The General Principle of Progress - Part 2: Intelligence

In my first post in this series I went on a tirade of sorts on progress - you can interperet it how you may, but I thought it was filled with some good stuff.

It has since inspired me to continue to research the subject, and as such I will be turning this into a multi-part series. It may be two or it may be six. I don't know yet.

It is my goal with this series of blog posts to better understand the inner workings of ‘progress’; if you cannot tell from my previous articles, I am quite obsessed with making the most out of my life, and I feel that becoming familiar with what progress truly is may help me to better understand how I can improve. Dr. Heathers writes, “The general principle of progress is the intelligent and systematic application of hard work over time”. I plan on making this into a multi-part series and will update accordingly.

So, let’s dive into it – intelligence.

Intelligence can be a difficult thing to define and even more difficult to measure. Measuring a person’s intelligence is called psychometric testing – a field of study concerned with psychological measurement. The most popular intelligence quota tests are the Stanford-Binet test and the Raven’s Progressive Matrices. These tests were developed as early as 1938 as a way to – you guessed it – measure a person’s intelligence.

In today’s celebrity obsessed and self-image crazed culture intelligence takes a backseat to looks and logic a backseat to money. They clothes you wear, the car you drive, who you associate with and the bar’s you waste your money at – for some reason, these are far more important today than intelligence. Image trumps knowledge, money trumps personality and possessions trump attitude.

In light of this new view on society, I propose something a bit different. For you muscle-bound, meat-head readers that spend all week in the gym: what do you think would happen if you spent the same amount of time reading and studying as you do benching and curling? Do you think your brain would grow? Maybe you would have something intelligent to say when you are blowing your money on jager-bombs and Heinekens, chasing ‘sexy babez’.

To me, intelligence is far more than just being ‘smart’. Its part maturity, responsibility, and dedication. An intelligent person, to me, take’s life serious but knows when he’s is taking it TOO serious. Why were the smart kids not the popular kids in high school? It’s funny, because they may end up being your boss one day. Since when did being smart make you un-cool? This is so silly to me. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather spend a weekend listening to a genius speak then spend 20 minutes with an ignorant, useless, unintelligent ass-clown. I’ve met many in my day, and there are still a few that will probably never change. Anyways.

If you are feeling like a useless ass-clown, here are some harmless things that will make you, as a brother who loves training, more ‘smarter'.

1. Read more. Fiction, non-fiction. Newspapers, journals, books. But stay away from the muscle-media magazines. Those retards just want your money. Don’t know where to start? I picked up a few books and started reading – books that my parents had lying around the house. I suggest you start here. 
2. Sleep more. If you are sleeping less than seven hours a night, you are doing yourself a disservice. Your tissues need ample rest in order to adapt to all biological stresses imposed on them from intense training. There is something to be said for grinding and putting in the sweat equity to achieve your goals, but you also need balance. Stop acting like a sixteen year old and go to sleep when you should. Also, don’t eat sugar cereal.
3. Foam roll.  Not only does it feel fantastic, it helps to improve the quality of your soft tissue. Start with a white foam roller and when this is no longer uncomfortable move to the black. Use a lacrosse ball on your feet. These are both cheaper than a massage. Do it every day because it's important.
4. Train hard. Ever pushed a prowler so hard that you puked? Ever done heavy back squats followed by hill sprints? What about heavy deadlifts and weighted chin-ups? If you are not doing these things, chances are you are not training hard enough.
5. Train smart. If, over the long run, you workout’s lack structure and flow you are doing yourself a disservice. One block of training must be designed to achieve a specific goal and the following block must be designed to build on the foundation of the first block, and so on. Design your training blocks around your immediate and most important focus. If you want to get strong, train that way. If you want to improve your mobility, train that way.
6. Focus on your weaknesses. I stole this one from Dan John. Dan will spend six weeks out of every year focusing solely on his weaknesses. In my case, it is my hip mobility, shoulder mobility and overall movement quality. I have spent four weeks so far with that goal and only that goal in mind, and so far I feel fantastic.

So, this is my take on being an intelligent meat head.

I hope this inspires you to train hard.

 We have a 10,000 square foot facility. La-de-dah.