Body Stewardship & Burnt Marsh-wiggle

Hey there - it’s Don.

The weather cooled down enough this week for some park evenings this week with the family. The best was watching the kiddos enjoy the local sand volleyball court as if it were a beach.

It’s good to be back outside after a hot summer in TX.

And it’s good to have you back again for this week’s edition of Fit Tip Friday.

Let’s jump in!

🔎 In This Fit Tip Friday 

 Inside you'll find:

• Tip: Body stewardship

• Finds: The spasmodic Hercules (and more)

• Story: Burnt Marsh-wiggle

• Quote: Good old Puddleglum

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Brought to you by…

The Kettlebell Strength System

The Kettlebell Strength System is my program that helps Christian guys lose weight and build functional strength without going to the gym.

In the program, you will receive:

• Time-saving workouts that help you build functional strength

• Accountability to help you stay consistent

• Access to a group of Christian guys with similar goals as you

Want to see if this program is for you?

Click below to learn more.

🎁 Body Stewardship

As a Christian, stewardship is a concept I regularly return to when trying to think about exercise from a Christian worldview.

Stewardship answers some of the basic questions in fitness, like:

• What is fitness for?

• Who is fitness for?

• Why is fitness important?

• Why even pursue fitness?

A steward is someone entrusted with something from someone else. That entrustment comes with basic responsibilities, like not messing the thing up and taking care of it to help it thrive.

And our bodies are gifts to us from God, our creator.

Stewardship acknowledges God as the sovereign creator (Genesis 1-2, Revelation 4:11). Our bodies were created by God, and are for God. They belong to Him and not to us (1 Corinthians 6:19).

Put another way, fitness is body stewardship… where we move, strengthen, and use our bodies to serve God and bring Him glory.

We are caretakers of our bodies, and stewardship acts as a north star in the wild land of fitness, as a constant reminder of where we come from, where we are headed, and why we are going there.

🔎 Finds This Week

Here are some of my favorite finds this week:

• The spasmodic Hercules, written by Tim Challies (more)

• This stretch can help relieve lower back pain if you have it one side (more)

• 12 forgotten benefits of the Turkish Get-Up (more)

• How to reduce your sugar intake (more)

• Robert Miller’s RKC workout template on how to build muscle with kettlebells (more)

• Tips and exercises to improve your grip strength (more)

• 18 of the most addictive foods (more)

 🔥 Burnt Marsh-Wiggle

Read the following post on the Layman’s Fitness website if that’s preferable for you.

Stories of strength, heroes, risk takers, and bravery inspire us to get off the couch and get into action. This is one of the reasons I share a story in every newsletter.

This week’s story is about a character who bravely takes action when his friends needed him most. His strength of conviction swelled up and brought much needed encouragement to his friends.

This is the story of Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle.

In C.S. Lewis’ book The Silver Chair, Aslan sends two unlikely heroes, Jill Pole and Eustace Scrubb, on a mission to track down missing Prince Rilian and bring him home.

And Jill and Eustace pick up an even more unlikely hero along the way… a Marsh-wiggle named Puddleglum.

A Marsh-wiggle is a creature that lives in the marshy north of Narnia… with webbed feet and hands, weed-like hair, and lanky limbs.

Puddleglum is a character that grows on you in the book. On one hand, he’s brave, loyal, and committed to the mission… while on the other he’s often dreary, and he reliably points out the worst possible scenario in pretty much every circumstance.

But when the group needs him the most, he bravely and boldly stands on his convictions.

Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum find Prince Rilian in the Underland. The prince had been there for 10 years, under a spell from the Queen of the Underland, the Lady of the Green Kirtle.

The trio frees Rilian from the silver chair he was bound to, and as they plot their escape, the Queen of the Underland walks in.

The Queen calmly walks over to the fireplace, throws magic green powder into it, takes out a musical instrument, and in the magical and smoky haze she tries to cloud the thinking of the three heroes by lying to them.

• When the Prince expresses his desire to go to Narnia, she laughs like a schoolteacher listening to a 5-year old talking about a silly dream, and tells him no place exists.

• When Jill tries to describe the world her and Eustace came from, the Queen chides them both for believing foolish lies.

• When the three try to describe the sky and the sun from the world they came from, the Queen successfully dismantles their arguments.

The Queen lulls them into a stupor where they doubt the existence of Narnia, the Overworld, and Aslan. Her deceptive magic seems to work.

But not on Puddleglum. Once she starts to make them doubt the existence of Aslan, something snaps in the Marsh-wiggle.

Puddleglum walks over the to fire and stamps most of it out with his bare foot. This stopped the hazy atmosphere of the room and replaced the sweet smell with something entirely different - burnt Marsh-wiggle.

As Lewis describes it -

Puddleglum walks boldly over to the Queen, now revealed to be a witch, and he delivers one of the best speeches in the series.

This rouses Jill, Eustace, and Rilian, but it has a vile effect on the Queen. She reveals her true self by transforming into a green serpent, and the beast turns to attack.

The Prince and Puddeglum strike it’s neck with their swords, and after a few more hacks, they decapitate the snake.

👍 Thanks for reading!

I’ll see you next week.

Be strong,

Don

P.S… Here are some of the recent wins from the guys in the Kettlebell Strength System

If you’re interested to see if this is right for you, click below to learn more.

Some of the recent wins ⬇️

-13 lbs since July ⬇️