In this episode of the Manhood Tribes podcast, we begin a series focused on understanding what it means for us to be men, with a special emphasis on strength as a fundamental aspect of manhood. We address the societal challenges in defining manhood and counter the notion that traditional masculinity should be disregarded.
Highlighting the '5 Marks of Manhood' – strength, courage, skill, honor, and allegiance, this episode dives deep into the concept of physical strength. We discuss how strength is not merely aesthetic but an essential component of manhood, deeply rooted in biology and necessary for our contributions to society.
We share our personal experiences to illustrate the importance of developing strength, no matter where we're starting from, and introduce a 'Manhood Challenge' segment aimed at encouraging us to engage in practical exercises to enhance our physical strength. The challenge we present is a 60-second pushup task, designed to help us measure and improve our strength over time.
00:00 Introduction: What Does It Mean to Be a Man? 01:20 Kicking Off the Series on Manhood 03:38 The Importance of Strength in Manhood 04:22 Personal Journey: From Weakness to Strength 06:49 Understanding Physical Strength and Its Role 11:23 Real Strength: Beyond Hollywood's Definition 13:55 Practical Steps to Developing Strength 18:50 Embracing the Challenge: A Personal Story of Growth 22:58 Introducing Manhood Challenges 24:29 Manhood Challenge: 60-Second Pushups
Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly.
In this episode of the Manhood Tribes podcast, we begin a series focused on understanding what it means for us to be men, with a special emphasis on strength as a fundamental aspect of manhood. We address the societal challenges in defining manhood and counter the notion that traditional masculinity should be disregarded.
Highlighting the '5 Marks of Manhood' – strength, courage, skill, honor, and allegiance, this episode dives deep into the concept of physical strength. We discuss how strength is not merely aesthetic but an essential component of manhood, deeply rooted in biology and necessary for our contributions to society.
We share our personal experiences to illustrate the importance of developing strength, no matter where we're starting from, and introduce a 'Manhood Challenge' segment aimed at encouraging us to engage in practical exercises to enhance our physical strength. The challenge we present is a 60-second pushup task, designed to help us measure and improve our strength over time.
00:00 Introduction: What Does It Mean to Be a Man? 01:20 Kicking Off the Series on Manhood 03:38 The Importance of Strength in Manhood 04:22 Personal Journey: From Weakness to Strength 06:49 Understanding Physical Strength and Its Role 11:23 Real Strength: Beyond Hollywood's Definition 13:55 Practical Steps to Developing Strength 18:50 Embracing the Challenge: A Personal Story of Growth 22:58 Introducing Manhood Challenges 24:29 Manhood Challenge: 60-Second Pushups
Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly.
Don Ross:
If I asked you to picture a manly man, what pops into your head? My guess is that it would be a attractive guy with really big muscles. And while we've mostly been conditioned to think of men that way, because of Hollywood, there is something to be said for the fact that men are supposed to be strong. Here on the man who trabs podcasts. We want to talk about what it means to be a man. And we're going to start by talking about strength. Let's dive in. Guys want to know how you measure up as a man? I've got a great resource for you. It's called How Manly Are You? And it's a free quiz that you can take to figure out how you stack up against what it means to be a man. And when you take the quiz, you'll also get some free resources to help you figure out how you can get better as a man in the areas where you would like to grow. So go to manhoodtribes.com/manly to download your free How Manly Are You quiz today. That's manhoodtribes.com/manly. All right guys, welcome to the manhood tribes podcast. My name is Don. It's really good to be with you here. As we are kicking off a series on how to be a man. Now at the man had tribes podcast, that might seem obvious that that's going to be really important to us to talk about manhood and what it means to be a man. But I think that this really needs to happen for a few reasons. It's just become really difficult in our culture lately to talk about the whole idea of manhood and even to try to define what does it mean to be a man it's gotten really difficult for guys in our culture to understand what does a man actually supposed to look like or be, or, uh, the things that we're supposed to be doing. There's all kinds of questions around what it means to be a man. And how we're supposed to function in the world. There's even questions of whether or not being a man is a good thing or something that we should even try to be. Or if being a man is even a thing, period. If manhood is something that should just go by the wayside as a construct that we no longer need. And man who drives. We think a lot of that is just rubbish. We think that being men is important. It is necessary to society. And we do think that there are ways to be a man that are authentic to what masculinity has always looked like throughout history. And so we want to try to go after those things. Now, if you listened to my first few introductory episodes, Then you heard me talk about something called the five marks of manhood. These are the things that I really think are foundational and are what we are going to use to give us some context. Around how to be a man. The five marks of manhood are the things that I believe all men should possess in order to demonstrate what it means to be a man. And those five marks are strength. Courage skill honor and allegiance. Now, if you want a little more context on kind of the bigger picture of what the five marks of manhood are and why we chose those things, you can go back and watch or listen to episode two and get a little more background information there. But as we begin this series on how to be a man, I want you to know that what we're going to do initially is to take a deep dive into each one of those five marks. And so today we want to start by talking about strength. Now, why is it important that we talk about strength? Well, I'll say here at the beginning that I, I think strength and in particular physical strength is really foundational to the core of what it means to be a man. This is kind of the chief trait of manhood. It is the thing that is at the center of who we are as men. And out of that, all of the other marks of manhood really come from that one kind of core place of our strength. Now. This isn't to say that strength is everything. And all there is to being a man, but it is really central and important. And we need to talk about why that is. But before we dive into that and kind of understanding this idea of strength, I want to share a little bit of a personal story of my own and how it relates to this whole idea of strength. So when I was a kid, I wouldn't say that strength was really my forte. I wasn't a big athlete growing up. I didn't play a lot of team sports. I did some kind of sports and outdoor activities. Uh, but they were mostly just individual sports things like swimming and tennis. But when it came to things like having to do a physical fitness test and our PE classes in elementary school, I was absolutely terrified because I knew that those things were going to challenge me in some ways that I just wasn't good at. I wasn't great at being able to do things like pushups and sit ups. And I probably up until about middle school, couldn't even do a single pull-up at all. My body just wasn't very strong and I hadn't spent much effort on developing the strength that I did have. It seemed like most of the boys around me were just kind of naturally able to do a lot of these things and I just wasn't. And so I didn't put much time or effort into developing my strength. But when it came time to test those things, to be honest, I was terrified and really ashamed. I felt small. I felt weak. I felt like I was somehow less than the other boys in my class because I just couldn't do some of the things that they could do. And I didn't measure up in any of the categories where they were really excelling. The physical fitness test was always a place of weakness for me. Now here's the thing about that kind of a story. I later on used that as a motivation, to be able to remind myself that I could get stronger. I didn't have to just accept where I was. I could work on it and I could get better at being strong. And I did now I'm no Herculean athlete, you know, I'm not going to be competing in the Olympics or the CrossFit games or, you know, whatever else. But I have been able to develop strength over time and that's been a really good thing. But as a young man, it was still something that kind of plagued me for a while in terms of this inner feeling of why is I really a man? Why did I feel so weak? And why did I feel so ashamed of myself? I think again, that is really because strength. Is the core aspect of what manhood is really all about. So let's talk about that. Why is strength the foundation of all the other marks of manhood? Number one. Our bodies are built for it. Okay. First things first, we just need to be honest about our biology. Men's bodies are built for strength in ways that women's bodies are not. Now. That doesn't mean that women can't be strong, but what it does mean is that because of our skeletal frame, but because of our musculature, because of our hormones, because of a whole lot of things, about the way that men's bodies works, we are meant to be strong. We are meant to offer strength to the world, and that is part of the way that God has designed us and the way that he has intended us to be. Be of use to the world around us. Now that can include anything and everything from, you know, like I said, being an Olympic champion to just simply being able to pick up heavy things and help your buddy move when he's moving into a new apartment, right. Men need to be counted on to be able to offer strength to the world around them. And that's because our bodies are meant for strength. Again, that's not to be a slight on women. Women can certainly be strong, but the difference is that when women aren't strong, they aren't necessarily thought of as less of a woman. But when a man isn't strong, he can be seen as weak or as less of a man. And we men all feel that that's exactly what I was describing in that story of me, even as a boy, doing those physical fitness tests that I felt like I was somehow less than I wasn't performing up to. Not only what the other boys around me were doing, but probably to what I was actually capable of doing. I just wasn't putting in the effort needed to be able to use my body in those ways that I knew that I probably could. If I actually worked at it, my body was meant for strength and I just wasn't developing it. Men need to develop their strength. Strength also for men is how we learn our impact on the world. Our bodies, show us what we can do, and they help us to realize that we can and need to push ourselves. We need to move towards action and be involved in doing things in the world. Men are wired for action. We'd love to get up and make things happen. We love to fix things that are broken. We love to be able to use our bodies to make things function in the world around us and strength. As at the core of what enables us to be able to act and to do all of those things. Without strength though, we don't learn and don't develop the confidence that we need to be able to act when the world calls on us to do so. If we constantly face challenges in front of us, that we know we don't have the strength to be able to meet. Then what instead happens is that we learn to shy away from those challenges. We learn to back away from the world around us, because we consistently don't believe that we have what it takes to be able to offer anything. That is actually needed and is going to meet the needs around us. So we need to be developing our strength. We need to be strong in order to meet the needs around us and to develop that sense of confidence that yes, we can be able to do some things. Strength is the foundation of all of these marks of manhood as well, because of all of the marks of manhood, perhaps more than anything else, it is the thing that we can grow in. And we can see that if we challenge ourselves, we can get better in this. And especially as we are young men, strength is really probably the easiest thing for us to grow in. It is not hard to set a physical challenge for ourselves and to be able to get better at it, if we will just simply practice. Now that could be something as strength oriented as like trying to lift more on your bench, press in the gym. But it could also be something as simple as just like, I want to be able to skip a rock further across the pond. Right. And what guy has it felt more proud of himself for being able to throw that rock further or make it skip a few more times? Because you could sling it harder or whatever. It's those simple kinds of challenges that help a man develop his confidence. That yes. He can show up in the world and offer something that is needed. Yes. He can work harder at something and get better at it. Those kinds of lessons are core to what it means to be a man. And they are learned primarily from our physical strength. So, what does it mean then to be strong when we're talking about physical strength? What exactly are we talking about? Okay. Let's be clear that what we're not really talking about is just having six pack abs and big biceps. Right. I mean, that is what the world right now is telling us. That's what strength is all about. It is about the ripped jacked Hollywood physique. Okay. Right now you can't think of a leading man movie star who doesn't have this kind of ripped chiseled appearance in most of his movies. And even when he gets interviewed about his movies, they rarely actually talk about the character that he's playing. They just talked about. Oh, man, you got so jacked for this role and yes, that's true. But what does that have to do with acting? It doesn't have anything to do with acting. It just has to do with his appearance. And that's because Hollywood really prizes the appearance of being strong. They are trying to tap into this core idea within a man. That we are supposed to be strong and whether or not these guys are actually strong. Sure. Some of them are, but maybe not. All of them are, they are just tapping into some things that are helping them develop an appearance of strength, whether or not they're actually using that strength for the benefit of the world around them. They may not be offering their strength in any meaningful way. They're just looking strong, but that's all that Hollywood cares about because they know that it taps into something within you, men that you want to see be true of yourself. And it's not really about six pack abs. It's really about the fact that you want to be strong and to be seen as strong. They know it. And they're trying to make money off of it, which is why every Hollywood leading man has to look like he is strong. Okay. So that's the idea. We're not really talking about having that lean, ripped chiseled physique, although there's nothing wrong with that. We're just saying that that's not what strength is really about. Strength is not just for show. Although that might be a side effect of developing your strength. The thing about strength is that it's meant to be offered for the benefit of others. Your strength is meant to be a help to the people around you in your world. You are meant to be strong in such a way that you can help accomplish things for others. That when the world needs a man to be called on, who is strong, you are there and available to show up and to offer something that can be helpful. So what actually does that look like then? What are, let's get down to some, some brass tacks here of what does strength really look like in terms of the way that we need to demonstrate it? So let's just take some basics. In order to be a man who is strong at just a base level, you ought to be able to go throughout the normal physical requirements of your day without getting fatigued or winded. Okay. So whether that just means like, Walking to and from the office, you know, being able to pick up your kids and play with them during the day, walking up and downstairs at, you know, an office building or at a park or wherever, like just the normal things of your day. You ought to be able to do those without getting tired or winded. Now. That seems like that ought to just be a basic part of being a human. But in our civilization today, there are lots and lots of men who that's just simply not true of any more. Our lifestyle has gotten very sedentary. Uh, our food structure has gotten very. Over caloric in the sense that we are eating, we are intaking far more food calories than we actually need because our foods are being processed in way that they are stuffed with calories that we don't actually need. And so, because of that, most of us have weight that we don't need to be carrying. And most of us are not really doing much in terms of physical activity throughout the day. And so it has become almost unusual for men to be in good physical shape and to be strong. Okay. So this is something that a lot of men need to work on. And so if that's, you. I want to say very clearly. Look, there's no shame. There's no judgment. Our society is not one that is promoting that men should be strong. It is not naturally helping you as a man to be fit and strong. But this is where you as a man have to take ownership of your life and fight back and push back on our culture and say, I'm going to go for just some base level things about my own strength here, because that's what it means to be a man. And I've got to work on it. Nobody's going to work on it for me. So I'm going to have to work on it for myself. Okay. So again, just base level, you need to be able to go throughout the physical requirements of your day without getting tired or winded. A little bit of a step beyond that should also mean that as a man. You should have the kind of strength that you need to show up in an emergency kind of situation. So if the people around you, especially the people that you care about are in some kind of physical need, you need to be able to show up to help them. You need to be able to run fast enough to snatch your kid out of the road. If it looks like he's in danger, there. You need to be able to hop over a fence. If somebody has gotten into someplace that they don't need to be, and you need to go help them out. Okay. All of these kinds of like emergency situations. If somebody gets trapped underneath something, you need to be able to have the strength to lift it. Now, you know, with some reason nobody's expecting you to lift a car on your own, but you need to be able to offer some strength in emergency situations. If you can be called upon. A man needs to be able to show up in those kinds of places and say, I have something to offer here. I can help. And that's really what the goal of our strength is, is to say, I need something to offer. I need to be able to help out in situations where help is needed now. That's hard to put some specific terms too, but it does mean that you need to develop some cardiovascular ability, right? Your heart needs to be in good shape in case you need to be able to run or to sprint or to jump or to do some things that are kind of, you know, more cardio demanding. It also means that you need to have some physical strength. You need to be able to lift and to push, you know, or to pull different things. Uh, that are going to require some physical strength of you and some of those kinds of emergency type situations. And that's really about it. Guys, if you can develop those sorts of things, then you will be physically capable and pretty much all of the situations where you are needed to be again, like I said, that might just look like, you know, helping a buddy, lift a couch to be able to move it into his new apartment. And that might be most of the strength that you're required to offer. Now as a man, you might find that you want to develop more strength in that, that you want to push and challenge yourself to be even stronger than that, because you find that using and having that strength really helps you to be in touch with what it means to be a man and to offer yourself as a man, to the world around you. That's okay. That's great. That's what men have done throughout history and in every culture of the world. So there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but I also don't want you to think that, that if that isn't. Isn't you, if you're not coming from a place of heroic strength and you're not interested in developing that, that's okay too. You do need to have some baseline strength. You do need to be able to show up in some emergency situations. And if you've got things that are limiting you from being able to do that, then it's time for you to actually face up to that and to be able to work on it. Okay. Now I mentioned at the earlier part of the episode, just talking about my own personal story, that as a. Young boy, I really struggled with physical strength. And so I want to tell you a little bit more about that story about me and how, as my idea of manhood really kind of began to change that I actually started to make that a priority for myself. When I got into high school and college, like I said, I hadn't really ever played any kind of team sports where we had, you know, any kind of gym access or things that we needed to do in the weight room as a part of our sport. So I actually started working with a personal trainer in high school. That was really kind of unusual at that point in time. And to be honest, I got made fun of that. Uh, made fun of for that a little bit, but I just kind of said like, look, that doesn't matter. Like, what I want is to begin to actually take advantage of my strength and start developing it. And so I needed to work with someone who could sort of show me the ropes. I needed to learn what to do in the weight room. And if I was honest, when I walked in there, I could watch some other guys and I could pick up some things pretty easily like bicep curls. But when it came to some of the other more complex movements, I've really didn't know what I was doing. And I kind of knew enough to know that if I made some mistakes, I could really injure myself. So I did, I wanted to start working with a personal trainer who could help me learn the moves that I needed to be able to do in the gym and to get stronger. And when I started out, I was pretty weak. Guys, I can remember going into the gym for the first time as a teenager. I was probably 15 or so at the time. And, uh, working out on the bench press for the first time. I couldn't even lift the bar by itself without any weight on it. And so we had to swap out the bench, press bar for a bicep curl bar that weighed even less than that, just so that I could do the bench press. I gotta be honest. It was a little humiliating at the start, but I quickly progressed beyond that and started being able to add weight to the bar. And honestly, just even that alone gave me a pretty big confidence boost. Being able to see that I could gain strength that I could work at this and get stronger, helped encourage me to keep getting back in the gym and to say, this is something I can do. This is something I can get better at. I just need to give it time and some consistency. And that's really what strength is all about. As I moved on into my twenties as a young man, I started to really enjoy doing lots of different kinds of physical fitness. So I had been a swimmer growing up and I kept up, uh, doing my swimming. I started running a lot and really enjoyed running. I, you know, I continued weight training. Um, but I also started doing some things like adventure races, and I really had a good time with other friends and buddies of mine going to do these things together. That if I had tried them 10 years earlier, I wouldn't have been able to do at all. But because I had some fitness background and some. You know, strength that I had been working on over the course of time, I was able to not only participate, but to do well. And most importantly, to really have a good time. Like I didn't, I didn't do it and feel exhausted. I didn't do it and feel like I was going to die. I did it. And I had a really good time doing it with my friends. And that was really what was most important. My strength in that case allowed me to show up in the world and to do something that my other friends could do and to enjoy doing it with them. That was a part of being a man was. Is that through our strength together, we could do something that we all enjoyed, and that was really good and important. So what I want to say to you? Is that wherever you're coming from on the spectrum of strength. You can improve. You can get better. You can work on your strengths and develop it at any level. You just have to get started and you have to take the right steps. Wherever you're getting started from the next step is the right step for you. Even if the people around you are light years ahead in terms of the steps that they've been able to take. That's okay. You just need to take the step that you can take and continue working on your strength to develop yourself as a man, knowing that strength is at the core of who you are, you are meant to be strong and you are meant to offer strength to the world around you. Now to help you with that. I have something new that I want to begin on. Our manhood tribe showed today. Uh, that's going to be a special segment that we're going to have as part of all of our manhood tribe shows. And that's something that we call manhood challenges. A manhood challenge is just simply a way for you to test and challenge yourself. And one of the five marks of manhood so that you can put a little effort in and watch yourself grow and get better. Okay. So you can develop a manhood challenge around any of the five marks and then just give yourself some time to be able to test. Test. And see how you can improve in that area. And like I said before, strength challenges in particular are one of the easiest ways for men to watch themselves be able to improve. If you will just put in a little bit of consistent practice on a regular basis, you will see your strength grow. Your body is meant for it. That's how you are created. That's how you develop and you will watch yourself change and get better in this area. So from here, I'm going to wrap up this episode, but we're going to transition. Into our new manhood challenge segment. I hope it's something that you enjoy and that you'll come back to as a way to find ways to help yourself get better at being a man. We'll talk to you again soon.
All right guys, here we are with our first ever manhood challenge segment here on the manhood tribes show. A manhood challenge is really just a way to help you figure out how you can get better at being a man. And on the manhood tribe show, the way that we talk about that is with our five marks of manhood, which are strength, courage, skill, honor, and allegiance. So a manhood challenge is going to help you get better in one of those areas. And today we want to focus on the area of strength. Now the challenge that I'm going to give you is a 60 second pushup challenge. You've probably done something like that. Similar at some point in time in your life where all that you want to do is today do a baseline measurement of how many pushups you can do in 60 seconds. You want to do the best pushups that you possibly can do. So good form would be in a plank position with getting your nose or your chest all the way to the ground. And then all the way back up. Now, if you can't do that, that's okay. I do a modified version of that. That enables you to do as many as you can in 60 seconds. So maybe you're leaning against a counter or a table to use an angled pushup. Maybe you're doing pushups on your knees, but whatever you can do, just get your baseline measurement. And then you want to try to work on it over the course of the next month, doing pushups three to five times a week, to just see how you can continue to improve. And in one month you want to remeasure yourself and see how much you've grown. The point of a man who challenge is to get better in one area of manhood. And I know that within the next month, you are going to watch yourself be able to get better. I hope that this challenge is you to continue to grow as a man. And we'll look forward to seeing you over on the manhood tribe show. We'll talk to you again soon.
