(upbeat music) - Would you count pain-inducing bodybuilding workouts as high quality leisure? Greetings from Santa Cruz, Bolivia. - Second question, bodybuilding as a high quality leisure activity. Jesse, I'm gonna throw this to you. You know a lot about that culture, maybe not bodybuilding, but exercise, et cetera, et cetera.

That's a really intense, complicated high quality leisure activity, right? - 100%, yeah. I mean, even looking at, I was a big fan of Arnold's biography and some of the stuff that he's put out. And he said, you know, when he was training, like when he was in his 20s and stuff, like going in there was like doing deep work for five hours out of the day.

He broke it up in the morning and the afternoon, but I would think 100% that would count. - Yeah, no, that sounds good to me. I just watched that biography on, I think it was on Netflix, of Ronnie Coleman, who was the six or seven time Mr. Universe, a huge guy, now his whole body's broken down.

He can't walk and he's in constant pain because he's lifting such heavy weights. But that looked pretty deep to me. Like that looked pretty deep to me. So yeah, Pablo, I think that's great. Also, I like that it's different. So you're using different parts of your brain than like your normal work or your other types of life.

And I think there's probably a clarity that comes to that. I mean, look, when people see me, they're like, this is a guy who knows about bodybuilding. So they're often coming to me for advice. When you look at me, you think super athlete, you think steroids, you think that's a guy who knows his way around the gym.

So I'm not surprised you asked me this question, but yeah, that's deep, go for it. - Actually, I'm gonna ask you another question to his part two. So in a lot of these bodybuilders, a lot of people who lift and whatnot, what's your view on them having earphones in and listening and stuff while they're lifting?

'Cause a lot of, like Arnold talks about like really thinking about the muscle and like feeling it and feeling it grow and stuff, but you could be distracted if you have other things in your ear. So I was just wondering to know your thoughts on that. - You know, I've read about that somewhere.

I mean, you might know more about it, but it seems to be true that, because of the mind muscle connection, that really concentrating on the muscle that you're trying to exhaust or contract to do the reps on makes a difference. So, I mean, is this the case, you would know this, Jesse, more than me.

Is this the case for serious weightlifters that the concentration on the muscle aspect of what they do is key? - I think so, 100%. Arnold totally believes in that. And that's was, I think, a big, 'cause he was so disciplined, he could focus on that. And I think that helped him when he was training.

And I said it in my personal life by just not wearing headphones anymore. I mean, sometimes you're at the gym, there might be music on and whatnot. You can't really help that. But I don't know, I've kind of always thought about what your thoughts on that were. - I suspect, I'm just thinking about this out loud, but I suspect doing that type of training, so you're doing muscle training, but you're giving full concentration to the contraction because it helps, is probably fantastic, general, deep work calisthenics.

Like, in other words, if you're doing that on a regular basis as part of a fitness routine, you're gonna be able to concentrate on a book better. You're gonna be able to concentrate when you're walking and trying to hold a thought in your head better. So it's a good point, Jesse, because I think Pablo, actually, I'm gonna go beyond now and say, not only does that count as high quality leisure, doing serious weight training might actually be a fantastic way of improving your general ability to concentrate.

And you have all the other advantages that's different than the other type of thinking you do so that you get that relaxation and anxiety reduction. Look, I'm picking up my fitness this January as well. I don't like the dark, I don't like the dark weather. And so I'll see if that has a difference, but it's a good point.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good tool in the deep work toolkit. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)