Welcome to 'Put On Thy Strength'

Welcome to Put On Thy Strength, where physical and spiritual strength grow together.

"The spirit and the body are the soul of man" To keep our souls nourished we need balance between our spiritual and physical health and strength.  

We are all unique individuals and thus one-size-fits-all approaches to pretty much every avenue of life don't work. As such this site is dedicated to sharing a variety of approaches to improving health, fitness, and strength both physically and spiritually.

Site Mission:

Background

In our fast-paced modern world, despite labor-saving technology to surpass any other time in history, somehow we are all busier than we were ever meant to be. The biggest challenge I hear about that's facing everyone is a lack of time for all the things they need and want to get to. Now it can be easy to say this is a poor excuse and people find time for what matters to them, yet there is truth to the matter that many of us just have too much on our plates and the idea of juggling any more is beyond stressful and can leave a person feeling defective for not being able to do it all like it "seems" others do. This site is particularly geared towards becoming the strong son or daughter of God the Lord wants each of us to be.  Our goal is to help simplify the process by helping you get started and build momentum to keep going with a life pattern of nourishing and exercising your spirit and body.

Mission Statement

Become strong of mind and body, strong of faith and help strengthen others.

Good Friday 2025 Update

Here I hold myself to account for anyone to see. Key things I'm keeping track of include daily scripture study and prayers and workout updates. Each of these things is set up to be very small at a minimum while I let the patterns become so deeply entrenched they become a part of who I am, not something I do. My minimums started out with simply saying a nightly prayer, reading and or listening to scriptures each day (at least one verse) and having some planned physical activity (even if it's just two minutes). Since starting this out I've progressed to where on average I read around a chapter of scripture each night, listen to scripture while putting away dishes from the dishwasher in the morning, say prayers while kneeling morning and night and get physical activity every day except Sunday when I take a day of rest (but still might go for a walk). I do still have misses here and there, especially when routines are disrupted - but on the whole I'm making progress and becoming more consistent. Between these tweaks and being given to much fasting and prayer for the welfare of my country and the world I've had the added benefit of dropping around ten pounds and losing four or so inches around my waist this year.

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Sacrifice

For those who have been reading this week it will come as no surprise that I've missed out on sleep that I needed this week and fatigue is absolutely a factor in follow through. last night, I just wanted to go straight to sleep and skip prayers and scripture study. I reminded myself that I can keep it simple and read one verse, which while not ideal, is still making sure I'm keeping up that pattern at all and keeping a vote for my identity as a Child of the Covenant who makes time for these matters. My workout yesterday was also blunted by lack of sleep, but I worked in some running on my lunch break and on my way to work and a brisk walk home while also working in some bike riding and core work. Today I have have 3-5 sets of pull-ups to get through of which I've completed four sets already. I've also worked in some cycling sprints getting up to 32 MPH on my bike's monitor which is faster than my usual 30, so that's nice to see.

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A battle of will

This morning I woke up at around 3:00 AM and really never fell back asleep. By 6:00 AM I figured I might as well get up and start my workout for the day. I started out with a set of 40 push-upsĀ  and felt exhausted. I pushed on through a set of 40 kettlebell swings and a two-minute static squat (held a horse-stance pose for those familiar with this from martial arts). I found I was really struggling, but pushed through another two sets of forty push-ups each over the next hour. I spent a lot of time just sitting and thinking and being amazed how much time ticked by with so little to show for it. I decided to take some creatine this morning to help off-set the fatigue and help me power through my work day.

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Holy Week

Going strong. I did have a disruption to my evening schedule that left me missing my evening scripture reading last night. I'll have to do better, if I can justify it to some extent. Morning prayers are getting stronger and daily exercise in small bursts is seeming reasonably locked in. Today was more pull ups, a set of 10, followed by a set of 9 +1, and then 6+3+1 with less than 20 seconds of rest between additions within a batch of ten. between sets I did cycling sprints and back extensions. This has me on the right schedule for these as last week I made some adjustments in the week that weren't perfectly scheduled for my routine.

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Acknowledging weakness to come back stronger

This morning I carried on with my small patterns of behavior leading me to be a better man. I made my bed, but was thrown off somehow and got downstairs before realizing I missed my trigger to pray and knelt down where I was and offered up my petition to Greatness. For my morning workout I had pull-ups to do with cycling sprints and back extensions between (superman style on the floor, no apparatus). I had a goal to do 10 pull-ups each round whether I could do them all in a row or required breaks. My first round was ten pull-ups followed by a 20 second bike sprint peaking around 29 MPH on my stationary bike. Next round was 8 pull-ups, followed by another 1.5, leaving me with still another to do that was accomplished with a little more rest. My next round of cycling sprint was also 20 seconds peaking around 31 MPH. Each round I completed 20 back extensions. I did a final round of pull-ups with 6 reps followed by 4 and moved on to some body rowing, bicep curls, and 5-mile cycle that took about 20 minutes.

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Unceasing Strength

This morning I opted to do sets to failure/near failure with my push-ups interspersed with other activities such as putting away dishes and stair intervals (I run up and walk down - today this was timed out by listening to a song, it happened to be Day After Day by Badfinger that popped up and I ran with it). This resulted in a first set of 40 push-ups, a second set of 40 push-ups, and a third set of 37. Morning prayers went like clockwork with making my bed still serving as trigger to remember to kneel and the freshly made bed and offer up the thoughts of my heart to my Father in Heaven. Reading scriptures and praying each evening is still also going well. There have been many nights that I'm feeling tired and I am tempted to skip it, and tell myself it only needs to be one verse at a minimum to lock in the pattern, and then continue to go on and rad a full chapter or several verses at a minimum - with actually only reading one verse being uncommon.

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Liberty or Captivity

This morning I got right back at things with making my bed and saying morning prayers as well as getting in a portion of my workout for the day (I'm experimenting with having a more traditional workout broken up into smaller chunks throughout the day) which saw me doing 20 step-ups per side, followed by 10 knee tucks (like a combination of pull-up and hanging leg raises with bent knees) and a batch of jumping jacks for two rounds. This totaled 80 step ups, 20 knee tucks and 80 jumping jacks in my 5-10 minutes available this morning. I should try to repeat this amount later in the day.

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Pulling myself back up

Workouts have been pretty consistent in a minimal fashion. While I'd shifted to greasing the groove, I wasn't always doing enough round through the day to make up for the smaller amounts of work per work period - I'm thinking I should return to a greater focus on single bouts in the mornings again as my mornings should be able to be back on track here right away as the worst of my home repairs are now complete and no longer keeping me up into the night and squeezing out my morning time by forcing later sleep.

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Another morning

This morning I was back at it with greasing the groove activity for the morning (I did two rounds of 20 push-ups this morning and two rounds of 5 pull-ups with a few minutes of stretching between rounds and will return to doing more small bouts throughout the day of each). I made sure to get my bed mad and kneel for morning prayer and listened to 1 Nephi 21 as I was loading up the dishwasher that wasn't loaded last night. I also read a couple verses before last night. I'm hopeful to be back on track fully shortly as I think I'm beginning to see an end to my bathroom and kitchen repairs following our plumbing adventure.

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Still Here

Just a quick post this morning to state that I'm more or less staying on track, it's making the time to report on everything that is my limiting factor for right now. This was however the first morning in a while that I listened to scripture while unloading the dishwasher as my mornings have been squeezed and our kitchen hasn't been set right yet after our plumbing adventure. I've often been up late into the night finishing some mudding, sanding or painting sections and needing to clean things up again enough that my family can use the space enough to function the following day. These late nights have left me with later mornings and less time, so I've been doing grease the groove style workouts throughout the day and still reading my scriptures at night and saying my prayers.

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A little change up

My mornings have been thrown off with the kitchen being torn up. I've switched to a grease the groove style for my micro workouts for the time being. Throughout the day I aim to do at least four and ideally closer to six sets of push-ups and pull-ups using 20 repetition sets and 5 repetition sets respectively. I also sprinkle 2-minute wall sits throughout the day. It's not terribly hard, but it should be enough to make some progress or at least stave off losses and keep up the newly created habit.

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Growth through trials

Well I've really been putting these tiny habits to the test this last week or so as I've just had a lot of demands on my time and energy. I've managed to stay with things at least 90% throughout.

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About us

At 'Put On Thy Strength', we believe in the transformative power of integrating action with belief, temporal with eternal, to bring about lasting change, confidence, and power. We believe both physical and spiritual aspects constitute the soul of man and that both must be developed together for balanced strength; Strength to physically act on the yearning of our spirits and the character to serve others and use the bodies we've been blessed with to enrich the entire family of God.

Our blog serves as a dedicated space where those seeking increased strength to follow the Lord can find and share support with others on this journey. We provide insightful articles, practical tips, and motivational content that inspire our readers to embark on a holistic journey towards complete strength of soul. Whether you are looking for workout routines, nutrition advice, or spiritual guidance, our mission is to empower you to build resilience and find balance in your life. Join us on this journey to strengthen not just your body, or just your spirit, but your whole self.