Body: Overall Exercise strategy
I’ve worked for many years to find the exercise routine that best works for me.
Below I will share this routine, and the reasoning of why each action is taken, also explaining the logic of the order.
Cardio: walking 10mins or jogging
Core: 2 sets of 4 core exercises, ~10mins
Yoga/stretching: ~10mins
Weight-lifting: ~25mins — chest/triceps, or back/biceps/forearms, or legs/traps/shoulders
First, I will explain the order.
We first start with cardio in order to warm-up the body, in a non-impact form. Every other action (core, yoga, lifting) requires the body to be warmed up. So we first warm-up through cardio.
Next, we hit core. Core is early in the workout for core will be used for the rest of the exercises. With a healthy core, yoga can do its thing, and weights can be lifted with less risk of injury. Core is also an area that people disregard — for they focus on other things.
Core has also gotten an incorrect reputation as of lately — which is that “abs are made in the kitchen”. It’s true that mainly through diet one can decrease body fat so that the abs can be seen. But the kitchen does not strengthen the core, so that the body is in better balance between upper and lower body.
Although doing core daily may not necessarily make the abs ‘visible’, the strengthen core will still be indispensable for bodily stability, and injury prevention. A strong core assists in every other activity — cardio, yoga, lifting.
After core, we spend some time with yoga/stretching. I add the stretching to the expression because I do both ‘yoga’ poses, but also standard P.E. class stretches. The idea here is that we are further preparing the body to lift weights (breaking/strengthening of muscle fibers) by pulling the muscle fibers beyond their stagnant state. Adding stretching at this point further limits injury from happening during lifting weights.
Last, we lift weights. Here I take a personal approach, doing exercises that are done in weightlifting & bodybuilding circles. A strong body, is a strong mind. I workout multiple body groups per day, and take rest days in between. With career & adult responsibilities, I try to workout 3 days a week.
Time is also a factor. I try to keep a workout less than an hour. Time-wise, the activities look like:
cardio: 12mins
core: 10mins
yoga: 10mins
lifting: 20–30mins
Overall, a healthy and strong body is needed to allow for the influx of high energies (creativity, divine inspiration), as well as handling the real world effectively (career, family relationships, chores).
Exercise not only helps for the body to reach its potential, but it also helps as a big medium of stress relief. Stress is the silent killer, for we don’t know that we are stressed, possibly until we are VERY stressed. It’s a very subtle energy.
In order to keep stress at bay, we need to exercise at least a couple of times a week. The expression ‘use it or lose it’ is also true with the body. Use it every day, at least a little bit (10min walk). Give it its due.
But you don’t need more. You don’t need an enormous ass, or huge muscles, to be valuable, or to feel self-confident. Do not grow your body for the attention of others. It’s silly, and whenever people say that they do it for themselves, but then post about it online, are clearly lying or delusional.
Do enough to have a healthy body. If you get strong & muscular, awesome. But that’s the secondary effect. It is not the main goal. The main goal is to be healthy, and to train the body & upkeep it like a temple, so that good energy is welcome within it.
Preworkout crap, creatine, obviously steriods — all this is trash for the body. Postworkout whey is OK because it’s mostly dehydrated dairy. So overall don’t be a crazy person and overdo it. Drink green tea or coffee as a preworkout if you really need (which you don’t).
Do things to feel good, not to look good (external validation).
Al-Khem The Alchemist
