Shred more fat than running, build more muscle than regular push-ups
Contrary to jogging and the standard pushup routine, a proper bodyweight circuit can activate close-to-all of your muscle groups, creating a greater caloric deficiency overtime by increasing your metabolism through hormone production. Thus more fat can be burned, more muscle development occurs, and you’ll be able to attract the opposite sex without the need of cute puppy’s (although, it can be a bonus).
But if you're already using weight training, bodyweight circuits is a must-have incorporation to your routines in order to obtain a more natural, loose, and defined look (at Leader's Fitness, we have a problem with "stiff-looking" douchebags, and we're not even sorry). On top of the extra fat-burn and muscle gain, you'll start feeling more flexible and athletic through it's incorporation; you know the benefits of these add-ons.
That sounds fucking insane! How do I get started?!
The interwebz is filled with just as much useful material as there is bullshit. Since I’m a fitness professional and I do care about my readers, I organized a resource list of the programs that are worthwhile—that I’ve tested myself—to avoid you from falling under the enslavement of “magic solutions” marketing crap. Also, I’ve created a small routine you can get started right away—you can send me the love mail AFTER you start getting results.
Paul Gabriel Mihalescu, author of Leader’s Aesthetics, is the Co-Founder of Wolf-Pack Fitness Systems and a Montreal city-based trainer, coach, writer, and social dynamics know-it-all. Having trained, coached and mentored clients of all different profiles such as singers, models, athletes, and average Joes, Paul is viewed as a leading fitness-expert and persona engineer.
Always self-experimenting with all his methods, Paul quickly became the go-to expert that has hands-on experience and a unique approach in educating the public. His reputation amongst clientele has spread as the “Physical Phenomenon and Designer of Leaders.”
You can read more of Paul’s work and badassification process at www.PaulMihalesu.com
What can rappers learn from Steve Jobs's philosophy on disruptive technology? Read on...
Artists in hip hop, moreso than any other genre it seems, recycle themes. I wonder what percent of rap music would fall into the category “everything else” if you took out all the tracks that are either about having a ton of money or about not having enough. The sad part is, hip hop affords artists 5 times more words per song than any other form of music, and yet the vast majority of rappers don't utilize all those words to do anything creative or different.
After B.O.B. and Eminem on “Airplanes,” Big Sean with “Finally Famous” before that and 50 Cent's “Get Rich or Die Trying” before that, I wonder if listeners are ever going to hear the latest rapper’s story about making it, about getting rich and no longer having to be broke like the listeners making him rich, and finally say, “This story is washed up--I don’t care.” Do you still care?
If you don't, and you want to hear (or write yourself) more interesting stories, then fortunately right now is prime time for a creative upheaval.
Twitter and Facebook have killed the messenger and given every listener a vote in a new democracy of content. Artists no longer need to cater to middlemen A&Rs or stand still for lack of a marketing budget. The best marketing for an artist at any level is a Facebook share or ReTweet that spreads the message to new listeners and potential fans. This new form of marketing doesn’t cost a dime.
But have artists fully realized the enormity of this shift? A lot of musicians complain about the mainstream garbage listeners consume, and presumably want. But maybe, as Steve Jobs put it, consumers don’t know what they want until you show them.
Maybe, as newer artists take creative risks and publish inventive, groundbreaking material, the familiar rags-to-riches and brag-about-riches stories in rap will start to lose people’s interest once they suddenly have to compete with an army of hungrier, more imaginative rappers bearing no record deals nor creative boundaries.
Before diving into what the future of hip hop might hold, let’s take a second on some philosophical housekeeping:
Why do people listen to music?
Aristotle would argue (and I agree) that people do what they do—including listen to music—in pursuit of an experience. People go to med school so that they can get a good job to get money to get a Lambourghini to have the experience of driving a Lambourghini (and all that comes with it). Likewise, music is just a conduit that people use in pursuit of some journey or emotion. The endgame is always an experience.
With that in mind, let’s explore three categories of listener experiences that rappers in the new economy can explore in outdueling mainstream artists who will never stray from their old formulas.
1. Revelation
Definition: Creating a listener realization is a kind of micro story, in that there is provocation (the lyrics) and a resolution (Aha! moment), in which the listener plays a key role.
Takes Some Thought
PhD Shit
Big Question: How could you plant the seeds of revelation for listeners in a way that’s never been done before?
2. Theme Music for Real Life
Definition: Making music for people to bump as a backdrop to their own life stories. If fans play your music during positive experiences, they will quickly form a positive association to your music.
Big Question: What other experiences in life have rappers neglected to address?
3. Music That Evokes A Feeling
Aside: one emotion that I’m loath to include is “feeling awe at a rapper’s technical skill.”
The beautiful thing about technical skill in rap is that it complements any of the above strategies…except swag rap, where skill probably takes away from that particular listener experience.
The important point about pure technical skill in rap is that making it (and by it of course we mean money) as an entertainer is not like making it as an athlete; it is not a meritocracy. The most skilled football players, basketball players, and baseball players and in the world are all multimillionaires. Is the same true for the most skilled singers, rappers, and actors?
The bad news? A lot of your entertainment value besides skill is more or less fixed--obviously your looks and the sound of your voice on record are big ones.
Still, if you can make music that evokes a feeling, nothing else really matters.
Ask Adele and all her millions about that.
...Aside complete.
Every Artist Has His (or Her) Niche
Until I hear otherwise, I’m going to bet that Wiz Khalifa isn’t capable of jaw-dropping technical skill. Rick Ross can’t show emotional vulnerability. Soulja Boy can’t do self-deprecating humor. I personally think Eminem was/is so dominant because he was that once-in-a-generation artist that could write to almost any emotion and make it work…Really, what bullet point above has he not done?
But every artist is not Eminem. It’s much easier to write songs like your influences, which have proven formulas—and, with them, self-imposed creative boundaries.
It’s much more difficult to grab listeners with something different. More often than not, you will waste hours of your time and fill the trash bin up with crumpled notebook paper. Even if you do write something you think is dope and you release it, you run the risk that it will be corny to others and you could get laughed at.
Or, you might make a name for yourself with something incredible. The beauty of being unsigned is that you have nothing to lose. That’s an enviable position to be in, from the perspective of any big-name artist with an image to maintain and expectations from fans and execs about what kind of music they need to put out next.
The next big thing in hip hop, then, isn’t coming from any artist you know about today. It can’t. Those artists are already successful, already content, already too marred by expectations to try something insane because they know how failures at that level can derail careers. If you’re writing raps in your basement, and most of your fans are friends, failure is not in your vocab.
Look at your video or song. Ask yourself, is this something that a complete stranger would watch and feel that they had to share?
Good music markets itself. If you’re a fan of Wax (as I am), look at New Crack. When a friend first showed me that video, I said “goddamn this is dope” and I went out of my way to show it to a bunch of my other friends the next time we were all huddled around a computer—all without ever interacting with a promotion from Wax.
It’s my opinion that people today want to be genuinely intrigued. They are bombarded with stupid content every day and even spend their own time sifting through materials in hopes that they’ll “stumble upon” something unfamiliar and awesome.
Make something that will stand out enough to compel an average stranger to post it for all 700 of their Facebook friends to check out and do the same.
Hip hop needs it.
Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University, has published a fascinating appraisal of human psychology in the realm of dating. His premise is that, more often than not, beautiful people avoid dating prospects on lower rungs; if such a mismatch occurs, there is probably power, or (sometimes) personality to compensate.
Ariely has the best job in the world. He designs experiments that empirically test the observations we made at the middle school lunch table and writes about them in his books on behavioral economics. In the chapter "Hot or Not?" from The Upside of Irrationality, Ariely takes a scientific look at our proverbial "what is she doing with him?" reactions, usually left for pop radio morning talk shows.
Do we drastically limit our prospects for love by standards of lust? Ariely, I think, is stepping into a vast frontier of sociological norms and mores that have been largely neglected by the social sciences. One phenomenon in particular that Ariely examines is the sour grapes strategy.
The concept alludes to Aesop's fable "The Fox and the Grapes," in which a thirsty fox sees a bunch of grapes high up on a branch, but, after several attempts jumping for them, finds that the grapes are too high and thus out of his reach. Having finally given up, the fox walks away, mumbling, "I'm sure they were sour anyway." In Ariely's summation, "the sour grapes concept derived from this tale is the idea that we tend to scorn that which we cannot have" (199).
Ariely then summarizes a series of experiments he used to test the strategies we humans use when we, like the fox, want something (or someone) we can't have. He hypothesizes three reactions that people might employ upon realizing that the gorgeous blonde at the bar is unattainable:
1. Alter our perception of beauty.
(as in, "Actually, I prefer fat women"—adjusting our preferences to who's realistically in our league).
2. Consider other attributes.
(as in, "While I'd prefer the hottie, I do value a good sense of humor"—finding contentment in personality, which is within our league).
3. Don't adapt.
(as in, "I don't like fat women. I prefer the blonde, can't have her, and I'll never adapt to my position in the dating hierarchy").
Through a number of interesting experiments, Ariely concludes that we generally settle into option #2. We prefer the beautiful, while also adapting our desires toward more attainable criteria, such as humor.
Game Theory and dating economics, a la John Nash/ Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind:
In his conclusion, Ariely articulates his own optimistic take on adaptive devaluation (the sour grapes strategy), celebrating the human ability to live with limitations. He writes, "Instead of merely settling for [an unattractive partner], we really do end up changing our perspectives, and in the process increasing our love of the person who is behind the mask of their face and body." Aw.
I wonder if Ariely recognizes the irony in his cheerful take on adaptation: his optimism seems like an adaptive response itself. As Ariely poses the dilemma earlier in the chapter, "Assortative mating [read: hotties sticking with hotties] is good news for the men and women sitting on the top rung of the attractiveness ladder, but what does it mean for the majority of us on the middle or lower rungs?"
Having discovered that, "for the majority of us," assortative mating means settling (adjusting preferences to limitations, whichever you prefer), it is clear that there is some meta-adaptation at work for Ariely and his readers. How do people cognitively adapt to the knowledge that they adapt?
For this question, I think we can rework Ariely's model.
After reading Ariely's work, and discovering that I'm inclined to "settle" for what I can get, I have three possible reactions:
1. Change my feelings about adaptation.
(This seems to be Ariely's take at the end of the chapter--as in, "I like adaptation. This way, unattractive people are forced to value deeper traits, such as humor and kindness, and thereby learn to love their partners for more than their bodies.)
2. Admire adaptation to a degree, while also holding some reservations.
(Adaptation is neat, I agree, but don’t all relationships—hot or not—force couples to see beyond the “mask of their body”? Isn’t it also troubling that my adaptation rules out a whole fraction of hotter partners, with whom I might (if I could just win a date) fall deeply in love?)
3. Don't adapt to adaptation.
(as in, "Adapting is a nice word for what we're really doing--settling. Worse, it's delusional and compromises our ability to think objectively. There's no reason to think that unattainable grapes are sour.*)
Where along these views do you fall? We know Ariely subscribes to the first view (or maybe he pretends to for continuity...after all, the book is called The Upside of Irrationality). What's your take on "settling" and the economics of dating?
*Topic for a future post: The best predictor of a person's behavior and attitudes might just be his inherent limitations. It would be an interesting experiment (maybe newsworthy, in this economy) to survey people about, say, money, and compare respondents' attitudes with their financial situations. I suspect there is a significant correlation between low income and low prioritization of money. Causation might be tough to measure, though. Do people lack money because they believe "money isn't everything," or do people develop the belief "money isn't everything" because they don't have any in the first place? Attitudes, after all, are much more malleable than the lottery of looks and money we're dealt in life and forced to adapt to.
@kingpreface
Dan Ariely, a professor of behavioral economics at Duke University, has published a fascinating appraisal of human psychology in the realm of dating. His premise is that, more often than not, beautiful people avoid dating prospects on lower rungs; if such a mismatch occurs, there is probably power, or (sometimes) personality to compensate.
Ariely has the best job in the world. He designs experiments that empirically test the observations we made at the middle school lunch table and writes about them in his books on behavioral economics. In the chapter "Hot or Not?" from The Upside of Irrationality, Ariely takes a scientific look at our proverbial "what is she doing with him?" reactions, usually left for pop radio morning talk shows.
Do we drastically limit our prospects for love by standards of lust? Ariely, I think, is stepping into a vast frontier of sociological norms and mores that have been largely neglected by the social sciences. One phenomenon in particular that Ariely examines is the sour grapes strategy.
The concept alludes to Aesop's fable "The Fox and the Grapes," in which a thirsty fox sees a bunch of grapes high up on a branch, but, after several attempts jumping for them, finds that the grapes are too high and thus out of his reach. Having finally given up, the fox walks away, mumbling, "I'm sure they were sour anyway." In Ariely's summation, "the sour grapes concept derived from this tale is the idea that we tend to scorn that which we cannot have" (199).
Ariely then summarizes a series of experiments he used to test the strategies we humans use when we, like the fox, want something (or someone) we can't have. He hypothesizes three reactions that people might employ upon realizing that the gorgeous blonde at the bar is unattainable:
1. Alter our perception of beauty.
(as in, "Actually, I prefer fat women"—adjusting our preferences to who's realistically in our league).
2. Consider other attributes.
(as in, "While I'd prefer the hottie, I do value a good sense of humor"—finding contentment in personality, which is within our league).
3. Don't adapt.
(as in, "I don't like fat women. I prefer the blonde, can't have her, and I'll never adapt to my position in the dating hierarchy").
Through a number of interesting experiments, Ariely concludes that we generally settle into option #2. We prefer the beautiful, while also adapting our desires toward more attainable criteria, such as humor.
Game Theory and dating economics, a la John Nash/ Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind:
In his conclusion, Ariely articulates his own optimistic take on adaptive devaluation (the sour grapes strategy), celebrating the human ability to live with limitations. He writes, "Instead of merely settling for [an unattractive partner], we really do end up changing our perspectives, and in the process increasing our love of the person who is behind the mask of their face and body." Aw.
I wonder if Ariely recognizes the irony in his cheerful take on adaptation: his optimism seems like an adaptive response itself. As Ariely poses the dilemma earlier in the chapter, "Assortative mating [read: hotties sticking with hotties] is good news for the men and women sitting on the top rung of the attractiveness ladder, but what does it mean for the majority of us on the middle or lower rungs?"
Having discovered that, "for the majority of us," assortative mating means settling (adjusting preferences to limitations, whichever you prefer), it is clear that there is some meta-adaptation at work for Ariely and his readers. How do people cognitively adapt to the knowledge that they adapt?
For this question, I think we can rework Ariely's model.
After reading Ariely's work, and discovering that I'm inclined to "settle" for what I can get, I have three possible reactions:
1. Change my feelings about adaptation.
(This seems to be Ariely's take at the end of the chapter--as in, "I like adaptation. This way, unattractive people are forced to value deeper traits, such as humor and kindness, and thereby learn to love their partners for more than their bodies.)
2. Admire adaptation to a degree, while also holding some reservations.
(Adaptation is neat, I agree, but don’t all relationships—hot or not—force couples to see beyond the “mask of their body”? Isn’t it also troubling that my adaptation rules out a whole fraction of hotter partners, with whom I might (if I could just win a date) fall deeply in love?)
3. Don't adapt to adaptation.
(as in, "Adapting is a nice word for what we're really doing--settling. Worse, it's delusional and compromises our ability to think objectively. There's no reason to think that unattainable grapes are sour.*)
Where along these views do you fall? We know Ariely subscribes to the first view (or maybe he pretends to for continuity...after all, the book is called The Upside of Irrationality). What's your take on "settling" and the economics of dating?
*Topic for a future post: The best predictor of a person's behavior and attitudes might just be his inherent limitations. It would be an interesting experiment (maybe newsworthy, in this economy) to survey people about, say, money, and compare respondents' attitudes with their financial situations. I suspect there is a significant correlation between low income and low prioritization of money. Causation might be tough to measure, though. Do people lack money because they believe "money isn't everything," or do people develop the belief "money isn't everything" because they don't have any in the first place? Attitudes, after all, are much more malleable than the lottery of looks and money we're dealt in life and forced to adapt to.
@kingpreface
Music. Expression through song and sound, spanning across the world coming in many different flavors. It’s a factor in many people’s lives, gives some people comfort, gives some people motivation, even gives some people life. In today’s society, music is as prevalent as ever.