Every human that has ever existed has been an individual. Different aesthetics, different biochemistry and different biomechanics. This means each person needs a different regime in order to feed, exercise and correct their body and mind as efficiently as possible. With the number of combinations being infinite, you can see how much fun exercise coaches and healers can have attempting to unlock each client's unique code.
Despite the vast number of differences seen amongst people there remain some commonalities that will ultimately dictate whether a client succeeds or falls short of their goals, let's take a look.
Knowledge - Ever find yourself observing someone's form at the gym and catch yourself thinking, "Man, that cannot be good for his back" and "I bet his shoulders will hurt when he gets older". Well, you're right, it is only a matter of time before your subject gets injured. Your first piece of advice to him/her should not be how to correct the exercise but to go home and pick up a book or read an article on how to do things right, because they are either misinformed or uneducated. This applies to any aspect of health and wellness. Having a base of knowledge means calculated success.
Dedication - This doesn't just mean working hard when you exercise, it means looking for ways to improve a little each day. Assess your nutritional quality, posture, sleep patterns, injuries, personality traits and quality of life and physically write them on paper in order of importance. Re-assess them frequently and strive to improve the ever-changing top priority. This ensures that your habits will continuously become better and more efficient.
Love - Love contributes greatly to most decisions in life. I'm not talking about the sappy, hallmark kind of love. I'm talking about the love you have for yourself, your family, your values..etc. Usually, if you make the decision to begin training it means you want to reverse or change something that has happened to your body. You do this because you love your body. You most likely got this way overindulging in a certain luxury. You loved that luxury too much. If you want to make the journey easier and more enjoyable, learn to love exercise and clean nutrition. Eat for function rather than flavor and appreciate what healthy living does for you every day.
Excel at the 3 components and you will see positive changes in yourself.
There are many speakers that can talk all day and there are many thick and thin books on this subject however, today I'm going to simply point out my 5 keys to Improving performance.
1. Make a decision, act and use the momentum
e.g: Make a decision to plan your meals the night before, and start looking for your food containers, pull out your foods that you need to prepare and keep going...
2. Change your limiting beliefs
e.g: Beliefs are a choice. Believing in them is what makes them true to you. Create new beliefs and replace your old ones with new ones. Give it time, it won't happen overnight, but with anything, the more effort you put in, the more results you get.
3. Model the strategies that work
e.g: Sometimes, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. Find someone that has already been there and accomplished those specific goals successfully and learn what they have to offer.
4. Shift your state and take a different action
e.g: If your feeling bad, you set off a vibration that resonance to all around you. It can become a vicious circle, because you won't receive from others what you desire. To quote Abraham Hicks, "To evoke the best from others, you must find a vibration that is a match to the best in others." Once you can shift your state, which essentially means shifting your emotions from bad to good, then you can recognize the actions associated with that bad state and it's easier to stop the same action that invoked the bad feelings to happen again.
5. Be 1% better tomorrow than you were today.
e.g: The truth is that you don't have to be 100% better than someone else at something. You just have to be 1% better. It all starts with one. As a competitive bodybuilder, I always strive to be that 1 degree better. It separates 1st place from second place, outstanding from normal and rich from poor, not only in money but in life. Mike Litman reinforced this statement of being 1% better than the next person and it's been working for me for a long time.
Each person is given only one body, for which they must care their entire lives; yet, it is alarming that many individuals fail to understand the serious importance of exercise in their lives. Some individuals, once committed to exercise, have allowed life’s complications to push regular exercise out of the picture and are looking for a way to get back on track. This article is for you, as we discuss five highly enticing ways to get back in the exercise habit once again.
Getting Motivated
Life often gets in the way when we’re making other plans. You were going to go to the gym this morning, but your child caregiver was late, and now there’s no time. You thought you’d make up for it this evening, but little Johnny’s homework took much longer than you expected. You plan to get in some treadmill time during lunch the next day, but your boss has other ideas when he demands that report get finished a day early.
This is how motivation dies. And it’s completely understandable. Before you know it, you haven’t worked out in a week, then two weeks, then two months, then two years. So how can you get started again?
The first step is making... and sticking... to reasonable goals. Don’t plan to run a marathon tomorrow if you haven’t exercised in a while. Plan to spend 10 or 15 minutes on the treadmill, or jogging in your neighborhood. That’s enough for one day. And when you’ve started your exercising habit with just one day, the next day will be easier. And the next. When you see results, your motivation will feed itself.
Tracking Your Progress
The second step to sticking with your program is tracking your progress. Success can be one of the biggest motivators, especially when it comes to improving one’s life and health. Tracking success in exercise should be much more than looking in the mirror. Part of the point of starting with goals in mind is being able to objectively keep track of your progression towards these goals. Keeping a daily journal of your workouts and proximity towards goals will engender individuals a feeling of progress and visual success.
Work with a Coach
The third step is bringing other committed individuals in on your exercise habits. By having an exercise coach with your goals in mind, you not only make a commitment to yourself, but to the other person as well. In addition, find people that have similar goals. A healthy level of friendly competition between individuals can bring about some unexpected and pleasant results.
Avoid Boredom
The fourth step to keeping motivated is to avoid boredom by varying your routines and your environment. By trying new forms of exercise, or simply adding onto existing forms of exercise, you can maximize your enjoyment and your focus. Also, having a coach is a great way to relieve the personal boredom when exercising alone. If you normally walk, consider bike riding instead. If you normally play racquetball, try your hand at basketball. Not only will you avoid boredom, but you’ll benefit different muscle groups.
Setting Small Goals to Get to the Big Goal
The fifth and final step is to start slowly and build up your skill, strength and overall fitness levels. The looming thought of having to implement a comprehensive exercise strategy is enough to scare almost anyone away from working out again. By staring small, perhaps only 15-30 minutes at first, exercise routines can become gradually easier and not viewed as a chore but rather an enjoyable activity. If your overall goal is to lose 50 pounds, work on your routines and fitness level using the ‘1 pound’ rule. Every pound you lose is a celebration! Consider hanging a chart on your wall, like the height charts parents keep when you’re small. Number lines on the chart from one to 50, then cross out each line for each pound you lose. This will help you visualize your progress and keep you motivated to move forward. Little goals create big accomplishments.
A fitness professional's attention to detail can be their best asset or their achilles heel. The efficiency with which our clients perform movements is totally reliant on the cues and corrections we implement. It is our duty to identify any improper patterns and compensations being performed.
A commonly seen problem in just about any fitness facility is poor glute activation. For those unaware of what activation is; it is a muscle's potential for recruitment and activity. In other words, can you contract a given muscle and if so how efficiently? From the biomechanics standpoint, glute inactivity is a large contributor to low back pain, postural misalignment and poor performance during exercise just to name a few. From the aesthetics standpoint, you cannot change a muscle if you do not stimulate the fibers that makeup its composition. So if you're one of the many sufferers of pancake butt and you're wondering why your glutes haven't firmed up after trying every type of squat and/or lunge in the book, there is your answer.
You simply have to learn to use your glutes.
You see, your brain controls all muscular function. It sends a signal via the spinal cord to one or many muscles based on the given task and tells them to lengthen or shorten. This is referred to as a contraction. When a muscle is inactive, the pathway from the brain to that muscle(s) is either non-existent or cloudy and the signal is not received as easily. In order to restore the connection, there needs to be a forced mental effort on behalf of the exerciser to think and feel that muscle working in isolation. Once the isolated function is regained, you can then reintegrate it into a more compound movement.
Now I'm sure you're all waiting in anticipation for the solution to this problem, so here it is. Activation issues can be solved by performing some simple pre-exercise movements to increase blood flow and neural response. Here is a simple one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARvJ-o0enoM
Cues: 1- Lying on your back with your heels close to your butt, toes off the ground.
2- Hands gently resting on glutes (to ensure the amount of activity occurring).
3- Focus on squeezing you butt as you push your heels into the ground and raise your hips up toward the ceiling. Hold for 1-5 seconds with a controlled return.
Repeat this movement for 1-2 sets of 6-10 repetitions. It takes less than a minute and makes a world of difference.
No Butts about it!!
The Extreme Makeover is back! Hundreds of people have transformed their lives over the last two years with this amazing program, and you can do it also starting on Wednesday, February 24th at 6:30pm in the Holy Spirit Parish Hall located in Stittsville, Ontario. The 40-Day Challenge consists of 5 weekly workshops and will allow you to improve yourself and your life by 1% each day over 40 days. Nutrition, exercise, stress and time management – we’ll coach you step by step in these 4 areas to make sure 2010 is your best year yet. Cost is only $20 per participant. Call 613-831-9665 or send an email to [email protected] to register today, and find out what it feels like to live a truly maximized life!
