3 little rituals to add intensity

If you are tired of your soft rituals like I was, here are three little suggestions to make your days a bit more scharf:

• cold showers
• wake up early in the morning
• lift heavy weights

Probably you don't like any of those bullet points. No worries, me neither. But when you are fucking done with it, it is a pretty good feeling, like you are at the top of the world. Small battles, small victories to boost mood.

cold showers

Let me guess your shower protocol:

1. You turn on the water, first half a minute goes to waste, because you are waiting the water to get warm.
2. Something is missing, maybe your favourite song or why not check what is trending on Pornhub? God bless smartphones.
3. And you are done, it only took 30 minutes, if it was a fast one.

Try cold showers. No waiting of boiler to heat up the water. You are going to forget about your phone. Why? Because you are entering a battlefield. Focus on your breathing, set the water max cold, get done with it.

There are many questions: how to, why, what. There is a dude, he committed to cold showers ONLY three years ago and wrote a great article about it.

Or check Wim Hof. He walks to mountains, full of snow, without a shirt and made a whole business around the so called "cold therapy".

Fancy benefits, according to the cold shower ONLY dude and Wim Hof team:

• increased circulation
• stronger immune system
• improved willpower
• improved ability to handle stress

Benefits for sure:

• save water
• save time
• feels great

wake up early in the morning

It is not the end of the world, if you wake up late — you shouldn't have your day ruined, like some people act, you can still turn it around and make it a killer day — but might be better if you wake up earlier.

I tried both:

• do it at night, wake up whenever you want (9-10am, whatever)
• wake up at 5am, do it in the morning

In the morning: you are fresh, rested, you can tackle anything.

In the evening/at night: it was a long, tiring day — can you really get more shit done or is it just hibernate for nothing instead of going to sleep?

Morning hour > night hour because morning energy > night energy.

Avoid shooting with empty gun in the evening: being awake =/= being effective. Go to sleep and kill it in the morning. Early to bed, early to wake up.

It is either you attacking the day OR the other way around. If you wake up at 5am, you can get tons of shit done, you check your watch and it is only what, 8am? Still whole day ahead of you? Psychologically, it lifts you up.

Here is a clip of former navy seal commanders explaining why they still wake up at 4:30 am — and why you should, too.

People are asleep at 5am, which means no disruptions. You have got time for yourself, you can concentrate, make things happen, take care of whatever is important to you.

It is not fun to wake up at 5am — by doing so, you practice self discipline.

To recap, why wake up early:

• with a proper sleep, morning energy is the most effective energy
• attack, beat the clock, lift yourself psychologically
• no disruptions
• practice self discipline

lift heavy weights

Mehdi from stronglifts.com says, you can train 7 times a week, but if you make it too easy, it is just a waste of time. Better to workout once per week and do it with proper intensity.

If your "workout" session looks something like:

• 30 pushups a day;
• stopping at the park with your buddy, chatting 40 minutes, exercise for 10 minutes;

that is great, but you can do better.

I never liked the idea of going to the gym:

• sounds so boring, dry
• too much of a hassle with relocating, you are losing time
• it is expensive OR if it is cheap, it gets crowded
• how to concentrate with all those Lelosi leggings, fuck me

You can do home/park bodyweight workouts adding homemade weights OR go for harder technique to add intensity — can get complex, involves a lot of thinking.

Lifting weights: it is super easy, brainless. Exactly what you need, when your head is tired. You want to make it more intense? Same exercise, same technique, just add weights.

If you have got around 1k eur to blow and some space, stop fucking around with cheap, impractical solutions. Or buying expensive gym memberships, to have access to xy bulky machines, you are never going to use. Build your own gym: simple and effective.

With basic equipment such as a

• barbell
• bench
• plates (weights)
• power rack

you will be able to do five compound exercises:

• squat
• bench press
• deadlift
• overhead press
• barbell row

and that is all what you need.

Go to stronglifts.com, you are going to like Mehdi (author). He knows, life is complicated enough, and makes it super easy with the workout routine.

Stop with high rep — no load nonsense (like 100 pushups a day); you will see no progress. Go with less repetition, increase the load.

Lift heavy: feel alive, feel great, look yourself in the mirror, boost confidence.