Welcome To Earth

You had to cancel yet another training session or workout. Why? The kids...the taxes...you forgot about...not feeling well...STOP. Welcome to Earth! You are officially a normal human being. "But that's not fair, I'm extraordinarily busy..." It's time to stop kidding yourself and time to start being more honest. You are prioritizing things, but you're not putting yourself first. Ask yourself this--"how bad do I want it?" Want what, though? That is the real question. What is your true goal? Some of us are training to be weekend warriors and want to better our times and athletic performance. But if you're like most people, when asked about your health goals, you say something like, "I want to tone up," or "I want to look good on the beach," etc. What are your real motivations though? Think about these things that seem to be keeping you from working out. Your job, your kids, your especially busy lifestyle. These are the same reasons why you need to keep your training a priority. After all, how can you keep up with your children if you are out of breath after a few stairs? How can you keep up with your job if your body's systems are in slo-mo? Your health should be your number one priority because without it, you will fail at everything else eventually. So wake up, smell the coffee, decide and commit to yourself. It is only then that you will succeed. The program is not the problem. You are your biggest obstacle.

Have you ever been to IKEA? You see a bookshelf you like. You buy it, which means you have a box full of parts and the directions to put it together. How useful is that bookshelf if you never open the box? Or, how well will it be put together without the directions? What if you skip steps or leave pieces out? This is the same thing you are doing by skipping training or not following directions. Anyone can build a bookshelf with the right tools, directions, and the motivation to get it done. It's that motivation part that screws everyone up. Make it a priority, get motivated, and do it! Same goes for your health and fitness. The benefits of paying the price for good health and being fit will far outweigh the costs of not doing so. Trust me. Have a great day, and thanks for reading!

Evolve Your Program

This past Sunday, I had the unique opportunity of watching one of my clients cross the finish line at the "Hustle Up The Hancock" stair climb event. Roughly 8 weeks ago, my client contacted me and said she had signed up for the event but was admittedly de-trained and out of shape. Her hope was to finish this climb and was not concerned with time. "Do you think I'll be able to do it?" was her mantra through our training period. She, like everyone, has had her own unique challenges physically, mentally, and emotionally and battling through was tough. Eight weeks is not a lot of time in the scheme of things, so we had to skip ahead and get into advanced endurance training. I certainly had my challenges in designing workouts and a program to bring her up to speed. Nonetheless, my client stuck to the program as closely as possible, and she finished the climb with a decent time. "I can't believe I feel okay" she told me after the race. I told her as I had told her many times during training that the actual event would be easier than most of our training sessions, and it was. After finding out her official time, she began speculating about her pace and her stopping to take a water break and whether she could have made better time. This brings up a good point about mindset.

You see, at the beginning, this individual, like many of us, have an idea to accomplish something. Once we get close to this or even accomplish it, our goals change and we evolve and learn in the process. In this case, she went from wanting to finish the race to realizing, through experience, that she could not only finish the race, but she could now be competitive against herself and others. This will take our training in a new direction, and my client now has the added confidence in herself which will apply to athletics as well as carry over into her personal and professional life. Success has no category, people. Your success in life will be determined by the smaller successes in different areas of your life. How can you be a successful teacher if you can't follow direction yourself? How can you be great at sales and be a horrible father? And how can you improve if you keep doing the same things? You may find some progress, but surely when you commit to strengthening the areas you are weakest at and find balance, you will be more successful all around. This is the same approach we take in personal training as well. If your stride mechanics aren't up to par, will your half-marathon time be as good as it can be? Probably not. Work on your weak areas and everything will be better. Think about the areas in your life-- fitness, nutrition, your personal relationships, your career, etc. What are you best at? What areas can you improve in? Work on it, and contact me for support and guidance. Thanks for reading everyone, and have a great day!