they were offered a million dollars to wake up at 5:30am I guarantee they won’t hit the snooze.
Now, I know you likely won’t be offered a multimillion-dollar picture deal but that doesn’t mean that a fit, powerful, capable superhero physique isn’t worth pursuing. Life is simply better when you are all around strong, lean and healthy.
And maybe you won’t reach the levels that they do…naturally. But with the right guidance and support system in place, you’ll surprise yourself with what you can accomplish. If you are unsure of what to do, that’s what I’m here to teach.
If you would like to try out my program to see if I’m right for you, send me a text at 973 476 5328. I’ll get you set up on your trial membership which includes, a movement analysis session/intro session, 3 personal training sessions done in a relaxed group environment and a goal assessment interview. It doesn’t cost anything and the only thing you have to lose is weakness and body fat.
Do it now, because success likes speed.
Eric Moss is a world record holding professional strongman, author, speaker and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is in Boonton Township New Jersey with Lewandowski Chiropractic and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, and Parsippany New Jersey.
Why You Should Get Strong
Yesterday after my motivational strongman performance I did a questions and answers segment. Generally speaking, people always have questions and I’m more than happy to answer them, though I don’t reveal my personal numbers in the gym (I like some things to remain a mystery).
One question I got yesterday is;
“What do you train people to do?”
“Uhm, I train people to do what they want to do.”
I know it’s kind of a weird way to answer a question but upon some digging to understand the question better, they asked if I helped people learn to get stronger ie general strength or if I also helped people lose weight.
The answer is I train people to accomplish the goal, whatever that goal may happen to be, but sometimes the goal changes.
As an example, years ago before Jill became my substitute teacher of strength and awesomeness, she had hired me to help her lose weight for her wedding. Prior to me, she didn’t know that she could get stronger without putting on muscle and nowhere in her stated goals did she ever mention anything about strength.
However, strength was part of the strategy to help her lose weight, which yes she lost the weight but got much stronger in the process and when a video featurette was being done about me, I asked her to say a few words on camera.
With tears starting to well up in her eyes on camera, she talked about how getting stronger made her feel, without once mentioning weight loss.
I found with her, and with many others that though they initially want one thing, they become excited by another thing altogether. I understand this myself.
Years ago, I embarked on a program to get really ripped. I did and kettlebell training was part of the process. Being ripped wasn’t fulfilling to me, but when I got stronger that was exciting and it opened doors to a world that I would never have thought possible.
yes this is me
And many people come to me because they feel something is missing in their life, and they think that getting in shape will fill in that gap.
Many times it does.I digress though.
One of the reasons they had asked me that particular question is because many fitness programs have a cookie cutter approach and lump you into their goal for you.
I don’t do this. I dig deep to figure out what your goal is, even if you don’t really know. And when I know the destination I can provide the path to get there. Sometimes your goal will stop being important to you and your goal changes. That’s ok too.
I do have a system in place to make everybody stronger though. I make people stronger to accomplish whatever it is they want to accomplish because strength is the foundational quality that makes everything else easier.
And even if you don’t even really have a reason, it’s good to get strong because as Mark Rippetoe famously said;
“Strong people are harder to kill and more useful in general.”
Would you like my help getting strong? I have a one-week trial membership of my personal training services available.
Eric Moss is a world record holding professional strongman, author, speaker and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is in Boonton Township New Jersey with Lewandowski Chiropractic and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, and Parsippany New Jersey.