The man in this photo is Teddy Roosevelt, during the time he worked as a cowboy on the American Frontier in the late 1800s. Teddy Roosevelt today is revered as Masculine symbol MAN, But he was not always so robust.
As a child growing up, he was sickly, and had asthma. He was often in poor health, and his earliest years were of his parents worrying about him, and he spending much time in bed. When he was 6 years old on a family camping trip, he was bullied by two older boys and beat up.
This sparked a change in Teddy, and he resolved to learn to box soon after. From boxing gradually arose an intense love of exercise, and by the time Roosevelt was in his teens, he had transformed himself into an athlete.
Roosevelt in college here, age 19 or 20
Roosevelt never officially had a “fitness philosophy”, but he did have the Doctrine of a Strenuous Life, taken from one of his most famous speeches, that of man who continually challenges himself.
“I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph”
As President, Roosevelt would exercise for HOURS every day, doing the tried and true combination of all great men…
- Calisthenics training (bodyweight)
- Long walks
- And as much as he could, combat sports
You find this combination a lot in most hard men.
Roosevelt was BLIND in one eye from sparring, and this injury happened WHILE he was president. So he switched to Jiu-Jitsu (and was said to be quite skilled at it)
In Fight Club Physique, guess what I advise all men do?
- Bodyweight Training, 6 days a week
- Walks and Runs
- Boxing, or any other type of martial art you can take up
There is a formula for developing yourself as a man, and while the mental and mindset side can be approached many different ways, there is a persistent method for the basis of the physical.
Live the Strenuous Life.
