How To Balance Weight Lifting & Focus

Most gym rats are broke because they don’t understand this: you only have one nervous system.

Blow it in the gym, and good luck building a business in the afternoon.

Day 28 on the road to $1M/year.

I just arrived here in Bali, it’s the perfect opportunity to show you how I’m setting up my environment for peak brain and body growth.

Your first enemy is your Ego

THE ENERGY TRAP

Most people think “train hard, work hard.” But that’s not how your body and brain operate.

Your nervous system is one system. When you train hard – especially lifting heavy – you release endorphins and spike your sympathetic nervous system.

That gives you a short-term high. But it also taxes your recovery system.

The harder you train, the more “load” you put on your nervous system – meaning you have less capacity left for deep focus, creativity, decision-making.

THE STATUS TRAP

The other trap is the status trap.

You think you’re killing it when you wake up early and lift weights.

You get status from doing it, even if you don’t have the body yet because it is a respectable habit.

So it reinforces your identity into prioritising lifting because your brain craves that feeling of status, of superiority. And lifting weights is easier than building a business.

Your bank account is not correlated with your muscle mass.

But Brain and Body are not dissociated. The same machine that lifts is the one that writes, thinks, closes deals, makes decisions.

When I was in military training I slept 3-5 hours per night.

I could still walk long distances, run, lift heavy equipment, shoot.

But as soon as we had to sit down for theory and strategy, I would fall asleep.

Cognitive load for mental activities is higher than physical activities.

Here's How I structure my weight training

The current routine I have comes from a program designed one of my fitness client who's been coaching Olympia athletes and has a IFBB pro card.

I’m currently lifting 5 times a week, classic split with arms superset in the last 2 exercises of every day and each day ending with abs.

I train to failure and every workout is difficult.

I also add in a bit of boxing 1-2 times a week.

How it helps me achieve Focused work

The way I integrate it with working is that I place it at the end of my main work session. I want to use my NS mostly for my main quest and then deload it at the gym.

It serves as a reset midday, and allows for different kind of work in the afternoon, more creative work or non-focused work.

It also cuts the day in half and reduces back strain from sitting all day.

Nutrition = Fuel

Nutrition is maybe the most important part of that setup, right after sleep.

What you eat doesn’t really matter as long as it follows those basic principles:

• enough protein for your lean body mass

• clean food, mostly one ingredient food

• sugar is useless

My basic diet tested over years:

• Yogurt with bananas nuts and other stuff

• 6 eggs with dates

• meat/chicken with veggies and carbs

I often assemble meal 2 and 3 at once in the evening

I mostly eat within a 6-8 hour window so I'm fasted and naturally more sharp while burning fat

Nervous System Recovery

The most important part – if you don’t take care of that one, you won’t grow your business or your body.

Gains happens when you rest. And work happens when you’re rested.

In this super fast moving economy you need to be competitive.

You need to treat your brain like an athlete treats his body.

To maximise sleep and reach the 1.5-2hrs of deep sleep per night:

• use a sleep tracker for a few days

• sleep at night obviously, this is advice from the most basic manuals for human life that you can find in the quran:

or the bible

• stop screens 1h before going to sleep

• cut food 3h before sleep

• I take ashwagandha to Lower cortisol. Less cortisol = less muscle-breaking.

• zinc: promotes relaxation. Essential for testosterone production for muscle repair.

• magnesium bis-glycinate: Helps slow down brain activity and prepares the body for deep sleep.

These are the basics.

See you in the trenches,

—Kassimi

P.S.

If you’d like more in-depth tools to get Big and Focused

Reply “FITBIZ“