you need more tension in your life
the truth about getting stronger
Do you know the deep relationships in your life where there has never been an ounce of tension?
Me neither.
Avoid tension, and you are sure to never experience a real moment with the person in front of you. Sit and steep in the tension, work in it, love it, and watch your relationship take flight.
***
If you were to go pick up a pencil, you wouldn’t have to think about it. You would glance over while you were flipping the page, and pick it up with your fingers.
I have a dresser in my bedroom that doesn’t have much in it. It’s kind of tough to move, but it’s not a big deal, and I can lift it up myself if I ever decide to rearrange my room (which I never do).
There’s an iron cast bathtub in my kitchen (long story). It’s bolted to the floor, and it hasn’t budged since it was put there sometime during the industrial revolution. If I were to try to move it, I would bend down at my knees and grab it with my hands. My whole body would start to tremble and shake as I try to rip the bolts out of the floor.
All of these tasks require different amounts of effort. Muscular effort, force, or that scary word—tension.
Now, what happens if I pretend my pencil is really, really heavy. Like, bathtub heavy. When I go to reach for it, my arm trembles, I’m reaching with such intensity. As I start to lift it up, I feel my back start to tighten, the muscles under my armpit and on the side of my body engage—and wait!—it feels even heavier now! I have to squeeze my butt and my legs and my feet just to lift this little pencil off the table.
I just finished my first repetition of pencil lifts, and I’m exhausted.
Ridiculous, right?
Maybe.
But this is the basis by which getting stronger occurs. This is strength training. All of this tension we feel is the byproduct of muscles contracting as hard as they can. The harder they contract, the more force they can produce, and the heavier the objects they can lift are.
You can create the same amount of tension whether you’re practicing with a pencil or a bath tub. These objects are our tools. But the tools are less important than how we use them. That’s why there’s really not a huge difference, at least in the beginning phases, between practicing with just your body or using a weighted tool, such as a kettlebell. No matter what the tool or the task, you decide how much force you are engaging in.
The amount of tension you can generate in your body is the amount of strength you have. If you can’t generate the tension, you haven’t yet found the strength.
Imagine what it would feel like if you couldn’t even lift a pencil off the table, your muscles had atrophied so much. Not a very free life you’re living. Not too many options.
Imagine you can move that immovable tub. You are free to dance, to lift your 10 year old niece into the sky and spin her round Sheep’s Meadow.
The ability to produce and control the tension in our bodies gives us options.
***
The practice of sitting in the tension is key in our journey towards living a happier, healthier, more embodied life.