As humans we are always on the search for the holy grail to achieve success in certain areas of our lives that we want to excel in. This has always been the case in history, it is the case in the present moment and it will always be the case in the future. Interestingly, we love to overcomplicate a lot of things in life that are actually pretty simple to accomplish and don’t need a whole lot of overthinking.
The problem is that if things seem to be simple and easily comprehensible for the mind, people often quickly disregard simple, effective solutions for their problems or goals that they want to achieve because it unconsciously doesn’t give them the satisfaction of having figured out something extremely difficult, mind blowing or revolutionary that causes the world’s eyes to be wide open with amazement.
In fitness, things are no different. If you’ve been struggling with the way your body looks and you’ve been searching for solutions, undoubtedly you will have noticed that there are countless of TV commercials, ads on youtube or on websites/in magazines that you read regularly about the latest magical, complicated workout routine or fad diet that has a magical formula that the average joe never had the mental capacity to figure out. Obviously, that’s attractive to the mind, because if it’s too simple, it probably won’t work, right?
Wrong! Having a tendency to make things too complicated, to disregard simple solutions for problems or simple ways to achieve goals is the exact reason why so many people never achieve what they want to achieve in life. Most people have the dream of becoming rich, of becoming extremely wealthy at some point in their lives, yet so few people ever realize this dream. The reason they don’t realize their dream has two major causes.
These reasons are: Trying to figure out a mind blowing idea that nobody has ever thought of and is absolutely unique and two: if they do figure out how to realize something or do come up with a certain idea that they think will add value to the world and will deliver them big fortunes, they don’t have what it takes to do the work. They are lazy and complacent.
EMBRACE SIMPLICITY
The harsh truth is that what we think is true in our minds, often times is in seriously conflict with reality. While we love to complicate our goals, our relationships, our problems and our lives in general, this is totally unnecessary because most things in life are actually pretty simple. Things like becoming wealthy and achieving your fitness goals are no exception to the rule.
The majority of wealthy people have not gathered their fortunes by coming up with mind blowing ideas. They have simply observed which problems people experience in their daily lives and have found a simple solution for those problems. For example: the post it, an online book delivery system, UPS, BIC pens, IKEA etc. Those are all companies that deliver simple products or services that are not necessarily unique, but they offer affordable, simple solutions (products or services) to a large amount of people from all around the world. They offer useful, simple services and/or products that speak to the basic needs and daily routines of people. In other words: they offer value to make people’s lives easier by providing an easy solution that doesn’t require you to be a rocket scientist.
Nor are these services unique. There are lots of companies that sell office materials, that deliver packages to your front door and that distribute furniture. The only thing that separates these companies from one another is that they create a brand with its own unique persona and characteristics. Even though the product or service is essentially the same, some people will feel that they resonate more with one company rather than another, because the way the company markets itself, speaks more to your own personality and your own values. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel and you don’t have to find the holy grail to something unique. You simply have to provide value, makes people’s lives better with a simple solution to solve their problems and to satisfy their needs and market it in a way that attracts the audience that you wish to target. Pretty simple, right?
Same goes for other things that you want to achieve or problems you want to solve. People love to focus their attention on details and to sweat the small stuff, instead focusing on the big picture: the basics. Excelling at something, creating a successful business, mastering an instrument and even getting in shape all starts with mastering the basics. How can a master guitarist create mind blowing guitar solos if he doesn’t even master basic scales or can’t even play beginner chords? He can’t!
Mastering the basics of pretty much everything that aligns with your goals is the key to success because the basics will be responsible for 80% or more for the results you desire. Once you’ve mastered the basics and have become extremely good at something, you can finetune your craft or skills by adding details to increase income even further, to play guitar solos with exotic scales in other modes or any other thing you want to become successful in. Simply put, you can put the cherry on the cake. However, in order to be able to put the cherry on the cake, there has to be a cake first. The cake is the basics, the foundation of your success. The cherries are the small details that add to the big picture.
SIMPLICITY AND FITNESS
“Now how does all of this translate to my fitness goals?”, you might ask. Good question. The answer is again simple. Just like in any other area of life, people love to overcomplicate things when it comes to getting in shape and achieving an athletic, strong, lean physique.
Getting in shape is actually quite an easy task. It doesn’t require one to wake up at 4 am each and every day and to follow a navy seal special ops routine combined with an army diet to achieve the physique you want. The secret to achieving the body of a Hollywood movie star, a male model or what people love to call a ‘beach body’ all boils down to focusing on a couple of important principles that form the basis of getting in amazing shape.
If your goal is to look in the mirror and be proud of what you see, because there is a man standing there with the physique of a spartan warrior, then I can tell you with 100% certainty that you don’t need any complicated training program that has you doing single arm handstands on a bosu ball, nor do you need to follow a diet based on seaweed from 3000m below the ocean’s surface. What you need to do that will give you the majority of the results you will ever make in your gym career is a two sided answer that together will form the base of living the rest of your life as a man that is in phenomenal shape and that has people in awe when you take off your shirt.
What you need to transform your physique and become the most aesthetic version of yourself is to perform basic compound exercises on a consistent basis and become stronger at them while using the correct technique. Compound exercises are multi joint exercises that train a lot of muscle mass with one movement. In your upper body, 80% of the muscle mass and of the progress you will ever make will come from mastering the chin up, the bench press, the overhead press and rowing variations. In your lower body, squat and deadlift variations will be the exercises that will be responsible for packing on the majority of the mass you will carry.
These exercises or rather, these movement patterns, should form the foundation of your training routine. By doing these exercises alone, you are capable of achieving an extremely strong and aesthetic physique. Just a handful of exercises! Does that mean you can’t do anything else? Of course not, you can throw in some direct arm work, rear and middle delt work, calf work and ab work, but if your routine isn’t composed around big compound movements, you’re not doing yourself a favor. 6 exercises to rule them all, to transform your physique and to deliver 80% or more of building the body of your dreams. The magic of keeping it simple, yet effective.
What concerns the nutritional side of things, the same truth applies. Exercise and nutrition go hand in hand to create an aesthetic physique. As I’ve mentioned before, there’s no need to follow a magical diet or to eliminate certain macronutrient groups just to get in shape. The only thing you need to master is how to calculate how many calories you need on a daily basis to achieve your goals.
Want to gain weight? Eat in a small calorie surplus. Want to maintain your weight? Then eat at maintenance level. Want to become leaner and want to see the number on the scale drop? Eat less calories than you need. Simple! The only caveat is that in order to optimize body composition goals, alongside tracking your calories you do need to eat a sufficient amount of protein. Again, nothing complicated here. To get the best results to both gain, retain and maintain it’s been proven that consuming 0.82g of protein per pound of body weight is optimal. Eating more protein than this won’t help you to build more muscle and just becomes an expensive fuel source. Be sure to get the majority of your protein from high quality animal sources such as quality meat, fish, eggs and dairy because they are superior to most plant based protein sources.
So basically this is what you have to do if you want to transform your physique and walk around looking like an ancient Greek athlete for the rest of your life:
1) Focus on getting progressively stronger on your big compound exercises
2) Keep track of your daily calorie and protein requirements
As you see, just like so many other things in life, getting the body of your dreams is simple as it can be. That doesn’t mean that it’s easy though! Simplicity should not be mistaken with half assed efforts though! The people who do understand that their goals are within reach by keeping things simple and uncomplicated usually don’t reach their goals because of lack of discipline and consistent action.
Working on your business, mastering guitar scales, getting your ass to the gym and performing challenging, hard work sets of compound exercises requires discipline, consistency and simple hard work. The majority of people will never reach most of their dreams because they are allergic to hard work. I don’t want you to be one of those people.
The stars are within reach. Hard work and consistency is what truly separates the winners from the people who never reach their goals. So many of the goals that you want to make a reality are within your reach. It just takes effort, hard work. Consistent, focused, hard effort. This is the true formula for success and making your dreams come true, as well as sculpting the body you dream of.
Keeping things simple + consistent effort + patience = success
You’re capable of so much more than you think of. Stop overthinking, stop overcomplicating things, stop procrastinating and quit inventing lame excuses to justify yourself for not taking action, not doing the work and not making anything out of your life!
Take ownership and responsibility for your decisions! Set goals and take action! Transform yourself into the best version you can be and create the body and life you’ve always dreamed of!
Gone are the days of playing the victim. You are a warrior and the creator of your own life. You are in charge and march the beat of your own drum. Transforming your physique into that of a Greek warrior carved out of stone is a fantastic way to start your journey to living your best life.
What I want you to do now is to write down your goals, educate yourself on how to achieve those goals and to keep things simple. Put in the required effort, be consistent and simply…
TAKE MASSIVE ACTION!
Kevin Mahjoubi