15 Muscle Building Lessons From My Big Birthday Surprise

Oh, and just so you know... muscle building = forever young age reversing :) 

 Who would have thought turning 43, a pretty ordinary number when it comes to birthdays...

 ... would have brought such a memorable experience! WOW!!

 It was around 4am yesterday morning when I strolled into my gym, ready to start the day. Groggy eyed, still knowing off some sleepyness... coffee in hand, I walked to the lights, flipped them on, turned around...

 ... and proceeded to SCREAM in SHOCKED SURPRISE at the sight awaiting me!!... almost spilling my spilling my coffee all over myself!

 "AHHHHHHHH!"

I yelped out like a school girl when the bad guy jumps out in front of the main character in a scary movie. 😱 

There were streamers,  green and black balloons,  and "Happy Birthday!" and "The Man, the Myth, the Legend" signs expertly posted up.

 Inside the office was a table full of fun stickers for people (especially women) that workout...

such as: "Some moms lift more than their kids" :)

  I walked around with wide-eyed bewilderment -- much like that one scene when Dorothy steps into Oz and it's all in color.

(Me, Bethany, and Kason do have a Wizard of Oz theme going for this upcoming Halloween, so that analogy fits! :) )  

After the shock of it all wore down a bit, my brain went into "detective Mode'" to figure out how this happened -- it didn't take too much brainpower to figure it out. :)  

From there I started to cry a bit out of gratefulness.   I couldn't believe that I mattered so much to them that they would take the time and effort to do something so thoughtful.

 Growing up a fat, geeky, lonely, socially awkward loser with self-esteem and worthiness issues, I can't tell you how much this meant to me.

 I really do have the best clients ever and I'm so thankful me living out my Purpose is having such a good impact on you. It truly is an honor serving you and being your Guide.

 Be sure to check out the Facebook post about it here if you want to see pictures of it (as well as the AM Angels that so thoughtfully coordinated it -- Special big THANK YOU to Ashley, Jeni, Randi, and Jill 🥰)  

And a huge THANK YOU to you if you took the time to wish me a happy birthday, got me awesome presents, or gave me a card. You made me feel very special. :)

  Needless to say, this event especially made this birthday VERY memorable and one I shall never forget.

 In Psychology, they call events like this Event Horizons -- events that are so different from the common occurrence that they stick out like a sore thumb. 

It's a similar idea to your muscles and body in order to keep getting results.

 It's your body's job to adapt to what it experiences to conserve energy, so if you were to keep doing the same workout, day after day, week after week -- you would stop seeing results with it. 

It needs to experience it's own version of "Event Horizon" -- something different and new so that it must adapt to it. 

P90x called this "Muscle Confusion" but you don't want to change things up too much so that you can't tell if you're getting better, stronger, and more Anti-fragile each week 

It's why we have mostly the same workout, week to week, for about 3 weeks. Then change up the weekly routine after that.  We want to see growth within those 3 weeks while still adding in things for your body to adapt to.

 What follows now is a nice little list of all the ways to mix in "Muscle Confusion", and this will now be tips numbers 17 - x.  

 My goal is to be up to 43 by the end of this week and today's flurry should certainly help :)

 17.) go for more reps with the same weight you did last week (I know, easy enough, but you'd be surprised how many people I've seen in the gym do the same weight for the exact same reps week after week for years!) 

18.) add weight and be okay losing about 5 reps... (then go back to #17 ;) ) 

19.) add more range (you might have seen this done in our Roman Deadlifts this week) 

20.) change up the tempo -- if it's the usual 1 second up, 1 second down, changing it to 1 second up, 4 seconds down is some nice newness for your muscles gots to adapt to) 

21.) work in pulses, bounces, and pauses at the top, middle or bottom of the rep range  

22.) if used to doing 3 sets -- adding more sets is a fantastic to mix to work in, but generally not required for growth long term 

23.) adding in more days a week of working out (one outstanding and talented Workout Hero in particular went from a consistent 3x a week to 6x last week for the first time... and yeah, she was feeling it by the end :) ) 

24.) Changing up the time of the day you workout -- mornings vs. nights, that sort of thing 

25.) the order of the exercises 

26.) what you had to eat the last few days going into your workouts -- for example, if you're coming off a Micro-fast for the last couple of days, your body doesn't have much energy quickly available for the workout, so needs to adapt itself to make it happen.

I remember reading a study that dove into this and found that even though the workout performance itself didn't seem as good, the body had a higher hormonal output from the workout. Releasing more of the "survival" hormones of adrenaline because survival was more at stake in those "energy-deprived" workouts.

Sorry, went a little nerdy science on you there for a second. :) 

27.) What day of the week that muscle group gets worked. Example -- if Monday Leg Day suddenly and Wednesday Deadlift & back day suddenly switched spots, your muscles would be all like,

"HEY, wait a second... this isn't what were used to doing!"   

28.) The complexity of the move -- for example, doing a 1 leg unstable squat, like a pistol squat, is a nice little hit of newness if your body has done 1000's of body weight squats. 

29.) lower rest times between sets or something I'm a big fan of... 

30.) switching between cardio based moves that bump your heart rate up, and then going into a strength training set breathing hard a bit. 

31.) believe it or not, but since us humans are social beings, actually changing up WHO you workout with actually matters too.  Nice, how many was that? Let me go back and count...  ... if my maths are correct, looks like 15, not bad, huh?  

There's plenty more too, but don't worry, all you have to focus on is showing up and I take care of the rest...  ...Tis my place in your Story after all, being your trainer and Guide on your fitness journey...  

...oh and what joy and honor it brings me to be so. :)

 Okay, I've got some birthday cake and cookies to eat for lunch (lesson about that tomorrow 😁)

so I'll let you get back to your day.  I truly appreciate and love you for all that you do...

 ... I big you a bon voyage and fond farewell!

 Your Guide & biggest fan,

Mr trainer man Erick  

p.s.  ... let's just say walking into my gym at 4am and switching on the lights probably won't be the same experience in quite a while :)