In this series, I’m discussing what is frame, and how to improve your frame. I proposed a structure of what is frame in my previous post that is required reading before you understand this. Today, I’m focusing on the Physical Basis of your frame. I’ll discuss what it is, how to improve it, and explain how a weak Physical Basis affects your Frame.

If Frame is a tripod, the Physical Basis is one of the points it touches the ground. Having a good Physical Basis means that you have the physical tools to get what you want in life. Since you are here, I’m going to assume that part of what you want has to do with your masculinity. The obvious way to communicate this masculinity is to have a strong masculine body that you control at ease, and that facilitates your life. I’ll list some aspects of the Physical Basis.

  • Muscles - This is why everyone here always says “Lift” as the first thing you should be doing. Big muscles (hypertrophy) are a defining part of a masculine body, and lifting heavy things is the most straightforward way to achieve this. There are many programs to do this, and if you follow one with discipline, you will get results. Big muscles also increase the production of testosterone, which has great impact on all areas of your frame. Because lifting is such an efficient way to improve part of your physical basis, and because it just works as long as you are disciplined, when in doubt about what to do about your frame, lift. This way you put your frustration and confusion into something concrete and productive.

  • Diet - You need to get your diet in check. If you can't control what you put in your mouth, how do you expect to inspire respect on others? If you are fat, well, you need to diet to lose the fat. Otherwise, no matter how much muscle you build, you won't get muscle definition because the fat will cover the muscle. As they say, you can't outrun a donut. Good diet is hard work at the beginning, but once you get used to the discipline, it is straight forward. If you count calories, and set them right, you will lose weight, no question about it. There are other programs as well. Good diet will also give you more energy, improve your mood, and even improve your skin. You can lose up to two pounds (one kilo) per week in a healthy and controlled way. If your problem is you are too skinny, a good diet will make sure that all that lifting you are doing turns into big strong muscles.

  • Body composition - Once you are disciplined about lifting and diet, you will make progress. You will see a lot of improvement for the first two or three months, very dramatic. As a beginner, just get started, don’t over think it, chose one beginner plan, and stick to it with discipline. But if you get stuck at some point, you will have to start looking more into the interplay of diet and hypertrophy, and do more advanced things, like cut/gain intervals, or intermittent fasting. However, don't let this paralyze you to start making changes. It is always better to follow a simple diet than to just read, wait and think about dieting.

  • Posture - Good posture is comfortable, strong, and healthy. If you struggle to maintain good posture, it means you have muscle imbalances. If you spend too much time working on the computer, like I do, you probably have bad posture. This can be improved very quickly with simple exercises. I started doing a simple routine that takes me 5 minutes in the office. I’m taller, and I feel so much better. My usual back problems from the computer are totally gone. I saw improvement after 2 weeks doing this, but it has taken me longer to feel natural with the better posture. Yes, you can actually be taller and more handsome just by getting this in line in only a few weeks. Go to /r/posture and ask. Posture is amazing to communicate a strong masculine way.

  • Voice - Your voice is an important tool of communicating. Probably when you decide to take the pill you think that words spoken is the way of communicating, and you are talking too much. A good way to not talk too much is to realize that we communicate not only by what we say, but how we say it. You must control your voice so it is inline with your message. Your message is given coherently by everything about you saying the same simple thing. Without this, you can say the most brilliant amused mastery, and it will come out weak, scared, and childish. No good. You are aiming for demonstrating control and purpose with your voice. For me, what works is to just breathe deep with my balls before talking, and focusing on talking less. Breathing is great, because it buys you time to maintain frame, think, and control the situation by controlling the timing of when you speak. Breathing with your balls can make the difference between reacting to a shit test with a weak voice, or responding with powerful intent.

  • Body language - This is another way we communicate. It is fine if you are expressive with your body language, but you must do it with purpose. For this, the things that helped me was simply, breathing with my balls, checking my posture, and speaking slowly and deliberately, and my whole body followed. I've found out I can pass many shit test simply by having good posture and body language that communicates my strength, no words needed.

  • Coordination - I thought I was uncoordinated, a genetic thing. This made me uncomfortable, clumsy, and just made me move in an insecure way. This communicating I couldn't control my body, so how would others trust me to lead? Well, it turns out, that this kind of body-awareness, which is called proprioception, can be improved dramatically very quickly. Things that worked for me was joining a martial arts class, and going regularly. Also, skipping rope, and doing workouts designed for boxers with emphasis on leg movement and coordination. It is amazing how much more comfortable and confident I feel now. I just move better, with more economy and intent. Heck, even my performance in bed became better, because I’m overall stronger (from working out), but also I can I can shift positions now with more ease and confidence, so to her, it feels more dominant. I can use my body to communicate what I want, and it is a lot more dominant and powerful.

  • Sexual Energy - If you have a porn problem, get that in line. No excuses for you. You need to accept and control your sexual potency, so you can be honest and integral about it, releasing the caveman when it matters. If you want to have stronger erections that last longer, and have more intense orgasms, do kegels regularly. Lifting is to your muscles as kegels are to your hard-on. And with this, you will just feel more comfortable with your sexuality, and this in itself, will make you feel like you have a stronger basis in bed, and you will enjoy sex more, and so will she.

  • Grooming and style - Have a hard look at yourself. You want to become the best version of yourself possible. Make sure that everything about your look, your hair, facial hair, body hair, nails, skin, everything follows your vision. If you don’t know how, check out men’s fashion guides appropriate for your age and body type. If you want to look sharp, look very sharp. If you like the gritty look, do it with purpose, not out of laziness. It shows. The guiding goal of your style should be not to hide who you are, but to be the better version of who you really are. The quintessential example of this is those that decide to shave their comb-over; instead of hiding their baldness, they own it.

I’m sure there are other aspects of the Physical Basis of Frame that I'm not mentioning. Please, bring them up in the discussion. Similarly, I don’t know all the resources for all of them, so I encourage you to share them here, for the benefit of others. This is something that, as a community, we do better than just me writing.

I have discussed how important is to have a strong, stable Physical Basis, or the whole Frame can fall down. I will now discuss issues related to a weak Physical Basis. I'm representing it by this unstable tetrahedron. Note how a poorly placed Physical Basis leads to a very low vision, and also a very unstable frame. Under very little outside forces, this frame would topple, the vision smashing against the ground. Heck, it might fall under its own weight!

This represents the case, for example, of getting very fat and weak. Then, your weak Physical Basis communicates honestly that you are a weak man. Your wife knows this too, so no wonder she isn’t attracted to you! Don’t be like those beginners that just come here and claim to go to level 10 dread right away without lifting, those topple and then complain to have lost frame. Although many here say fake it till you make it, I'll argue that although that works for other elements of Frame, it doesn't work for the Physical Frame. Only discipline and hard work matter in this one. It isn’t a matter of how fit your hamster thinks you are now, it is that if you want things in your life to change, you will need to improve on your Physical Basis always. Even Brad Pitt works out hard and diets carefully. Remember, if you want to lead your life, start by shaping your body. That is completely under your control, so just fucking do it.

If you want to change your marriage, it is essentially a renegotiation of terms. So, you have to improve yourself to have more leverage, period. Expecting the changes you want without doing the hard work of improving yourself is just a form of pleading, very beta. This is why here so many insist you Lift, it is just a simple way to remind you that if you have high expectations in life, those expectations shouldn’t be imposed on others, but on yourself.

All the things I mentioned above can be improved in a very straight-forward way. Just googling a bit is all you need to find a concrete plan. This will improve your frame and also improve your SMV, and make you feel empowered. You have no excuse to improve all this. Even if the Physical Basis isn't your main weakness, since it is so straight forward, when in doubt of how to improve your frame, working on it is better than being frustrated by your lack of frame.

In the next few posts, I'll discuss the Intellectual and then the Emotional Basis. This series will be long, but I hope as the pieces come together, it will lead to good discussions. What matters is not that you buy into my proposed structure, but that I challenge you intro thinking yourself about your own Frame in new useful ways.