Who do you wanna look like?

They're on the magazines or the web, on your mind, or just on your mirror - what's better?

By ChulucanasGym

When you begin to train into a discipline, as bodybuilding or fitness to have an example, is unavoidable we look for a reflex or a referent turning in our sport achievement's goal.

"I'd look like..." is an usual answer among rookies, who usually become researching the life of those referents in many cases, as much as they turn that wish for real.

Is this a possitive attitude? It depends, so let's analyse the three possible scenarios about referents: models, archetypes or self-lovers.

The models, by definition, are all referents who became to achieve as much as their names and images are strongly linked and placed into the discipline we practice. Many times, they are part of a fashion vogue, so the model who was the masses idolatry 40 years ago probably has been replaced by a another one as each decade or each time range has passed on.

The possitive: As assummed as a mentor, someone which good example is good to imitate in other words.
The negative: Believing that everything working for that one will work for me too, when the first we have to have in mind is any organism is similar to another one, even having a strong genetic influence.

The archetypes are the possitive ideas we have about someone or something, adding a set of specific or very specific characteristics about we consider as perfect. They don't ask about a brand necessarily but our own aknowledgement and what is reflected in designing our own idealization.  Said another way, it's like having a model with a body but without a face in special, a name in particular neither.  It's not a "I'd like to be..." but "I want to be...". In some cases, archetypers could look like some Dr. Frankenstein taking an arm here, a leg there, a torso beyond,  so conceiving the human body as a set of exchangeable pieces in extreme.

The possitive: There's not an obsession to follow someone punctual but it becomes an addition of everything for creating someone quite different, inexistent, but turning into our best goal.
The negative: our archetype exceeding so much our expectations that turns into an unreachable obsession as much as it creates a guilt or frustration feeling.

The self-lovers don't see anybody else, think of an ideal neither, only go ahead as much as they can  and their actual achievement is their partial or final goal, indeed. It's hard to assure if this is  a symptom of much vanity, much self-esteem, or a rare hybrid of both, but they are not paying attention  about anyone nor anything as a referent.  They are their own model and archetype as well.

The possitive: It's possible they're more realistic when setting a goal not falling into the obsessive compulsion of being like somebody else.
The negative: They could fall easily into conformism as much as they don't set goals neither, only training for what comes on.

The advice for trainers and trainees is having the time to talk personally about their each one's sport tasks. The trainer must be much careful about not creating a profile who gets easily obsessed, frustrated, guilty or comformist. The trainee has to have in mind that training  must have two aspects: discipline and amusement. If your sport activity is another  cause of stress, then it is not becoming a healthy lifestyle.

Learning about myself knowing what my advantages and limitations are, knowing  to work them in my favor could be the starting point for everything. Then, choosing a model, designing an archetype or being a self-lover will be a very personal decision based upon reason instead of emotion.

You can control this way if your body improves or not

By ChulucanasGym

Everyone who goes to the gym or does any type of training  is expectant about his or her progress. Have I overcome something I couldn’t overcome before, am I on the same spot when I started, or, in the worst scenario, am not I closer where I started neither?

The problem about measuring our progress is how much objectivity we put to our appreciation. In that sense, the first mistake we use to commit is trusting in the bare-eye, in what we see on the mirror, and almost never the diagnosis we get is reliable. Then, the prognosis we set uses to be wrong.

Is there any objective form to control our progress? Yes, there is. The anthropometrics is the discipline that helps us to have information adjusted to the reality on we can do our analysis and set up our strategies for improving or correcting our physical achievement. This information must be key for your and your trainer at the time to define if it’s necessary to adjust the training routine, the diet, the lifestyle in general, or everything.

Coming up next, we introduce you those key indicators you can control from your home, inclusive, and those will give you that objective vision about what is happening to your body. Look at the data you get – they can’t be taken isolated but grouped. So, the conclusions you arrive and the action plans you take will be more accurate than acting by simple supposition or guessing.

Height

This measure is basic because it serves to calculate other body measures such as absolutes, indexes, and percentages, we will talk about later. You can use a stadiometer, that is the specialized tool in measuring your height, although you can also take the job to paste a measuring tape on the wall or to paint a number scale in centimeters (or feet and inches in the U.S.) setting the ground as the point zero.

Next, take off your shoes, raise naturally, stick your body to the stadiometer or the wall column. Over 20 years old, the height is unvariable for both sexes, at least until the senescence when it can reduce because you will lose bone and muscular tissue.

Body Weight (BH)

It’s a first progress indicator, but alone is not enough because it only will say us if we have increased or have decreased respect to the last measuring. However, it offers us first clues.

The manner of taking it is as easy as put you up on the weighing machine and waiting for the reading in kilos and grams (pounds and ounces in the U.S.). What you have to be careful for sure is  how you take your weight: you ever have to take your shoes off and put on the device; don’t worry about your clothes (if sportswear) because the adding increase is irrelevant, unless you’re a professional or contesting athlete or bodybuilder, and it will be actually necessary you take off almost all your clothes or get naked for having the correct number. Of course, it will depend on how much privacy the place has and how much you trust in the one who could be with you.

The bathroom weighing machines use not to be much accurate as the clinic weighing machines that might be at every good gymnasium. Some electronic devices are only reliable as much as the manufacturer warns it so; then, read the instructions carefully before considering it as reliable and compare many readings taken with different devices to know what is the most accurate. In the same way, we suggest you have a monthly or biweekly record of your weight. Some trainers probably will demand you to have a weekly control if you’re training for a competition. Obbey them.

Absolute Body Measures (ABM)

We call them absolute body measures or ABM because they give us advance or slowing down indicators what only apply to our body as much as parts of it have got wider or have got thinner than a previous control. For that, what interests us is to have countour or perimeter measures expressed in centimeters (or inches in the U.S.), those put in a table give us a mathematical idea of your body volume. Who are dedicated to be models or bodybuilders or athletes know perfectly what we mean. However, a proffessional physical trainer will have here compplementary information to the BW  through he or she can evaluate the effectiveness of the training plan, the diet, or the lifestyle.

The best manner to take these measures  is by using a measuring tape that is put over the skin, not stretching it or releasing it too much, but letting it adjusts naturally to the shape of your body. The precission of the measure gets when the tape makes direct contact with your skin. If there are clothes between them, the excess must be depreciated or definetly avoided. Another trick, if you want more precission, is taking the measure before having meals or starting your training session. And if you still want more precission, take three measures of the same zone and then go to have the average for eliminating the excess or default error.

The measures are taken on specific areas of your body. Remember we need to know the contours, in other words you have to take the measuring tape and round each part of the body, going around it. We are not interested on lineal measures (as taken in dressing), we want to have an idea about volume. The places where those measures are gotten:

• Shoulders: Take as reference the part where it is seen more prominent and put there the start line of the tape. Then, pass it under your two clavicles until arriving to the most prominent part of your another shoulder. From here, make the tape to run over the upper part of your backuntil meeting the pointwhere the tape begins. For you to have an idea if you have taken the measure correctly, if you’re a male and you’re 170 centimeters or 5 feet 7 inches height, your shoulders perimeter should be between 118 to 120 centimeters or 46.5 to 47.1 inches. However, this measure is relative according to your age, body shape, and sport goalds.
• Chest: Whether you are a male or a female, take as a reference the part where it is more prominent (probably the nipples in both cases) and go the tape around you including your scapulas. For the women, taking this measure will be easy because it belongs to the same like the bust contour, very required in dressing or beauty contests. If you’re a 170-cm or 5’7-feet male height, your chest contour could be between 106 and 108 centimeters, or 41.2 and 42.5 inches, but we remind you the measures are relative, as we clarified you on the previous point.
• Arms and forearms: The biceps and triceps allow your to know how you are in arms, so you will have to round them at the same time with the measuring tape and take the reading. If you’re a male 170 centimeters or 5’7 feet height, it is possible your arms grow until 38 or 39 centimeters, or 15 or 15.4 inchescontour. In forearms case, take as a reference its most prominent part and put you the tape around, although this measure is almost never used.
• Waist:    In the males, it’s taken as a reference a point 3 centimeters or 1.2 inches below your belly button, and in the females, the zone where it becomes strechest, 2 centimeters or 0.8 inches above the belly button in general. Then, you take the tape around including the lower back in the case of males and the medium back in the case of women. The World Health Organization recommends the males should not be more than 95 centimeters or 37.4 inches waist contour, and the females no more than 65 centimeters or 25.6 inches, although not much because of a beauty criterion but preventing many conditions caused by the overweight and the obesity.
• Belly: In the case of women it’s the same than the taken for waist in men. Basically, it looks to know how much flat your belly is, in mathematical terms, obviously.
• Hips: In male as well as female, it’s taken as a reference the most prominent part of your gluteus, rounding both sides where the pelvic bone is more prominent, passing over your pubis. If you’re a male (and adding the squads, your genetics helps you too), it is possible you reach 102 centimeters or 40.2 inches contour if you’re 170 centimeters or 5’7 feet height.
• Thighs: It’s the section of your leg that begins in your pelvis and ends in your knee. Look for its widest part and round it with the measuring tape. Look! You have to take just one thigh per measuring, never both at the same time. If you’re a male 170 centimeters or 5’7 feet height, your thigh can be between 59 and 60 centimeters or 23.2 and 23.6 inches at least, although it’s going to depend on your kind of training. What is clear, indeed, is that for every 3 centimeters or 1.2 inches of thigh you get, your arm can not be more than 2 centimeters or 0.8 inches.
• Calf: It’s the part of your leg between your knee and your ankle. Look for its more prominent part and round it here with the measuring tape. As equal as the thigh, both calves never must measured at the same time but one at once. If you’re a male 170 centimeters or 5’7 feet height, your calf can be 37 to 38 centimeters or 14.6 to 15 inches at least. Yes, at least.

Indexes And Body Percentages

If you think it’s too many Maths for today, we have not finished yet. There are more specialized indicators those allow you to measure your progress, especially if you are in a professional or competition training environment.

• Body Mass Index (BMI): Basically, it gives us a more accurate idea if you are your ideal weight, or if you are overweight or in obesity. It is calculated by dividing your weight in kilos by your height’s square. Let’s suppose you’re a male 170 centimeters (1.7 meters or 5’7 feet) and you’re 70 kilos (154.3 pounds), your BMI will be 24.2 – it’s inside the healthy.  If it would exceed beyond 30, we could talk  about obesity.
• Body Fat Percentage (BFP): It’s a more specialized measure that, as its name says, looks for knowing if there is a healthy balance between the body fat you need for your vital functions and the fat you store to do your elective functions –we mean- as training. Here Maths are not enough but we need to use special procedures and devices for having us a reading. It is obtained by multiplying the quantity of your body fat by the quantity of your body mass and all that divided by 100. Women will ever have a BFP greater than men because some fat is reserved for reproductive functions. About percentages, it is considered that athletes go from 10% to 15% depending on the physical activity they do. A professional trainer will educate you about how to control your BFP for optimizing better your training, although will combine it with diet and improvement in your lifestyle. In fact, it is probable this catch more attention.

So, if you only trusted in your mirror, your weighing machine, or your measuring tape, you see we have to combine all this and much more in the end if we want to measure progress. And, by the way, it’s not a bad idea you feed all your data on an electronic  spreadsheet that allow you to view graphically if you improve, you keep, or you need to work harder. Yes, it’s a lot of work but you deserve it well. It also will give you more conscience about you, especially if you add some psychological advisory to see if there is any motivation problem, or something like this.

Like everytime, we will be pleased to know your questions here on the comments, or on our Twitter account, or by writing us at chulucanasgym@gmail.com

The models featured on this post are Pedro Changanaquí, Fran Checa, Alfredo Rivera, and Anderson Sandoya

Importance of mentorship and legacy in bodybuilding

Bodybuilding has held on alive such itself since it began to spread and promote in Europe in the second half of 19^th century, and in the U.S. in the beginning of 20^th century, and from both social and cultural spots toward the entire world. Today, it’s very rare the corner of the planet where it doesn’t do, especially if we talk about nations with a high sports vocation as Brazil, here in Latin America.

 

It wasn’t only about opening more gyms – rather, the gym is the ideal space for what the tradition keeps ever alive, but the history tells us since Lacedemone, Ancient Greece, 18^th century B.C., until Esse, actual Germany, 1852 A.D., and then up to date, the importance of this institution ffor learning and developing the physical culture has not fallen down – quite the opposite.

 

Let’s consider this first idea: it’s not the physical facility what makes the bodybuilding to everlast. The first gyms were big open-air lots delimited with walls where the athletes trained fully naked. Today, although the idea could sound very exotic to rescue, what we have are buildings that keep the same concept of these big lots but under a roof (the most) and with the comfort of modern architecture.

 

Obviously, most of us already don’t train naked but even at the time of our routine, we unavoidabily end giving up to the marketing of big sports brands. Let’s remember we also can train in the open and we could get the same effect if we do it correctly.

 

Then, a second idea we should consider is the gym, before the physical space, it’s about a 38-century-old institution, and as a human creation, it’s the presence of persons training and inspiring others to continue training and getting new goals, no doubt.

 

How does our example influence in the motivation that many bodybuilders and athletes have to start their own sport careers, or a healthy lifestyle at least? The truth is it influences much, if not, think of who inspired you to attend that very first day and to continue persisting until getting your first results, your actual achievement later.

 

These models inspiring us, whether we meet them in person or not, are called mentors in pedagogy – the persons who form in our heads that we wish or want to be. We have mentors for everything: our profession, our fashion style, our criteria for choosing mates and friends… anyway. Think of your actual life and you’ll understand that somebody inspired you to be who you are, and there’s somebody who is inspiring you to be someone else.

 

It’s probable we don’t propose to be mentor of anybody and we are in our right, but we are an example the same, and somebody is going to see in us for continuing to train, or leaving to do it. And as the years go by, that one we have inspired to, it’s going to inspire another new generation, and so and so.

 

But if you are aware of how much your example can influence in the life of other person or other people and you want to take control of the situation, it would be actually good you have a plan or a methodology in mind that allows who you inspire to learn the bodybuilding in a progressive and sequential way, that they appreciate it in a positive way, and that they value their first achievements as an won creation they can go improving.

 

So, you go building a legacy or heritage of knowledge and attitude around the bodybuilding, which purpose must be the improvement of the training ways, the increasing of life quality, the affirmative and positive self-validation, and the long of who come behind evolve the physical culture for their benefit and the one of who will come behind them. In this sense, the mentorship and the legacy will do the bodybuilding as a sustainable activity in time and space.

 

You’re not a substitute

This implies you to educate, to get ready for when that new bodybuilder or athlete gets close to you, you have true, precise, and inspiring answers. It’s not about you are going to turn in his physical trainer, but you could complement favorably the work of those professionals so that person gets motivated to ccome back working out the next day, and the next week, and the next month, and the next year.

 

It would be interesting if these mentorship and legacy strategies are precisely coordinated with the physical trainer for having unity in the messages and the quality of examples. Also, beyond how much weight you lift, it can turn in a natural opportunity to forge constructive social relationships that form a community which you ever could count.

 

Prepare and tell us your experience or let’s interchange tips. Let’s talk on our Twitter account, or also at our e-mail chulucanasgym@gmail.com

Coming next - we link you to the developing experience in Callao, Peru.

The model featured on this entry is José Escobar. 

Time of change

Beyond a simple au-natureaux

A bodybuilding-based cult?

By ChulucanasGym

VISITOR’S DISCRETION ADVISED

The story is not probably new., but who tell it did look for  picturing it as featured on this post. It’s about the young farmer male, who doesn’t find opportunities to develop in his environment and decides to migrate to the big city. But instead finding progress, he finds much obstacles and multiple temptations  those put him in the edge of social risk, mainly crime and drug addiction.

Then, a solidarian hand ddiscovers him at an eventual job that only provides him the necessary to survive, and realizes he has a potential to launch a career in bodybuilding. It opens him the doors of a gymnasium, the Young male wonders about the new world revealed to him and takes the opportunity. He begins to work out, grows up physically, changes his mind from conformism to competitiveness, feels motivated to contest, and eventually gets little-but-significant triumphs.

Itt’s evident the contrast between a life without goals and what seems to be the beginning of a career that promises achievements, and it could be the story of your own life. But the element that nobody would think is that the story were pitched to some magazines or websites specialized in bodybuilding, instead, it could have a religious use, rather. Yes, themuscular development of a bodybuilder becomes to use for enhancing a very little cult considering its followers, but what uses an ancestral symbology.

It happens in Jamaica, where the Church of Kyrios Christ, that proposes a big influence of the African culture in the three big religions of humankind, but what became invisible because of apparent race factors, has used the power of bodybuilding to make popular the cult for one of its orishas, a kind of demigods, named Olorun. The Church, which theology is based upon youruba  cults, also proposes the reinvindication of the African-descendant people into the world’s history, and it performs a ceremony every year when it renacts that orisha’s myth.

According to its parishioners, Olorun was made a slave during the colonial trafficking started in 16^th century (beautiful literary works have born from that time in the Americas). Once he lived at the barracks  of an estate located in the actual Chalacalá Town, near Sullana City, Peru, the orisha was a rebel mood, so the estate-owner used to punish by leaving naked and wearing a fetter with chains to humiliate to him, but Olorun, calling out divine forces, took the bold piece of metal with his hands and broke up by his own power.

A very ancient tactic

Independently this event was whether historically true or not, it’s enacted during this ceremony in Jamaica with the evident purpose that the parishioners not to forget about it, so reaffirming the cult values. And according to the Church, it looks for a model, usually Colombian or Jamaican, every year to perform the Olorun role, something that, as the organization’s leaders say, is accepted as a high honor by the chosen actor.

The idea of taking a real human being to remember or invoke an abstract reference or a belief is an oldest resource as  the art and culture of humankind. In Classic Greece, the Olympics’ winners used to be featured as the models for the statues of gods (and goddesses, because there were also  contests for women), and one of the philosophic principles at the ancient gymnasiums stated that the perfection of human shape was the closest way to look like a god or a goddess.

And that health-art-religion relationship has kept along the time, maybe hidden until the Renaissance (15^th century), but present up to today. Iff not, look around slowly when you go to the gym and have your own conclusions.

Good or bad?

So, only if the bodybuilder is aware he is actually training. It could be an interesting strategy  to reach constance, one of the values muchly hardworking to grow. But if the bodybuilder cannot take off the character of god or demigod, or celebrity, or famous person, or popular referent, it will be necessary professionalassistance with pairs advisory.

In this sense, the work of the trainer is crucial. It must not be reduced to care the athlete for doing the movement correctly, or complete the required reps or sets. He also has to take time to explore the psychology  of his pupil so giving him  the right support, and knowing to motivate him for continuing to overcome. Maybe, it’s not necessary to say him that he has to look like a god, but it’s important to feedback the goals  both proposed since the training began, and maybe this is one of the keywords – goals.

About the rest, the use of the religion to advocate a healthy lifestyle, only done with awareness and not falling into the fanatism, could result very positive. Many ancestral religions have very specific habits about feeding, for example, those have been incorporated as diet schemes accepted by international organisms, but stressing the basis of the variety and the balance.

And about the art-bodybuilding relationship, we think it’s an excellent combination only provided the bodybuilder assumes his artist stage as a dimension to set free in the whole sense of the expression, not like an obsession many times badly directed by some producers or career managers, who could be thinking the things more of audience or incomes matters. Like the food, everything in the right balance will be ever positive.

Shive Roy is featured as the model of this post. Photographs provided by Dwight Foster.

Do you have a similar story to share? Let us know it at chulucanasgym@gmail.com, our Twitter account, or using the comment box below.

Learning, Innovating, Publishing

It’s time you put in casting mode

At least in Peru, the Covid-19 infection is going to change muchly the culture about healthy lifestyles, and possibly to be the better. One of the measures the government has taken is body mass index (BMI) people equal or upper 40 may not work in person when the economy to reactivate because they are one of the most vulnerable human groups to the contagion.

The medical reason is simple: the virus leaves the lungsockets useless, the little bags  we have where oxygen feeds the blood allowing the functions of our body to work normally. When that vital gas scarces –a condition known hypoxia—our cells begin to weaken and even die, then they unchain oother health conditions which can shorten our life.

The diabetes and the cardio-vascular diseases also have to do much with obesity. Initially, the Peruvian government fit to the suggestion of World Health Organization about BMI people equal or upper 30, at the moment, were not abled to presential work, but a popular claim moved the mark up to 10 points.

Could your country or your boss take the same decisions? If we think it on the perspective of laboral risk, it’s a chance. Claiming could be a choice but i’ts the easiest choice. The alternative could be you don’t wait for the idea to turn a rule and take control of your own health. But many guys begin enthusiastic in the beginning and lose the motivation step by step.

Here is when our brain has to work to re-program first. Yes, we can. And although we are not endorsing you to take an image as a mirror, the current sanitarian situation does demand us to look for very inspiring references, and after much exploring, we find with the expectant attitude the models have. Yes, the guys you see looking like on the magazines, the posters, or the TV. They are ever ready for the next work, so all their effort is focused on the next casting.

Perhaps this same attitude is what you should adoptbut not falling into paranoiaor increasing your anxiety neither, so here we have a full recipe possibly useful for you very much. Easier, impossible.

Keep your body in shape

When a model has a casting, the first they are going to see is the physique, and that only is gotten with physical exercise, healthy feeding, enough and fixing rest. Remember you have to dedicate at least half-an-hour to work-out your physique, your feeding must cover all your energy need in the right balance, and your whole resting time really recharges in terms of alert and mood.

Then, you have to organize your lifefor accomplish each one of your activities and you must set real, verifiable goalsthose allow to control if you triumph or happens the whole opposite. Doubts? Contact a physical trainer now.

Focus your mind

When a model goes casting, knows pretty well the body is not enough. What the directors are going to evaluate is also how much concentration the model is going to performin the activity he or she is required for. If your body is here but your mind is away, things are not going to work well and that’s easy to notice, especially in crisis time.

Address all your attention to the actual moment, make aware of everything you do or say (even not mentioning any word), follow up the sequence of any activity since its beginning until its end, and pass to the next one when the last one was fulfilled, breathe deeply and think of yourself to ease projecting outside. The meditation is an excellent exercise and we know somebody who can help you.

Perfectionate your talent

We already have a good-shape body, we already have a focused mind. But, what do you know to do? It’s probable what you know to do, other many people can do the same way. Then, your personal task must be improving it to highlight. In that sense, more than compete against the other people, you should compete against yourself, against you used to be. As they say, making yourself a better version of yourself everytime.

And what about if they don’t choose you? This is the major probability a model has clear, then the first he or she learns is overcoming the mistake and reinvent for facing the next challenge, never giving up, following to fight until get it – to be resilient.

Using the social media to show the wworld how much preparation you have got in what you do the best? Yes, of course! Now than ever before, it’s an excellent decision but do it intelligently, strategically, not trying to be like anyone else but differentiating to be better than anyone else. If you need advise, we have somebody who can help you. And remember never to lose the faith in you.

As you will see, to be in casting mode is not only a mind state, the body and the spirit also have to do. It’s not complicated as much as you don’t see it complicated. It neither is a super piece of cake but it demans certain effort. What is actually clear – you can’t lose more time and you have to start right now, so when they call at you, the probability they say “begin to work today” to be very high.

Of course, we will be pleased to know your achievements or doubts on our Twitter account or our e-mail address: chulucanasgym@gmail.com

Thanks Carlos Maceda ffor giving us his photos to picturing this entry.