Task pairing

If you’re like me, you can’t stay focused on something for more than a few minutes, and it can become quite hard to get things done. I found a way to be able to keep working without having to take breaks every 15 minutes (or every 5 minutes for some tasks). And this is what I call “task pairing”.

The name should be speaking for itself, it’s about doing tasks in pairs. More precisely, alterning between two tasks on relatively short intervals of time.

Here’s a real-life example to illustrate it:

Let’s say that it’s saturday afternoon and I’m thinking about what I would like to get done before supper. I would like to read a chapter of a book, draw a comic, update my website and study for an upcoming test. In my case, writing and drawing for too long give me funny feelings in my hand, so I try to not overuse the same body parts in my pairings. So if my study method requires me to write things, I won’t pair it with drawing. And if studying requires some reading, which is probably the case, I won’t pair it with book reading either, or else the pairing will lose its meaning.

So if you catch my drift here, a good pairing is about doing two things that are not related, that don’t use the same habilities/senses and that use different body parts, whenever possible. The goal here is to alternate between two tasks that are different enough to eliminate boredom. In the case of the example above, I’ll choose to pair “Reading a book” with “Drawing a comic” and pair “Updating my website” with “Studying for my test”.

Now that my pairing is decided, all I have to do is to start doing those tasks. My personal way is to switch between the two tasks everytime I start to lose focus, which amounts to approximately every 5-10 minutes. So in short, it can look like this: 9 minutes of reading a book, 7 minutes of drawing, 12 minutes of reading a book, 6 minutes of drawing, and so on. Then when I consider that I’ve done enough reading and drawing, I’ll do the same thing with the “Update my website” and “Study for my test” pair.

By using this method I feel “fresh” while accomplishing my tasks and my overall work time is greater, which isn’t the case if I try to do the same activity for a whole hour without break. The time interval doesn’t have to be random, you can adjust it to something that fits your liking or depending on the nature of your tasks, like a fixed time of 15 minutes for each task for example. But if you come to the point where you switch after more than half an hour between tasks, I don’t think that the effect will be noticeable and you probably don’t have much attention deficit.

The blocking element

This is just a name I made up, it probably has a real name, but anyway I needed a title. The blocking element, as I call it, is a task, a desire, a thought, or just a possible action that you constantly have on your mind and which you’re not doing. It seems to be closely related to procrastination. I feel it all the time, that “I have to do …, but before I have to do …”. You have a task A, that you wait for the right time to accomplish it, and you have task B, which relies on the completion of A, and maybe you have C that relies on A and/or B and so on. So if you’re still following up to here, the blocking element is task A, and will become task B once the first is done and so on. I’m pretty sure it’s human nature to have more projects than time to accomplish them, so to me the problem isn’t the projects and ideas themselves but more of how we can be able to take as much as we can out of our head and put them in real life.

It can be anything, for me it can be as simple as to say that I can’t play video games if I haven’t at least written a few lines on an article. Or it can be more complex like not being able to put as much effort as I want into my training program because I work too much and I’m too tired. And it can be a lot more complex, these are just example that came to me at the moment.

There is two categories, one that you have power on, and the other that you don’t. The two examples above are totally in my control. I could decide to concentrate and write an article, then play video games, or play video games first then write. For the second, I also have the choice, I could just find an easier job, or ask my boss to reduce my workload, or I could change my workout plan to make it fit better with my current lifestyle. These are not necessarily easy choices to make, but they are in your reach nonetheless. But we don’t have the power over everything, let’s say you want to be a graphic designer but you don’t have the qualifications to get a job in this field. So unless you managed to become really skilled by yourself and being also able to prove it to potential employers, you’ll have to go to art school to get a degree proving that you can actually do the job. In that case, “task A: getting an art degree” is required before “task B: find a graphic designer job” and you can’t make it faster than the actual time it takes to do take the degree. I won’t talk about this particular one because there is nothing else to do than wait.

What I have more interest in, is what we can actually change. I didn’t find any magic trick to allow myself to procrastinate less and act more, I think it’s mostly just a matter of self-discipline and I can’t really give advice about that.

Remember that scene from one of Harry Potter’s movies where he has to catch a flying key? I feel like all my ideas and tasks are floating around in my head like those keys. I now try to write most of these ideas somewhere so it feels less like a mess and I can concentrate more on doing than worrying.

I noticed that when I wait for something to happen, nothing moves and nothing happens, but when I finally decide to act (understand here: do task B before task A), everything seem to just fall in place. Maybe not in the way I first thought it would, but it comes to an end anyway and this is what’s important, to get things done. I’ll give you an example that happened not long ago. So I was looking to find a programming job, and seeing that there wasn’t much choice where I live, I sent an application for a job in a city far enough so that I would have to move there if I got the job. I got a phone interview and then 2-3 weeks passed without news. At that moment I just thought that they chose someone else. But the thing is that I was waiting on this to decide if I was to renew my lease for the apartment I am currently living in. I finally just said to myself “f**t it I’ll stay here another year”, signed the renew form, and you know what? The next day I got a email from the company.

Take it any way you want, whether it could just have been bad luck or a sign from the universe that I wasn’t meant to go there, I made a choice and acted towards it, and the block was cleared. I can now concentrate on another blocking element, and another, and another, etc, until I die. But don’t go thinking that blocking elements are only related to “formal” things like paperwork and “adult” tasks and responsibilities. If for example, you’re a musician, and are telling yourself something like “When I’ll be good enough at playing my instrument, I’ll play in a band”, you’re blocking yourself too. Because there is no such thing as “being good enough to…”. Practicing will make you better, of course, and so is playing in a band, for totally different reasons. There is musicians of every level so you have the possibility to find people at the same level as you and there can even be some people willing to give you a chance anyway, you have to try.

In the end, the amount of blocking elements you’ll be able to clear is proportional to what you’ll be able to accomplish. The more you’ll clear blocks, the more you’ll move forward to your goals and the more you’ll give yourself the chance to reach success in the things that are important to you.

Pass the time

Today I heard something sad, while eating at the restaurant I heard someone say “it passes the time” to someone else.

It seems like an harmless comment but it made me think a little. Because “making the time pass”, means that you’re looking for ways of “wasting” it. Like if you were saying “I have too much of it so I need to find ways of making it disappear”. Let’s take another example so you know where I’m going with this: some people just make too much money, so they are trying to fill a void by buying a bigger house, a better car, a bigger boat, new clothes, etc. In short, they are wasting their money because they have so much of it that they don’t care anymore.

So when someone feels that he/she has too much time, he/she has the same kind of behaviour. Finding meaningless ways of using the excess. And while it’s not much of a problem with money because it’s just about material things, wasting your time has a lot more consequences in my opinion.

And why is it worse to waste time? When you’ll get near the end of your money, you’ll be aware of it, and you’ll be able to take measures to avoid hitting the bottom of the tank. So you’ll either stop wasting it, make better investments or sell some stuff. But it’s not possible to earn more time nor can you get some of it back either, what is gone is gone forever. And this is the reason why “passing the time” is sad.

Personally, I can’t even understand how someone can have too much time, because I’m always doing something, so I’m rarely bored. I always keep my mind filled with ideas and projects, and I spend my time working on them. So I don’t consider my time wasted because what I do with it is fulfilling me in some way or another. And I also feel like every day is too short. But when you can genuinely say that you “pass the time”, it means that you’re not fulfilling yourself with activities, hobbies or any other tasks. And this is where it gets sad, because it means that you’re just waiting to die. You’re not investing that time in something or someone, you’re just letting it disappear before you eyes. You’re not making the world better or worst, you’re just being an observer.

I’ve been an observer in our world for many years, I’ve wasted a lot of time and today I regret it. And I don’t see why anyone else wouldn’t regret it either, I don’t think anybody likes to waste things, so why would we do it with one of our most precious resource, time itself?

Don’t take this article the wrong way by thinking that all your time must be filled with work. I’m not saying that we should all stop playing video games, watching TV and browsing social media, but the thing is to not go overboard with it and use your free time in a way that you won’t regret once you’re old.

If you already know what you passions are, devote more time to them. If you don’t know yet what is meaningful to you, open your mind, try new things and get out of your confort zone, so you have the chance of finding what you love.

Taking control over your own life

It seems easy, and if we don’t take the time to think about it deeply, we can also think that we already are in control. But are we?

Are you thinking freely? Or are you constantly trying to do what others are expecting you to? Are you trying to appeal to people you don’t even know? Do you feel like you are what you are now because of something or someone else than yourself?

Then maybe it’s time to take control of your own life. In my opinion, it’s more of a psychological drill than anything else, but it will have a lot of impact on your physical life too. The concept is really simple, yet, like many other things, hard to apply concretely.

Like I just said, the most part of it has to happen in our head, and the rest will follow. We have to take responsability for what we have now, and for what we are. There is some randomness in our lives, we didn’t choose the conditions in which we were born and raised, but as grown adults, we can decide what we do for ourselves. The past is gone, it’s time to concentrate on what we can do now and in the future. The choices we made before have lead us to the present moment, whether we were in total control of ourselves or influenced by someone/something else. We have to accept what we have done and accept that it was ours. No matter if the outcome has been good or bad, we chose it. If you’re currently in a bad relationship, or have a job you hate, just remember that you chose that path, no matter how much other factors were pushing you in that direction, you took the final decision. And don’t see it as a bad thing. Because once you take responsibility for it, it feels less of a burden, because it will also remind you that if you chose to be part of it, you can choose to get out of it too.

We also can’t decide what are our talents, qualities and flaws. We have to work with what nature gave us. And it’s not a bad thing either, we all have our unique combination of aptitudes and incompetences, we just have to make the best out of it. Stop that “working on your flaws to get better” bullshit that keeps you average and start exploiting what you’re already naturally good at, which really gives you a chance of shining at something. The rest will come naturally.

It’s a mental thing, try it for yourself, make a choice, while keeping in mind that YOU are deciding and see for yourself. Sweep out what your friends and family will think, brush out what other people will think of you, decide as an individual. There’s a great chance the choice you’ll make will be different than what you would have expected. Why? Because you made the choice for yourself, knowing that the outcome would also be yours.

Now you may be thinking that I’m encouraging you to act selfishly, and you would be half right. Let me say it that way: if you don’t take care of yourself, who will? The answer is nobody, or someone who will benefit from it, so you’re alone in the end. But don’t worry, there’s something else too. Imagine yourself having control over your life, what will your life be like? You’ll probably be more at peace with yourself and have a better self-confidence knowing that you actually have the power to change things. And if you’re living well with you own self, you’ll naturally spread positive energy and inspire people around you, whether it be by your happiness or by what you create by following the path you were made for. So in the end, your selfishness benefits everyone.

Perfectionism as a beginner

Think about it for a second, perfectionism is about pushing a work as closest to perfection as possible. And being a beginner is about starting to do something new, which we don’t have any or few experience doing. So how can we make something perfect when we don’t even have the capacity to do so?

Am I telling you to stay in your confort zone and never learn anything for reason of not being able to do it perfectly? Obviously not, I’m telling you to stop caring about perfection and start working while knowing that your first projects and/or creations, whatever they are, won’t be fully satisfying. What you will instead get in return will be some knowledge and experience in the said discipline which will make your next project a little closer to what you expect it to be.

I recently started drawing manga style characters, and they were awfully bad looking. But everytime I have the chance I draw one more and little by little they are starting to look more and more like what I’m seeing in manga and anime. So if in the beginning I was expecting perfection, I would probably have stopped there and never draw again because I wasn’t physically capable of attaining that level. But I decided to accept the imperfection of what I was doing, allowing me to continue doing it and getting closer to my goal of drawing something that looks like what it is supposed to.

It’s not just about learning an art form, it can be applied to anything that has to be learned, whether it’s learning a new language, mechanics, gardening, etc. You have to go through the unsatisfying part to someday get to the satisfying one. And the way to do it is to accept the imperfection.

Why do I write?

The other day, I was driving back from the grocery store and I was thinking about an article I was writing just before and it hit me, the question, “why do I have a blog and why am I writing on it?”. The answer came as fast as the question, I write because I have something to say… and no one to hear it. That’s it, I have no one in my life who is able at the moment to receive what I have to give, so I write it on the internet to relieve myself of a message, and in hope that someday, somewhere, someone will be able to receive it and understand it.

I find it pretty sad in a way, but also nice at the same time. It’s sad to be alone and not being able to share something deep with someone, really. Not that I don’t have a family or friends, just no one that can really understand my depth. Which as a consequence, makes me write for the internet instead of directly talking to people. But like we say in french: “les paroles s’envolent et les écrits restent”, which means that what we say is soon to be forgotten but what’s written is there to stay, also meaning that what I write will be able to reach people even after I forget about it.

Another reason why I write, which is less “selfish” as we could say, is to help people, or simply to make the world a better place by sharing things that may not be obvious for everyone, one article at a time. I hope that somebody reads what I write and that it makes their life better in some way, whether it saves someone some time on an IT related problem or encourages someone to make positive changes in his/her life. At some point in my life, I felt like I was receiving a lot more than I was giving. So I now try to give what I can instead of just keeping everything for myself.

Writing also seems to be the best way for me to express myself, because when I write, I can take all the time I need to choose the right words to really express things the way I want to express them. While speaking I mostly just try to fit the most words I can before the other person starts talking again. But also when speaking to someone, what the other person says will make me think of something else and I’ll change subject, when I write, I can concentrate on one subject and take it all out.

So yeah I love writing and I’ll certainly won’t stop as long as I’m able to do it!

Understanding the weight in weight lifting

I’ve been a gym member for 10 years and I’ve been training seriously (with goals and some base knowledge about lifting) for about 3 years now, and it’s only today that I understood what “weight” was. Not literally, but in a weight training context. I used to train with weights that made me unconfortable, weights that made me do about 8 to 12 reps (the normal bodybuilders’ rep range for hypertrophy), without really trying to lift more the next week. Just lifting the same weights week after week until I felt that I could put a little more on the bar or take a bigger dumbbell. I have not seen much progression in strength, even though I lost a great amount of fat and gained muscle mass. I was getting fitter, but not stronger.

A few weeks ago, I made a new workout program with the objectives of getting stronger, which meant putting more weight and doing less reps. As a beginner in “strength”, I figured that I better get myself used to a 3-6 reps range for this program, strength programs don’t normally allow more than 5 reps per set, and generally around 1 to 3 reps per set. I also decided to write everything I do in a notebook, what exercices, for how many sets and reps, and also the amount of weight used. So at each training, I know exactly what I did last time, so if I was able to do more reps than the program allowed, I add some weight to make the rep count drop.

I’ve been doing this program for about two months now, and I know pretty much the exact “max” weight I can take to stay in the rep range I defined. In fact, after just a month it was already clear. And I must say that this method has already shown me that I’m much stronger than I thought I was. And this is exactly where the title of this article takes its meaning. I understood what “weight” was, especially “heavy weight”. I can’t count how many times I read “lift heavy” in bodybuilding/fitness articles, I thought I knew what it meant, but I didn’t. I especially experienced its true meaning while doing deadlifts and shoulder presses at about a month into my program. So like I said earlier, now that I write everything in my notebook, I can make progress towards lifting the more weight I can while still being in a safe range for my body (because it prevents me from randomly choosing too much weight).

Ok, first, if you know a little about strength, you probably know that the main exercises used to compare lifters to each others are the bench press, the squat and the deadlift. It seems to be the bare minimum to squat and deadlift at least your own bodyweight (not bodyweight squatting and deadlift but doing squats and deadlifts with a bar that weights as much as yourself), and doing twice your bodyweight on these exercises before you can even consider yourself being a strong person. Bench press seems to be at 1.75x your bodyweight. As a beginner, my goal is to get to squat and deadlift my bodyweight, which is about 180 pounds.

So, that day I was at the 155 pounds mark on my deadlift, and I understood two things, what a real deadlift is, and what “heavy weight” is (I haven’t got the same feeling with squats yet, but I’m sure it’s coming soon too). From what I’ve said just before, 155 pounds is not much weight for a deadlift, but for my current level, it is. Until that day, I’ve been deadlifting around 135 pounds (one 45 pounds plate on each side and the barbell itself), which was enough to get me tired, and maybe working my lower back a little, but not much else. I just had to watch my form to do it correctly. But at a weight near my current limit, things got quite different. It wasn’t only about keeping good form anymore, it was about doing everything I could to keep my body from collapsing to the ground. I have to admit that I still didn’t feel much in my legs, but my core (lower back and abs) was ready to burst out of me as well as my forearms and traps. At this moment I realized how much every muscles have to work together to make it happen. And I can’t achieve this muscle concerto with light/moderate weights. So this is it, lifting heavy means that the weight is so heavy that you have no other choice than to solicit nearly every muscles in your body to manage to do each rep.

The same thing happened to me while doing heavy barbell shoulder presses (standing), it wasn’t as obvious as it was while doing deadlifts because I had to put a lot less weight on the bar to be able to lift it over my head. But the end result is really similar. With light to moderate weights, it’s a shoulder movement, with heavy weights, it becomes a lot more because all the rest of the body has to stay tight to avoid collapsing under the bar. The first few times, I thought that my back was about to bend backward under the pressure, to finally realize that contracting my glutes and core would make the movement workable without pain (and keeping me from collapsing under the bar).

So from a movement targeting few muscles with light weights, it soon becomes nearly a full body workout just by itself when you put enough plates on the bar. One last note before closing this article, when I say max weight for an exercise, I mean the max weight I can lift while still being able to keep good form and while having the weight under control from start to finish. All this to minimize the risk of injury. Because there’s no use to being strong if you can’t actually use it because of injuries.

Learning method

I’m currently reading a few technical books and I thought it would be nice to share my method to make the most out of these readings. I’m most certaintly not the first one to use and talk about this method, but anyway, here it is.

This is a technique I’ve used for a several years now and it seems to fit well with me, it may not suit you as well, but you won’t know until you try it for yourself. I used it in college for studying computer science and I still use it today for pretty much anything involving the need to learn and/or memorize new information. At the moment, I’m learning japanese and reading a book about drawing techniques, I use the next method for both.

It’s basically done in 3 steps, but before going further I must specify that step 1 and step 2 are done at the same time, keep that in mind:

1- Read the original source of information.

You got to start somewhere, whether the source is a book, a magazine, an internet article or a tutorial, you have to read it all first. I take for granted that the source of information contains all the information needed to go around a subject. If it isn’t the case, the rest of the information lies probably somewhere else within your reach, it doesn’t change anything to the method itself beside the need of merging everything together at some point.

2- Take notes of the important things in a notebook as you read them.

It’s pretty important to do this step while reading, because you already have the information in front of your eyes and while you read, you can easily spot what you already know, what’s important to remember and what isn’t. So it’s the best time to note everything that will be useful to remember. The way you take notes in the notebook is a rather personal thing, just make sure that you’ll be able to understand when you’ll get to read them again in a few weeks/months/years. I personally have a strict set of rules that I try to constantly use in each notebook, a specific placement of text, empty lines, underlined titles, arrows and other visual cues. But it’s up to you to define what is the best for you. If you need to, draw sketches, tables or anything needed to make the notes clearer.

One thing that I recommend doing is to write all notes in your own words instead of just copying what you read. The reason is simple, summarizing a subject in your own words requires that you understand it, so if you can’t summarize, you haven’t understood (and won’t remember either). If that’s the case, just read again until you actually understand or seek for external help if needed. Another advantage of summarizing is that sometimes a whole paragraph (or more) will be used to explain something that can be said in one sentence.

3- Read the notes.

Now that you have completely read your book or whatever source of information it is, and that you’ve taken notes, all you have to do is read the notes you took. If you did it right, it should contain only useful, short and precise information. So if you need to study for a test, or just refresh your memory about this subject, you just have to read your notes and you’ll get all the information you need without having to read the whole book again. Your notes would normally cover the entire subject without the bloat.

Using a notebook isn’t essential, if you’re more of a computer person you can also use text files or other softwares. As long as you actually go through the three steps above, the container doesn’t make much difference as long as you’re able to understand the format. I personally use both notebooks and text files depending on context, but in my case it seems that writing by hand requires more cerebral activity than keyboard writing, making it more effective as a learning technique. When I say that handwriting requires “more cerebral activity”, I mean that writing words by hand makes my brain spend more time analyzing each word compared to writing on a keyboard where I sometimes write incoherent sentences without realizing it (requiring that I proofread what I write on this blog multiple times before posting).

The end

I think that this technique has two main benefits. The first one being that you initially go through the subject 3 times, you read it, you summarize it and then you write it down. So it’s almost as if you studied it three times in only one pass. The second one is that once you’ve got your notebook filled with notes, all you need to do is to read that notebook again to get all the useful information.

Multi-tasking as a human

I don’t care what we’re being told by scientists and other credible people, I can’t do only one thing at a time. I can’t concentrate on only one thing, whether it’s by habit because there is so much to do in life or just because I really was born this way (ADD, right-brain dominant or something like this).

I don’t know about anyone else than me, but in my case, I don’t lose focus if I switch between coding a complex algorythm and my Facebook feed every five minutes. I CAN work that way, maybe it takes longer to actually finish my work, but it get finished anyway eventually. And I’m not even sure if it really slows me down to work like that, because after a few minutes of working, I just stall and can’t concentrate anymore, so I need to switch to something else for a few minutes, and come back to continue for a few minutes and so on.

You are probably asking yourself “Where the hell does he work to be able to not get fired?”. The work I’m talking about is not my job work, but my work as a writer, drawer, musician, etc, i.e. the work I do for myself and where no boss is looking over my shoulder. Unless you are your own boss or have a really open minded one, you probably won’t be able to this on your job either. Even if I practice activities that I like doing like reading, writing and drawing, I get tired of it really fast. I need to switch between it and something else to be able get something done. For example, if I’m drawing a comic, I’ll start drawing the landscape, get tired of it after a few minutes, start drawing the characters on another layer, get tired, come back to the landscape, switch to my browser to look at my Twitter feed, come back to drawing characters, etc. All of this in a 10 minutes timespan (sometimes less).

For me it is more satisfying to do multiple things at once, that way instead of having done only one big thing at the end of the day, I have done a lot of smaller tasks and parts of bigger ones. Maybe I’ve done less total work than I should have, maybe more or maybe it’s the same amount, I don’t really care, at least I’m feeling like I’m going forward.

The only way I can do only one thing at a time, is when I’m confined in some place where I can physically only do the one thing I’m there for. And even when that’s the case, I manage to find ways of doing a little of everything at once. I just can’t work linearly. For example, this week I was repairing screen windows with my father (a batch of 70 screens), the job was simple, my father had to put a new screen on each frame, and I had to cut the excess screen around each frame and then sort all frames by class number. I basically had two jobs, cut the screens, and sort frames at the very end, but instead of doing that, I cut a few screens, then sorted a few of them, then came back to cutting, then sorted a few, etc. So even for a two-step linear job I couldn’t do it the “normal” way, I had to mix it up.

What I really want to say about this is that I don’t think that we should try to force ourselves to do things the normal way if it doesn’t feel right to do so. If you are reading this and asking yourself “How can he even manage do anything this way?” then don’t mind this article, but if you understand the feeling I’m talking about, then maybe everyday you’re fighting something that doesn’t need to be fought. Like I said earlier, it will probably be impossible to do it at your job where you’re expected to be a robot that obeys orders and doesn’t think for itself, but when you’re by yourself, if your mind keeps telling you to do multi-tasking, maybe it’s because you’re meant to work this way. If I force myself to work on a task until I finish it, at some point my mind will just wander elsewhere and I’ll start being inefficient until I do what it tells me to. So I won’t be progressing on my task no matter what, whether I’ll do something else or whether I just think about it, in all cases, I’m not doing anything useful to my main task. So I better be doing the second task for a few minutes so at least I’m doing something instead of just thinking about it.

The best thing would be to alternate between two or three tasks worth of your time, so in my example about programming and looking at Facebook, if I replace Facebook by another task that gets me a useful outcome, I’m winning at two places. It allows me to take a break of a task while still progressing on another task instead of wasting my time.

Remember, I’m not taking account of time here, so if you’re in a hurry to get something done, doing two things at once will surely make you finish later than you should. But if time is not a constraint, it could be the difference between practicing an activities for 15 minutes straight and stop because you’re tired of it, or practicing it for half of an hour in three shots of 10 minutes in-between doing other chores.

I see one exception to this though, when doing sports or training, taking breaks will cancel most benefits because it won’t be hard enough on your body. If you like lifting weights then the solution is to train in super-sets.

And as a last note, think for yourself and listen to your body and mind (unless it’s telling you to do bad things). Don’t just believe what others say no matter how famous or respectable they are, because they are talking from their point of view, and you are not them. If I had believed what we are told about productivity (only concentrate on one thing at a time), I would just work the normal way like everyone else and be frustrated because I would have the impression of not doing anything with my life. So I tried something else and found out that it worked better for me. And I’m convinced that it is true for everything else in life, listen and learn from others, but make up your own mind with experience.

Liquid confidence

You’re probably thinking about alcohol, but I want to talk about supplements instead. The article won’t be about talking to girls/guys at the bar but instead about how supplements help me make gains while training at the gym.

Some people say that protein shakes really make a difference, and some other say that it’s just expensive urine.

I’ll start with the “expensive urine” thing first. Pretty much everything you drink that isn’t water directly taken from the river IS expensive urine. You pay for everything you drink whether it’s juice you buy at the grocery store, your protein shake, or even tap water (your taxes). I’ll admit that some are cheaper than others, but nothing is really free in this world. So I choose to pee cookie and cream flavored protein powder instead of juice and soda.

I tried a few protein types, whey, isolate, rice and gainer (whey + maltodextrin + creatine + glutamine), and I recently tried electrolytes which is a blend of fast absorbing sugars and BCAAs. Beside flavor and texture, I can’t say with certitude that it made me gain more muscle mass than I would have without them (I’m not really big anyway), but there’s one thing I know, they make me train harder. “How is that?” you may say. It’s simple, sometimes when I workout, at some point I feel tired, or empty (energy wise), so I take my protein shake at that moment instead of waiting until the end of the workout. If I didn’t have it, I would probably strip off a few sets and get back home sooner. It gives me the confidence that I’ll make it to the end because I have something in my stomach other than just plain water from the fountain. So even if the powder itself would be a placebo, it would have the effect of making me do my whole workout instead of giving up in the middle of it.

The same thing goes for the electrolytes blend except that it is meant to be drank before and during the workout, so having already drank some of it before the workout, I already have the confidence that I have the energy I need to complete all my workout.

So when I talk about “liquid confidence”, I mean that the drink makes me believe that I’ll be good enough to do the whole workout without collapsing under a heavy pile of steel plates. Which itself is a benefit, more training = more gains.

I personally think that supplements can help us getting better results, but for me, even if they were just plain white powder, they would still have a positive effect on my gains.