Walking is not often suggested in the context of building muscle as an ectomorph. Your leg muscles only grow enough to support your weight, and burning calories seems (and is) counter-productive when you’re struggling to eat enough food.

Then why do I love starting the day with a 40-60 minute walk, mixed in with a short swim?

Because it leaves you feeling great.

And that, I think, is too often overlooked. As you move towards strength you lose sight of what truly matters to you – improving the quality of your life – and get too caught up in the numbers of how much you weight, or how much lean mass you’ve put on.

You don’t need to become a cardio freak. I’m certainly not. But there is value in bending the “rules” of ectomorphic strength training to find fulfilment in your life.

After spending the first hour or so of the day exploring the local area, and admiring the waking world I feel full of energy and excited to move forward with my life. Granted, this doesn’t always constitute strength training (there is more to my life than building muscle after all), but the point is simple and obvious: when you feel great you’ll do great things.

Start the day well, love your life and don’t feel constricted by the expectations and preconceptions of the strength training industry.

You may also want to read The Joy of Walking.

Lifting weights isn’t the enemy. Eating more food isn’t the enemy. Getting enough sleep isn’t the enemy.

Resistance is the enemy.

But what is resistance?

As Steven Pressfield in explains his book, The War of Art (which is mostly related to creative work, but is relevant in all aspects of living), resistance is all the junk that stops you from doing what you want and need to be doing.

He suggests that the hardest part of writing isn’t the writing itself, but the act of sitting down to write. We lack the fundamental desire to put ourselves in situations that may require hard work, even though the reality is always far simpler than the concoctions we form in our mind.

With this idea in the mind, the hardest part of lifting weights isn’t lifting the weights, it’s putting ourselves in a room with weights to lift. Think about that for a second. It may seem unbelievable, but what if it is true?

If it’s resistance that is holding you back (and I can assure you, if you’re not making progress, it is) then all it takes to move forward is to kill the resistance.

Here are 3 quick ways to kill the resistance:

1. Set no expectations. Don’t tell yourself “I’m going to do 3 sets of 10 reps.” That’ll psyche yourself out. Instead, ease the pressure and only commit to putting yourself in a room with a set of weights, or maybe just doing a single rep. Give the resistance less to resist.
2. Work with reality. Will eating more literally “make you explode”? Or is it truly “impossible” to get eight hours of sleep per night? Be careful of how you use your language and avoid exaggerating circumstances. Understand that your life is a series of choices and not a predefined set of events.
3. Clarify importance. What about strength training matters to you so much? I see myself living life in a way that is not within my physical capabilities at the moment. That inspires me. I want to be able to explore the world and experience the best it has to offer. When you understand the importance of a goal with unwavering clarity the resistance fades.

Don’t lose your life to resistance.

There is no “best way” to build strength and there’s no universal goal that everyone should strive for.

As I wrote about yesterday, I don’t want to be big. Heck, I’d even like to stay sort of skinny throughout my life. But I do want to build strength in a way that works for me.

I think it’s too common for skinny guys to see other skinny guys bulk up and fall into the trap of thinking they have to take the same route from A to B and achieve the same goals. They do this without thinking about what they truly want and why they wanted to be less skinny in the first place.

When it comes down to it, it’s all relative.

To some being 75kg is “too skinny” while for me, that’s my ideal weight. Other’s are perfectly satisfied being noticeably boney, but they’d like to have a bit more strength to work with. And that’s fine.

Don’t let anyone guilt you into following a particular process, or setting your sights on a reality you don’t much care for. What constitutes as strength and being “big” is only a perception. Choose your own perception to avoid ending up somewhere you don’t want to be.

Change needs to be effective to be valuable.

Effective changes are changes that are important and have a long term, noticeable difference in how you live your life.

Most skinny guys looking to get stronger make ineffective changes to their life. Choosing to lift 1kg dumbbells and doing the occasional push up. This is wasted effort.

The key to making long-lasting, effective changes that truly matter involves:

1. Deciding what’s important to you.
2. Choosing the few simple actions that will get you to where you want to be.

Let’s break both of those ideas down.

Deciding what’s important to you

I don’t want to be the incredible hulk, which is the exact reason you won’t see me at the gym, or even eating ungodly amounts of food (at least not constantly). All that’s important to me is that I feel great, and am eating and moving enough to maintain high energy levels.

What’s important to you? How do you want to feel when you wake up in the morning? What do you want to do with your day?

That last question is really key. It’s simple, but key.

I’ve never been much of a beach person, but I love the idea of strolling down to the ocean every morning, going for a slow, almost meditative swim and then strolling back home, but taking the long way back.

Once I committed to this reality I knew I could make it happen, and over the past week I have started doing it (not every day, but I’m geting there). As soon as I understood that this mattered to me I was able to accept that being bulky would be a waste of time. The path became clearer.

Choosing the few simple actions

There’s an overload of tactics to get from A to B. Every little supplement or obscure exercise claims to be “the” key to your success. They’re not.

In any area of your life there will be the 2-3 actions that have the most noticeable effect. The most improvement in my health and well-being comes when I’m pushing myself with pull ups, eating plenty of protein (especially as the first meal of the day) and sleeping for a full 8 hours.

Beyond those actions the effectiveness dips and I fall down into the land of wasted effort.

Look at your situations, and your wants and ask yourself: what are the 2-3 things that will really help me get to where I want to be? You may not always like the answer, but once you’re dealing with reality you’ll make progress and build momentum.

The first time you attempt to lift weights or eat more food than you’re used to it can feel like hell. I remember struggling to do 3 pull ups and feeling absolutely pathetic.

Granted, doing 3 on your first try is actually pretty good (so don’t feel too bad if you’re like most people who can’t manage 1), but I imagine no matter what numbers you actually pull you’ll be disappointed with yourself – we have a tendency to inflate our expectations beyond reality.

If you’re just starting or about to start strength training I want to give you this small piece of reassurance:

It gets easier.

Seriously, the first few weeks require the most dedication, and aside from the possibility of hitting a wall (which will require you to pass the tipping point) your ability to lift weights, eat the right food, and get the sleep you need becomes ingrained in your habits.

You will still stumble and fall into ruts. You will still need to lift heavy things which should never become inherently easy, but the process itself becomes easier. You lose the layer of friction that fuels doubt, negative anticipation, and procrastination.

Make the commitment to stick with your training. It gets easier.

Failure is a surprisingly attractive road to take in the journey of life. Sure, you may not be living the life you wish to lead, but at least you can avoid hard work, persistence, and dealing with set backs. But come on, you may be able to avoid hard ships, but do you really want to look back at your life and see that you’ve remained the only constant in an ever-changing world?

The problem most people face is that they have options. Options lead to confusion, self-doubt, and a reliance on will power (the one thing you should never rely on). Heck, people even praise the notion of options, and I guess in a few areas of life it’s nice to have a bit of choice, but beyond a certain point having freedom to make decisions will only hurt you.

Let’s dig into my life for example. Through school I was a fairly decent student – in the top classes, scoring 80-90% on most of my exams and assessments. But as I became increasingly interested in working for myself, my marks dipped dramatically and although we don’t use the A-F scale of marking down here in Australia, I essentially failed my senior year of school.

I still technically passed (because to fail you really have to just not show up), but my marks were low enough that I was in the minority of low scores (the average score for the state was a good 20+ percent higher than mine) and getting into university would be virtually impossible.

I’m not proud of my marks – I certainly don’t wear it as a badge – but it did have a huge advantage: I couldn’t back out. I’d killed my options. University was out of the question, and in my areas of expertise there’s not really any jobs that want a seemingly uneducated individual (even though I’d find the jobs fairly effortless). I’d forced myself into a corner: I either make this “build a business” thing work, or I don’t survive. It’s an occasionally stressful place to be but does wonders for my work ethic, persistence, and focus.

Why not apply this to your strength training, or your diet, or your sleep?

Instead of relying on will power or minute-to-minute decisions, why not just make it so you don’t have a choice, so that some higher power or particular system forces you to do what needs to be done? I get that this can be scary (it is quite a big commitment after all), but if you’re finding yourself not moving forward, then it might be the kick-in-the-butt that you need.

Here are a few simple ways to adopt this philosophy:

• Dedicate a room solely to strength training if possible and eliminate all other distractions. Set yourself a time on when you must enter this room, and only commit to that. Just go into the room, close the door, and stand there. Boredom will kick in with seconds and the only saviour will be your weights.
• Only store food in your house that is wholesome, preferably packed with calories and protein, and requires preparation, giving yourself the chance to mix and match ingredients and maximum effectiveness. Bad eating habits are mostly dependent on proximity, not genuine desire for a particular taste.
• Throw out your television and lock away your computer at night (preferably with a combination lock so it requires effort to retrieve) to allow yourself to be free from technology for a few hours before you sleep. If you’re a TV buff consider purchasing shows through iTunes (it’s seriously worth it based on the time you’ll save).
• Start shopping for food online. This way you won’t be tempted by the candy isles or any other crap that most supermarkets are peddling. Alternatively, visit farmers markets that are brimming with healthy foods and support your local farmer.
• Announce to the world your intentions. Every weekday is another proclamation that I’m working on building strength and improving my diet. That’s a huge bridge burner. Even though I don’t know you folks personally, I still feel compelled to not let you down and stick with my word.

Burning relational bridges is a misguided habit. Burning life’s bridges on the other hand, and making it impossible to back away from your dreams is both scary but hugely beneficial when trying to get from A to B. Pick 2-3 things you can do to make it impossible to go back on your commitment, and go do them.

In a perfect world we would have ultimate control over our time and never be led astray by distractions. Unfortunately the world isn’t perfect and it’s easy to fall off track, being led away from our greater goals such as getting stronger and improving your fitness.

There’s nothing I can say that will allow for completely friction-less living, without any distractions, but I would like you to do one simple exercise which will help immensely, and all it involves is writing a list.

Get out a pen and paper and answer the following question:

What is causing me stress, distracting me from important work, and cluttering my mind?

List anything that comes to mind. When I did this the first time I wrote down items like:

• Sell my iPhone
• Get my passport photos taken
• Throw out a bunch of crap

…nothing particularly exciting. Just small, mundane tasks that I had been lazy about finishing. And yet, it was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders to identify them and stop living in an obscured dream world.

Each individual item by its lonesome is fairly harmless, but I have a list of 10 of these types of tasks (after thinking about it some more), and they can really add up to a huge pile of distractions that prevent you from really focusing on your strength training, healthy eating etc.

Don’t suffer from endless distractions. Make a list of everything in your life that you feel is holding you back and cluttering your thoughts and ask yourself for each one: how can I eliminate this problem as soon as possible?

Most of the time it’s easy enough to tackle at least a couple of problems a week. Within 2-3 months you could be potentially without any notable problems, freeing up plenty of mental energy for things that truly matter.

And to save yourself from losing your list of distractions, I’d recommend you check out tadalist.com (it’s free) so you can physically check items off your list, which feels amazing in itself.

I’m the most incapable cook on the planet. Food has never been much of an interest to me so I still struggle at even the most basic kitchen-based tasks like boiling pasta or frying eggs can end in catastrophe.

And yet I love cooking.

Not to the point where I spend hours a day doing it – surely not – but after home cooking a few simple meals repeatedly for the past few months I find fulfillment when throwing even the most mundane assortments of food together.

Since reading The Primal Blueprint I’ve been fairly keen to be conscious of the food that goes into my body, and make some much needed changes to my diet. It’s still a long journey until I’ll feel content with what I’m eating (and I’ll be writing about this a lot more), but one of the most important steps to take is to cook your own meals. This allows you to:

• Be conscious of what you’re eating
• Flex your creativity to boost your caloric intake
• Tailor the taste to your preferences
• Induce hunger through the smell of preparing food
• Define your own serving sizes

But I get that cooking doesn’t sound particularly fun to a lot of people – especially us skinny guys who aren’t too interested in eating as it is. You can learn to love it though, and although that belief is far too overarching to tackle completely in a single article, there are a few simple things you can do to learn to love cooking:

1. Find the rhythm. There is a rhythm in cooking that comes with practice. At first you may flail your arms around and crack eggs without any precision, but as time goes on the process of preparing your own meal almost becomes like its own dance. You begin to adopt the most efficient ways of performing certain tasks, and suddenly cooking your meal transforms from an uncoordinated mess to a fluid sight to behold.
2. Play with it and have fun. One of the most common meals I cook for myself is a mighty fine beef burger. It’s pack with calories, tastes great, and is just a great meal overall. It can get a tad boring at times though, preparing the same food over and over. That’s why I like to play with it at times, trying to bump up the contents of the burger by adding a couple of fried eggs to the mix, or whatever tickles my fancy.
3. Work with proper tools. For the longest time I used an old frying pan that wouldn’t clean probably, had lost all its non-stick properties, and had warped slightly, making my burgers cook unevenly. Picking up a new pan (after months of just putting up with it) immediately made cooking more enjoyable, allowing me to focus on creating a work of food-art, rather than simply trying to prevent a ton of things from going wrong.

It’s not common to see a skinny chef, but there’s no reason you can’t choose to break the stereotype. Put on an apron (okay, you don’t really have to) and start playing around with nature’s edible gifts.

I won’t say there isn’t value in detailed approaches to strength training – things like routines, specific diets and all that. But it’s not really for me.

I want strength to be apart of my life, but not in control of it, and in my circumstances conforming too rigidly to another persons plan would prevent that. If you’re similar in personality just remember these 3 simple steps:

1. Lift heavy things
2. Eat lots more food
3. Sleep for 8 hours per night

And that’s it.

Based on all I’ve written so far this advice may seem somewhat shallow, but I felt I should write it as a reference point. No matter how complex strength training may seem at times, these 3 rules are all that really matter. The rest is opinion.

Since having a 10 day break from strength training while on a vacation I’ve struggled to get back into the positive groove I was in previously. Up until this point I felt this was just because my strength had regressed and it would take a bit of time to get back to where I was. But now I don’t think that’s the case.

My training seriously begun to suffer once I got back, considerably more than it should have after just 10 days absence, especially since most of those days were spent being active (walking, swimming, cycling etc). There’s no physical reason for the regression.

I’d fallen into a rut, but it was a misidentified rut. It was a mental rut.

I’d forgotten the joy of strength training. I’d forgotten that you don’t need to follow all the rules. As long as you’re lifting heavy things, eating enough food, and getting plenty of rest then you’re making progress. Layering your life with systems and concrete routines is simply not necessary.

Today my thoughts shifted though. The insane feats of strength video I posted before is still clear in my mind, and the question of “what if I were skinny for the rest of my life?” is still releasing me from the confines of rigid, lifestyle-killing goals. And you want to know what happened?

A few hours after my “official” training session (which unfortunately only amounted to a couple of sets of dumbbell squats) I felt the sudden urge to do some pull ups. Technically my training had been finished for the day, but I just wanted to do pull ups for the sake of doing pull ups.

And you know what?

I did a very clean first set of 10 pull ups, followed by another clean set of 6. Sure, I won’t win any pull up contests any time soon, but the key thing here is I felt better after the pull ups than I had before. It was purely pressure-less exercise, and a downright enjoyable experience.

I believe all strength training can be like this.

1. Be spontaneous. Feel like training right now? Then get to it! Don’t feel like training right now? That’s alright too. If strength training is genuinely important to you there’s no need to maintain a rigid schedule. Commit to the process and opportunities will present themselves to you.
2. It’s not a burden. Strength training is not a life sentence, and this isn’t a process that is meant to cause you pain. Re-frame it as a positive experience and the reality will conform to that belief. Think about it, you’re getting stronger, improving your health and opening up a world of possibilities that were previously out of your reach physically. Is that really a burden?
3. Never rush. Setting a deadline for your training sessions immediately invalidates their importance. Give yourself plenty of time to get lost in the training process and place total priority on doing every rep to the best of your ability, with the utmost adherence to proper form.
4. Rules are opinions. Besides rules designed to protect against injury, and the basic fundamentals mentioned before, most rules are opinions. They’re from people who, in their own experience have determined that X is better than Y. But you’re you, and it’s up to you to embrace adaptation and reflect on your circumstances.
5. Be the tortoise. As in, the tortoise from the fable of The Tortoise and the Hare. Look at the long term and don’t be ashamed of taking a slower route if you know you can stick with it for perhaps decades to come. Test yourself, and don’t become lazy, but don’t feel pressured into having to be the fastest strength trainee in the world.