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Showing posts from March 27, 2016

Process focused, not outcome driven

Goals give you the motivation you need to put in the work. If your current eating habits or training regime is inspired by a goal, be sure to not associate happiness with the end result, assuming that the present isn't a fun, enjoyable and happy place to be in. Happiness isn't found in an outcome. Happiness is the process. Engaging in the process (rather than being overly focused on what the end result will feel or look like) will allow you to enjoy life more fully. You will also find it easier to be more flexible as you welcome many opportunities to experiment, learn and develop your skills and knowledge. We can not control the future but you can control your current process. Rather than putting all your energy into the results, focus on meaningful changes that will give you better life satisfaction, empowerment, confidence and higher self-esteem. Let's be honest - many times, life does not turn out how we expect it to. This can be good or bad. This isn't a negative

The undervalued warm-up (and pre-set)

Every workout should start with a proper warm-up. If you think your warm-up is taking away your precious training time or slowing your overall pace/speed of the workout, you are missing the point of a warm-up. A warm-up is to help you execute better during your main set of your workout. In as little as 5-15 minutes, you can increase blood flow, send more oxygen to the working muscles, prepare your muscles and nerves for an upcoming effort, improve range of motion, and most importantly, help your mind prepare for the upcoming effort. Although a warm-up will not prevent injuries it can certainly reduce your risk. Even if your workout is focused on skills, form or recovery, it's important to give your body the time it needs to gradually increase the intensity/effort to ensure that you perform your best. Now you may be thinking that a warm-up includes a little dynamic stretching or light foam rolling before you start your cardio workout and you

Your coach is watching you

It's easy to cut deals with yourself when you train alone. When no one is watching, you can go a little harder/easier when you feel like it and you can modify a workout based on your mood and energy. You can skip the parts of the workout that you don't like and you can add/shorten a workout based on what you feel makes you feel the best on that given day. Although coaches would like to assume that athletes follow training plans as written (with only necessary modifications applied based on time constraints and energy to ensure quality training), I think any athlete would agree that a group training environment (or having a coach with you when you train) forces athletes to give an effort that they wouldn't do on their own, not to mention complete the entire workout as planned. Seeing that training alone gives an athlete a tremendous amount of freedom to mentally check-out, modify or adjust a given workout as the athlete feels fit, you may find that you are limi

Healthy lifestyle habits

It’s quite the paradox but America is obsessed with eating healthy yet we are one very unhealthy nation. Although what we eat (or don't eat) affects our health, healthy eating is simply part of a healthy life. And a healthy life requires healthy lifestyle habits.  If you are constantly looking for quick fixes after you realize that your unhealthy lifestyle has become a problem, it's time to stop the diet mentality so you can (finally) create good lifestyle habits to improve your health, body composition and performance/fitness. Believe it or not, but by addressing your lifestyle choices you can actually improve your fitness, achieve/maintain a healthy weight/body composition, minimize GI distress (especially during workouts), improve recovery, have more natural energy throughout the day, reduce risk for injury and sickness and enjoy your athletic lifestyle a lot more without following a diet plan.  I realize that it's much easier to gain control over your