Better Brakes and More Control

A few years ago I visited the Wright Brothers museum in Kitty Hawk and learned that when the Wright Brothers were attempting to fly there were three main problems they had to solve - lift, power, and control. They had to figure out how to lift the plane off the ground, power it forward, and control it while in the air. Control was actually the hardest problem for them to solve. In a similar way I think that with health and fitness and even life control is often one of the hardest problems we face.

Do you have a good set of brakes? The ability to stop the words you know you shouldn't say, to stop the outbursts of anger that rise up in you, to stop dwelling on the negative thoughts. We all know that our emotions, words and thoughts impact our health. Your emotions and thoughts cause physical changes in your body, as they change your body chemistry, hormones, etc.

Do you have a good set of brakes in that when you are going in the wrong direction you can stop and turn things around. For example, if your bodyfat or weight are spiraling out of control do you have the ability to put on the brakes and turn things around. Do you have the ability to get back on track with your workouts when things are off?

You must also develop a good set of brakes to be able to stop when you have had enough food or when you are tempted to eat stuff you know you shouldn't be eating. Do you have the ability to put on the brakes and only have one bite or one piece of something?

In the gym the ability to control weights and not have them control you is very correlated with muscle mass. You will find that most bodybuilders have a tremendous ability to slow things down and control the weights. For athletics brakes are also important as you must have the ability to stop quickly and change directions. This is important for performance and also to keep from getting hurt.

The cells of your body must also have a good set of brakes. Your cells operate using a cell control cycle. This is a series of checkpoints that are in place to make sure that cell is doing what it should be. A loss of control in this system leads to uncontrolled growth, which is cancer.

So how do you develop these brakes and have more control? You must first realize that you have control. It may not seem like you can control your emotions, thoughts, words, what you put in your mouth, etc but you can. You can take control back and it starts with practice. Start with small things like taking a few less bites of the junk food, controlling the weights in the gym, and stopping yourself from speaking those words you know you shouldn't. Remember that control starts as a seed and grows. The more you use your brakes the stronger they become.