Hey there and Happy New Year!
I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written you but I been uber busy which I’ll get into some other time. Over Christmas break my sister gave me the movie Green Lantern on Blu Ray. Now truth be told I need to watch it again because when I popped it in I was exhausted and fell asleep.

Now from what I caught of it and I don’t want to ruin it for you so I’m only going to give a couple details in case you haven’t seen it yet…the Green Lantern’s ring runs off of willpower which is green and it’s weakness is fear which is yellow. In the movie (and this does spoil it a teeny bit) they are afraid that they are running out of will power to fuel their rings which sucks for us all since they are the defenders of the universe. If they fail, we are screwed.

Now how does this relate to your new year’s resolution? Well much like in the movie we only have so much will power to use before we run out and end up giving in so one way of succeeding is to limit the amount of will power you actually need. If you are on a fat loss program, get that chocolate out of sight and therefore out of mind.

Now if you have been following me for any period of time you may have heard me speak of the “terminator mentality” which is a disciplined like a cyborg, concentrated focus on achieving your goals. That will lead to success but it’s meant as a short term solution till you can get to a place where it becomes a habit which is much easier to maintain and can be fit into a lifestyle. Limit your temptation, and you are less likely to cave in.

Now another thing about will power is that much like anything, if you practice building it you can. Start with the idea of success in mind and straying from the course becomes less likely. When I start out a new client I’ll ask them what their goal is not just for me to plan a course to get there but also to remind them of their dream when the going gets tough so that they can power through it. You can train yourself to power through. Just like with anything take it one step at a time but start with the goal in mind.

I’ve recently started strongman training. I have am lucky in that I have a coach willing to teach me the secrets of the old time performing strongmen and I’ll reveal a bit of it here. First you have to have a base level of strength. Second is the technique to pit your strength with. And Third is you have to have a will power greater then steel. I won’t go into technique since I just started learning this 2 weeks ago and I wanted this to be about will power anyways. The way I would describe it is you are pitting your strength against the steel and it is fighting you right back. Just when you think you can’t bend it, you just hang in there a little bit longer, and that’s when it gives up and bends. I got to say it feels pretty awesome to conquer steel.

Now back to the whole green lantern analogy…You can’t let fear prevent you from achieving your goals. In our brains and brawn we have all sorts of protective mechanisms that act like a governor of our strength and just about any kind of success in life. Don’t let the fear limit you….make it motivate you so that failure isn’t an option.

Now since I won’t go into technique I’ll provide you with a great resource about bending steel that I picked up last year. Jedd Johnson is a strong dude with a strong grip and put out a dvd awhile back called How to Melt Steel With Your Hands (Nail Bending Dvd) and it’s got some great stuff in it. It’s interesting that he talks about it melting because when you bend it, it actually does get warm where the bend occurs.

Well anyways work towards your goals and physical awesomeness to you!

So last night I was perusing youtube when I come upon a video about how to win any fight. Now me coming from a background of martial arts though my practice these days is mostly shadow boxing I always like to see different ways of laying the smackdown even though I would distill effective combatives as “Poke his friggin eye out”

Anyways this video was put out by a guy who is a “male image consultant” and tells guys how to act, dress etc. to maintain a certain image. Now personally I kind of like my image because it is representative of my true self. To have an image that isn’t yourself to me is stupid and it’s not a good representation of you if that isn’t you. Anyways…

As I’m going through his channel I come upon a video that talks about “building a massive chest” and me being a curious sort of fellow with some more time to burn I watch the video…and then I heard it

It’s not how strong you are. It’s how strong you look like you are.

As you can probably guess I take a bit of issue with this. First of all there are sensors in our brains that they still don’t quite understand but they are able to sniff out a faker. Two studies talk about this. I discovered these when I was checking up on the research that Adonis Effect was based on.

Human adaptations for the visual assessment of strength and fighting ability from the body and face

and

Adaptations in humans for assessing physical strength from the voice

The first study took some pictures of men’s faces and the audience was able to determine who was strong and who was a wimp just from their face alone. How could this be? Some mysterious thing in our brain.

The second study had people guess who was strong and who had the muscle and might of a wet noodle from people playing telephone with pipes and that sort of thing. They were able to guess who was the badass from their voice as well. How could this be? That brain thing again.

This is supposed to go back to the theory that when it came to evolution and way back in the day we introduced ourselves as Ogg and Grok, dudes had to know who was a badass so they wouldn’t mess with him “Touch me and I’ll sue wasn’t a threat back then.” and girls wanted to know who can give them strong babies and who would be able to lay the smackdown on a sabertooth tiger should it threaten his offspring and lady.

So apparently it’s not how strong you look that really matters after all. The best part is you can have both worlds if you train for it. As Aurthur Saxon did, train for strength and the shape will take care of itself. Admittedly you can use different methods of measurement to you can make sure you are balanced and give you an idea of what needs more attention but if you aren’t getting stronger…well that’s a shame.

And also, who the hell wouldn’t want to become strong either? You want to have muscles that when it comes time to test their power they got nothing to back it up? If you saw a Lamborghini wouldn’t you be disappointed if you discovered it was only sporting 150 horse power? Strength is useful for all sorts of things and it’s less vain…which can help with that whole image consulting thing.

You want a cool image? Be strong, lean, fit and all that stuff that comes with it. At the very least you’ll be able to pick up more then just girls.

Last night as you know was Thanksgiving and as we are all sitting down to over-stuff ourselves we decide to announce out loud to the family the things that we are thankful for. Now when it came my turn I had told them “I am thankful for my true friends and family and for having the opportunity to spend this dinner with them.” I want it to be known that when you are good to me…don’t think I don’t notice it.

Now the one before me is the one that I would like to point out. His first thing that he mentioned was that he was thankful for his health. It leads me to wonder…how many are thankful for their health? Health goes under the radar for many people…that is until it’s too late. Others simply don’t have health to be thankful for (it’s a shame really) and yet others have it and take it for granted by doing things like smoking, eating bad foods all the time and that sort of thing.

Now for me I know I’m healthy because I spend my life teaching people how to be healthy through things like exercise and nutrition and balancing those things into their life. I am thankful that I have a job that I genuinely enjoy and my clients are the best in the world (I just wish I had a hundred more like them). I am thankful that I have this medium (my blog) where my voice isn’t limited to my immediate area but for anyone that knows how to use google to search for things I talk about. I am thankful that some people that read my words might even listen and pass it on or even better actually apply what I am talking about.

And as I tend to do when I sign off…I am thankful that you read this…thanks for reading and being awesome.

Eric J. Moss