Don’t take the question in the headline personally, dude. Chances are that some of you are truly muscle jocks. If you’re one of them, congrats: you can skip this article. If you’re not, you really need to read this.
So what does making guy friends have anything to do with working out? More than you probably think. Sure, having muscle makes you tougher and makes you look better, but that’s not what I’m talking about at all. The reality is that, if you’re a male, upper body muscle is tremendously good for your health. Forty thousand years of evolution has programmed us men to do the heavy lifting – literally. It took muscle to throw our spears fast enough to kill the big animal that we went out to hunt with our bros. (If you had been born into a primitive society like that, you would certainly be much more buff than you are right now.)
What are the health benefits of bringing your muscles back to this “natural” state? For one thing, you’ll be happier. No joke. Strength training creates a spike in endorphins to your brain (much more than it does in women), and endorphins make you happy. It’s what they do. They’re basically the perfect drug. Another huge health benefit is that strength training makes it easier for oxygen to get from your blood into your brain, resulting in a brain that simply works better. It’s exactly the opposite of the dumb-jock myth: working out makes you smarter, not dumber.
Is there anyone reading this who doesn’t want to be both happier and smarter?
By now, most of you are probably thinking, “Great, but I don’t have 3 hours a day to shred in some gym.” Unless you’re planning to be a competitive body builder, you don’t have to spend anywhere near this much time. And you shouldn’t, anyway. I spend only 30 minutes every other day working on my muscle, and the difference between having that routine and not having it is like night and day. In the next installment, I’m going to spell out exactly what I do and why. See you then, dude.
