What the heck are you supposed to do on your rest days?? There are three main things: Move, move, oh, and every so often do absolutely nothing. "What?" You ask, "Then why aren't I at the gym?" Well you can be, but we've locked in on strength training which is only a piece of the whole picture. Our bodies evolved to pretty much move all the time. We evolved to squat sit, to walk and run great distances, to practice hobbies non-stop all day and to rest when it is time to rest. I call it intuitive resting. Basically you keep moving until your body rebels, and then you rest hard, you just lay down and watch the clouds overhead, or you sit at a fire and watch the flames, or in the modern sense you just watch a good show and move as much as a radish. For me, this happens every day around 12:45 pm and lasts until about 3:45/4:00 pm. For you it might be once a week, or once a month! But outside of that rest, you should be moving. So even when you're on your rest days there is no reason you shouldn't try to walk wherever you can go, dance across your kitchen, do yard work all day, or take up a sport of some kind. The major movements you need are some kind of mobility drill, some kind of heavy lifting, some kind of cardio, and a consistent walking regimen. Mobility is essential after about 25 years of age. Most of our joints need to be oiled in order to operate. There is very good reason you'll hear people say movement is medicine in this regard, and lifting alone will get you through a lot of the pains and open up deeper ranges of motion, but it is not enough to overcome them for good. So a good amount of explorative movement— weird stuff like tai chi or yoga will wake up those joints and allow them the fluid they need to stay mobile. And if you don't move them? Arthritis, calcium build up, gradually increasing joint pains. The heavy lifting you only need 2-3 times a week until you plateau, with a deep range of motion and progressively heavier weights over time.

Two of our Adventurer Codes of Conduct here at Bjorn cover sharing the floor. There's a few good reasons for this that I'd like to elaborate on here today. Following this part of the code will help you get the most out of any gym you go to after you graduate or whenever you travel. Every gym has limited equipment. Naturally whenever there is a limit to a resource people create systems of etiquette in order to ensure everyone gets full use of that resource. On the floor in all gyms this becomes to some degree a willingness to "work in" on people's sets. This means when I finish my set on the machine, I hop off and let you do your set. With machines this is easy, you just pull a pin out and move it for the next person. With plates there's a conversation involved, but the concept is the same, you cooperate to make sure the person working with you is getting the weight they need, and not the weight that is convenient for the both of you. Knowing and getting used to this is essential to always having the best possible experience in any gym you go to. Some people will be stronger than you, and the more cooperative you are with them, the more you'll both enjoy your workouts. Second comes down to rest times. A well shared floor accounts for your rest times in a way that distracts you from the boredom of resting. It's a lot easier to rest in between sets when you spend it moving plates, spotting your partner, and counting your partner's reps. Why should we care so much about rest times? Inadequate rest in between sets actually slows down your progress. Essentially, if you don't take time in between sets you waste more time in a gym rather than less! So working out with a partner whenever you can makes these rest periods far more interesting on the one hand, and more effective on the other. Third comes down to providing a space for others less experienced than you to develop. Each one of us has something to learn— and that learning comes easier when you have the opportunity to teach.

It seems like every time we turn around someone is asking us this question. The answer is hard because it depends on where you are in your workout, your overall fitness journey, how well you ate and slept over the past 24 hours, and what injuries you've had. Yet in every one of these cases is the same answer: More than you think you can today. "But I have an injury!" "But my knees are bone-on-bone!" "But I don't want to get bulky!" "But—" Stop. It's the same answer in ANY case, but each one depends on those cases. Whatever you think you can do for your working sets, go a little heavier. See if you can put yourself out of breath, or go for a heavier weight without pain, heavy enough to feel like you are overcoming the person you were yesterday. The movement will add fluid to your knee and will help improve it over time. The weight will get you over the borderline lie that you're somehow fragile. The attempt will show you something closer to what your limits actually are. You came to the gym to grow, to forge your body into something other than you have settled for in the past. That's why we call it the forge. So do not waste your money and our time avoiding your potential and defining yourself by what other people have said about you. The gym is a space built specifically for that purpose: to spend every moment building a better version of yourself. So, there's your answer. Go a little heavier.

A person I admire repeatedly tells his followers that you have to outwork your self-doubt because that is the only way to prove that you can do it. The thing is, if something has been done by a person, then it is well within reason that you can do it too. But all of us feel like we're falling behind along the way. We've built Bjorn on the principle that all of us are on our own adventure, our own journey through pains. Each of us is struggling in our own way or going through something that is difficult for us. For me, it has been the constant risk that comes with entrepreneurship, the pain of the things I have sacrificed to make this work, and the struggle to eat enough to reach my own goals. For you it might be years of displeasure with what you see in the mirror, the monotony of progress, or a spouse who isn't supportive. These problems are all solvable with enough consistency. But somewhere along the way it gets hard. And when things start to get hard that voice in our head keeps telling us to stop, that this hurts, that this isn't right-- why would anything good be hard? Why would anything good hurt? And that's the thing, when it gets hard we look for option B. We look for something easy to do. We are hard-wired for this as a species. Turns out, just doing more of what works is the best answer to this. Doing more of the hard thing is what wins in the end. Unfortunately, all things come with a trade off. For good things, that trade off is difficulty along the path. It's a feature of growth, not a bug. And it hurts. All good things actually sting a little, and I think that's what makes them all worth it in the end. So keep going. Trust in the process. Remember that self-love is holding yourself to a higher standard than everyone else does. And then love yourself. You got this, adventurer.