When I started going to the gym, I always dreamed of doing a muscle-up.

That’s where you do a regular pull-up,

But you pull to your belly button and then do a chest dip at the top.

Sounds complicated, I know.

It’s an even harder movement to execute.

One of my gym mentors taught me the concept of “time under tension”.

It’s where you want to build up time for your muscles to contract under movement.

He told me to do a regular pull-up, but do it very slowly.

Explode during the pull.

Pause at the top.

And slowly lower myself, counting to 5 seconds.

After 3 months, I got my first muscle-up.

I was stoked. I couldn’t believe it.

I spent those 12 weeks slowly building the time under tension.

I’d held the pull-up contraction for over 45 seconds.

Now, you might be asking:

Michael, what the fck does this have to do with long-form writing?*

That’s a great question.

When you write, you are training your audience’s brain muscle.

But instead of time under TENSION, you are using time under ATTENTION.

Long-form writing generates the best time under attention.

Why?

Well, when someone reads your long-form writing, they can’t do anything else.

Unlike listening to a podcast or YouTube video, when someone is reading, they can’t do anything else.

You can’t read and drive.

You can’t read and clean your house.

You have 100% of their attention for those 4-6 minutes.

The quality of attention is high.

While people spend a lot of time doomscrolling on TikTok or Instagram, their attention suffers from a form of digital amnesia.

I know after I scroll for too long, I feel stupider.

And I forget 90% of what I’ve just watched.

But a good piece of long-form writing lives rent-free in my head.

The ideas from the article enter my mind and stay there.

I’ve had articles that've changed the course of my life.

• Why do you think every cult leader writes a book?
• Why do you think every dictatorship burns or bans certain books?

Because long-form writing commands time under attention.

And time under attention changes people’s brains.

Stay Limitless,

Michael ‘loves a good gym analogy’ Lim.