While I consider the gym to be a form of “old age prep,” the likelihood of staying mobile in my twilight years is merely a side bet when it comes to regular gym attendance. The actual reason I go is far more practical. I just like going. 

To get where I’m at mentally, we need five things: 

1. A working knowledge of the body’s functionality (easily achieved). 

2. The drive to solve problems creatively (you already have this). 

3. A general understanding of the two most important workout approaches (covered very generally below in this blog post).

4. Time/support (financial or otherwise).

5. Access to a gym. 

Why gain a working knowledge of the body’s functionality?

We all like doing puzzles because the process/rules required for success are obvious. Compare completing a puzzle with time spent at the gym and gym aversion starts to make sense. 

At the gym, there is no visible process, no rules, and no expectations (besides looking good, or rather, not stupid). Just a sea of machines and a bunch of people who appear as though they know what they are doing (they do not). To make matters worse, it’s not just the setting that we don’t understand. It’s ourselves as well. Our bodies. The very nature of the thing we seek to improve/change. 

Imagine diffusing a bomb without understanding any of its components. Or working on any problem, in fact, without seeing or understanding it.

Failure and frustration in such cases are inevitable. 

And working out at the gym is no different. It is only once we know our subjects deeply (our bodies), that we can, with the right tools (the tools being the machines/weights at the gym) effect change and have fun doing it. Expectations in place, and a clear idea of ‘the bomb’ or ‘puzzle’ or ‘assignment,’ there is nothing stopping any of us from operating with confidence in an otherwise foreign setting. 

How to gain a working knowledge of the body’s functionality?

To want to go to the gym, you need a solid understanding of the circulatory system. This does not take as much time as you might think – ten focused minutes maybe and even a very profound sense of functionality can be acquired. 

In particular, you’ll want to note the twelve main arteries responsible for carrying oxygen rich blood to the capillaries (small arteries) in your brain. 

The next series of maps focus on the muscles of the body. You don’t have to picture them all in detail, but a good sense of what is where is helpful. Once you got that, you ‘upload’ a mental map of what muscle fibres look like up close when they contract and relax. 

Important facts to highlight in relation to cardio/muscle mental mapping:

1. Leading fact: muscles burn calories. The more muscle you build, the more fuel (calories) the engine will consume. 

During resistance training, picture your mental map or film of muscles at work. Visualize these muscles breaking down and reforming into stronger, larger muscles. This will keep you focused on the set at hand. 

2. Leading fact: brain fog occurs when there is a build of up fat in your arteries in the brain and there is reduced blood flow. 

During cardio, visualize the mental map of your heart at work. As it squeezes, it shoots blood through your arteries at three feet per second. Three. Feet. Per. Second. While engaged in an interval, picture an increasingly redder, stronger, fitter heart. Between intervals, picture a reduction in blood pressure. A reduced cholesterol impact. A more relaxed physiology. Picture a redder, stronger, fitter heart. 

Clear heart, clear mind.

Problem solving

The mental maps above will work wonders for your focus and staying power at the gym. The more detailed the map, the more interesting working out will become.

It’s not about sculpting the perfect body. The truth is that your body is as awesome looking as you feel it is at any moment, no matter the state, muscle or fat percentage. People will enjoy your physical appearance if you are positive about your physical appearance. What you are going for at the gym is a genuine interest in improving your system, your inner workings, the stuff people can’t see, and the more you know, the more interesting you will find the work. 

If you suck at chess, you won’t enjoy playing. But as you get better, chess gets fun. And working out is no different but you need those mental maps to get started because picturing change take place in your physiology as you engage in gym work provides real time feedback. This feedback acts as a positive feedback loop which keeps you engaged in the effort and focused on technique. 

And when you have regular feedback going for you, motivation follows. Motivation to improve health, and to get those workouts in.

(Offhand, there is evidence that visualizing the body at work while we consume high sodium, high sugar, empty-calorie snacks can significantly reduce cravings for these types of food – great article in the Globe about this last week. A strong mental map of your arteries, of them slowly hardening, of a curtailed blood flow to the brain – these alarming visuals act as powerful craving antagonists. For thoughts on sodium specifically: https://theboringcafe.ca/2021/12/20/sodium-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance/
…though the point, really, is that mental mapping systems can be a hugely powerful motivator.)

Training your heart and muscles

If you were to ask me to design a plan to get you in shape for a marathon, I would have a lot of detail for you, but the plan, while more complex from the point of view of training, would still include a lot of rest days and resistance training. That’s because runners are people first. They have hearts and tendons and bones and muscles and arteries, etc… just like the rest of us. To design a program for a runner or non-runner without taking into consideration all components of the system does nothing but set said runner up for injury and disease down the line. 

That in mind, we can use the gym for two reasons: cardio and resistance training. 

Resistance training 

The two most effective workout approaches are: the 3-7 program and slow lifting, and I encourage a mix of the two. 

The 3-7 program is a ladder based program proven to build muscle much quicker and more efficiently than 5 sets of however many reps of this or that with however much rest in between. 

Take bench press (on a machine or on an actual bench) for example. The 3-7 program has you performing three lifts, resting fifteen seconds, then performing 4 lifts, resting fifteen seconds, etc… All the way up to seven lifts. 

And that’s a full set. Vets of this program might complete up to three sets with three minutes rest in between each, but rarely more. And newbies or the maintenance crew will often have to complete just one set to get max results (that’s often all I do for each muscle group). 

Still, it’s important to note that these lifts have to be performed with care, and with a very deep understanding (mental map) of what systems/muscle groups you are intending to work, which brings us to slow lifting. 

Slow lifting is intuitive. You perform the lift very slowly. Five to seven seconds up, five to seven seconds down (the seconds vary based on the iterations re the source study). The point being, the longer a muscle is under tension, the harder that muscle is working and the more you are consequently getting out of the lift. Much more efficient than performing multiple sets of multiple lifts. Another advantage of the slow lift is that it provides the opportunity to focus on technique, which is key to injury prevention, proper muscle recruitment and focus (slow lifting is very much in season with the awareness trend, helping tremendously to eliminate distraction, and in the process, feelings of self-consciousness).

Cardio training

Hiit training is the rage and this is one trend that actually holds water. 

In any good personal training session, the trainer will ‘finish you off’ on a recumbent bike by asking you to bike as hard as you possibly can for thirty seconds. It is so hard to do you will fear it, even after one attempt. 

And that intensity and fear speaks wonders about interval training – we don’t ever go hard enough during our cardio. We go for half hour jogs or walks when we could be doing so much more for our cardio systems in thirty seconds or less.

(Important note: I am not a health professional and not qualified to offer health advice. Anything that appears in this post represents my opinion and is based on personal experience. Consult your doctor before engaging in any sort of interval training, esp if you have a heart condition).

There’s lots of literature on this, and I will be posting more specific workouts in the cardio and resistance training departments in good time, but for now, try this…

Find a gym with an attack bike. 

Get on and bike for fifty seconds slow. Then ten seconds as hard as you can. 

Do that five times and try not to throw up. 

And how long was that workout? 

Exactly. And you’re completely wasted.

Now, pull up that mental map of the cardio system and ask yourself, what was going on with my physiology there? Why do I feel like throwing up? What can I do to lessen that feeling while completing the same workout again next time? Asking these sorts of questions and then looking into the answers (mining google for more maps), that is the key to staying interested at the gym.

And what else are questions but problems to solve? The more you ask, the more you learn. The more you learn, the more ‘problems’ to uncover. The cycle never ends. Meanwhile, you find yourself keener and keener on the cardio and weights, and more disciplined than ever on rest days.

And if you change physically over time as a result? Who cares. The goal is not to improve your physique. It is to improve the way you feel by toning and honing the systems responsible for your survival.

Time and gym access 

If you are a single parent, my heart goes out to you. For all that you are doing for your child, a child that will no doubt grow up to be a contributing member of society, you are a hero. And heroes have a tough time squeezing in the gym, so I do not have much to say on this subject which is in any event a case by case challenge. The only thought I will put forward is that you are worth it, and your kid(s) needs you healthy. And if there’s anyone you can call on to free up time to get a little exercise, the above workout approaches, I promise you, will not take long to complete. And they are far from boring.

As far as gym access goes, same deal – everyone’s situation is different. I would choose the cheapest closest place around and pay for a membership there. Just looking at the big chains, Planet Fitness is fifteen bucks a month while Good Life is north of forty. Wherever you end up going, assuming you have something nearby, do not buy into the hype. The more you look into the above workout approaches, and the more you do to understand your physiology, the more you produce your own good vibes (better than the commercial ones!).

In the end, the goal, if you can make it, even for a short time, is to invest and learn. To have faith in your workouts. And to remember that as much as it may cost in time and money to establish good habits, it costs much more health wise to feed/promote/ignore bad ones.

Your body, your project. 

Your life, your health. 

JM.