My Way or the Highway

Life isn't black and white

Do this, do that. Yeah, sure—this sounds pretty good, and that sounds pretty fun.

But why not do both this and that? Get the good and get the fun?

Let’s say you’re going to the gym and you want to grow your muscles.

Cool. That’s a good goal to have.

But you’re a beginner and have no idea what you’re doing.

Also cool. No one does at first.

So you open Google, scrolling through article after article, video after video, until—aha! This video’s not too long, and the thumbnail looks kind of fun. You click it, and you hear:

Do 2 sets of 20 bicep curls every two days and you’ll grow your biceps!

Okay, nice. You’ve now got something to follow. You head to the gym, do your 40 bicep curls, maybe throw in some tricep pushdowns, and live your best life.

You come back every other day, repeat the same thing, and hey—your muscles have grown! You’ve achieved your goal.

Good job, hypothetical reader. I’m proud of you.

So you keep at it. And it’s working. But you’re just not… happy.

You can’t increase the weight quickly—your gym’s dumbbells only go up in 5-pound increments, and that’s a big jump when you’re doing so many reps. Sure, you’re building muscle, but the thing that gave you joy when you first stepped into the gym—seeing the weight go up—is now a fading memory.

Would you have achieved the same results if you did 3 sets of curls in a 12-10-8 rep range? Or what about 7 sets of 5?

Yes, you probably would’ve.

Was what you did wrong? No. It clearly worked.

But was it right for you?

Well, you don’t know. You just trusted a YouTube video that claimed to have solved one of science’s greatest dilemmas.

To simplify things a bit, general muscle exertion (pushing yourself near failure) is the main stimulus for muscle growth. How you get there (as long as you progressively increase the weight/volume you’re lifting) doesn’t matter all that much. That’s the core philosophy behind building your muscles.

How exactly you go about implementing this philosophy is YOUR call.

And that’s just it. Life isn’t just a case of doing this or that. It’s about finding the grey space within this and that—within a black-and-white world—a grey that’s yours.

Everyone functions differently in the gym. Everyone functions differently in life. What works for me might not work for you.

So as long as you find what works for you, who cares what I’m doing?

So go. Find your grey.