There’s this idea that’s been floating around for years in the “rah rah” motivational community.

It’s the notion that you want to completely exhaust your body of everything it has, do everything to the max and skid into home plate as you take your last breath, whereupon you proclaim, “Oooh baby, what a ride.”

I don’t think I have ever been a fan of this mindset.

Yes, I’ve driven myself to exhaustion in the past, and it’s not something I recommend.

I’ve pushed my body to the point of failure.

And I did so because I honestly believed that this was the secret to  progress.

Gradually, I began to see the light. Indeed, there was a different approach that yielded even better results.

In martial arts training, there’s the “eat bitter” method and there’s the “sweet and sour” method.

There’s the method where you view your body as a machine, assuming that it will never break down; and there’s the idea that your body is NOT a machine, and you want to take care of it intelligently in order to get the most out of it.

You can drive yourself to exhaustion with every exercise you do and get results, but you can do the opposite and get even better results.

You can skid into home plate while taking your last breath, or you can walk into a room at 100+ years of age, with all your faculties still functioning and take a seat on the floor.

Then you look into the eyes of your students and proclaim, “Pay close attention to today’s lesson. I’m only going to cover it once.”

You inhale deeply as the students watch closely, totally unaware of what is about to happen.

Then you exhale.

It is your final exhale.

And that’s all she wrote.

This scenario may not be appealing to you. You may be prefer to skid into home plate instead.

When it comes to physical exercise, you can follow the “drive yourself to exhaustion” method, going until your body cannot do it anymore.

Or you can train to feel good, to increase your strength and energy, to minimize injury and extend your life.

All forms of exercise where you drive your body to exhaustion tamper with the brain and nervous system. When you’re younger, when you’re working toward winning championships and such, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to do, even though there’s a price to be paid later on for doing so.

But once you get past the 40-year mark, it’s more than a bit wise to recognize that your body is not a machine. This is when you begin to train for longevity.

Biologically speaking, the goal in life is more life, not less.

This is why I practice Power Postures on a daily basis. It gives me more of that highly prized electro-magnetic energy that gets the job done for me with “effortless effort.”

If you want to get more living out of life, this approach is the way to go.

Here endeth the lesson.

Matt Furey