Warrior Fitness » motivation

There Are No Fitness Secrets!

Jon — Tue, 22 May 2012 11:57:40 +0000

At no time in history has there ever been more information, research, in-depth studies, and knowledge-sharing available than the present moment. Those who are still waiting for the latest “fitness secret” to be revealed to the public have missed the boat, in my opinion.

Actually, I’ll let you all in on a little secret – you won’t tell anyone, will you? – Fitness has a lot less to do with what you KNOW (to a certain extent), and a lot more to do with what you DO (to a greater extent).

The secrets have already been revealed, the recipe for the secret sauce ain’t so secret anymore, and this is very troubling for some people. Want to guess why? Because they can no longer pontificate and debate and pretend that the latest and greatest fad is just around the corner. If there are no more secrets, then there’s no more stalling and waiting for “it” to arrive. It’s here. It’s available and at your fingertips – books, DVDs, articles, websites, blogs, personal trainers, fitness coaches, super awesome gyms, etc….

The knowledge is here. It’s being shared. The issue now is actually reversed. We know too much. You never would have thought it possible, but it’s true. Many of us are so overwhelmed by the deluge of information, workout routines, different programs, conflicting opinions and research, that we are stuck in our own paralysis by analysis.

So what should you do? Find a trainer you trust and train with them. Pick a program that resonates with you and follow it. Go to a gym that educates, motivates, and challenges you. Do the work. Put in the sweat. Endure the discomfort and get better because of it. Get out there and do it!

Need help with your fitness program? Check out my Online Coaching Opportunity. I will create an individualized, done-for-you program to meet your goals. There are only 3 spots left, so act now!

Fitness or Fatness, Your Choice

Jon — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 11:51:13 +0000

Seems pretty simple, right – fitness or fatness? If our choices for how our bodies would look, feel, and move were laid out like an a la carte menu it would make life much easier. Would you like the fit body today or the fat one? Either or. Take your pick. Would you like the body with joint pain and stiffness today or the one that feels like a well-oiled machine? Would you like the uncoordinated body today or the one that moves with grace, power, and presence? Hmmm… these choice, when laid out in black or white look relatively easy, don’t they? Who’s going to be the one to choose the tired, broken down body over the strong, healthy body? No brainer, isn’t it?

But of course life isn’t this simple. There’s so much gray area. Things cannot be this black and white. Our choices are never so clear. Or are they?

What if I told you that every choice you make in daily life contributes to the body you currently own? What if I took off the blinders, removed the filters, and put you firmly in the driver’s seat in charge of your own health, fitness, and wellness? Would that be scary for you? Maybe. A little bit. In the beginning. But it’d also be empowering. Intoxicating. Pretty damn cool. Don’t ya think?

Okay. How do we do it?

Simple (but not easy).

By understanding that every choice we make is an act of conditioning. Donut or apple – conditioning. Elevator or stairs – conditioning. Wake up early to train or sleep in – conditioning. Fast food or home cooked meal – conditioning. Sit and watch tv or go to the gym – conditioning. Walk at lunch or surf the Internet – conditioning. Take 10 minutes out of my day for joint mobility or ignore it - conditioning. You get the idea.

Everything we do (or do not do) is an act of conditioning. It all adds up. It all catches up. The body you have right now is a direct result of the choices you made, and continue to make, in regards to diet, exercise, movement, training, habits, and behaviors. And the key point here is that the conditioning happens no matter how you value it.

So there it is. Change your choices, change your life. It really is all up to you.

So what’s it gonna be today?

3 Words I Hope to Never Utter

Jon — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:56:03 +0000

This year I will turn 40. Some have been saying that 40 is the new 20. Well, if that’s true then there are a lot of seriously out of shape 20 year olds running around! The more I listen to people my own age, and sadly some even younger, the more I hear the 3 words I hope to God to never utter myself.

The 3 little words which hammer nails into the coffin are,

“I used to…”

I used to do martial arts.

I used to be in shape.

I used to run marathons.

I used to train hard.

I used to have energy.

I used to be thin.

I used to be able to play sports with my kids.

I used to have muscle tone.

I used to be able to fight.

I used to eat healthy.

I used to …. Fill in the blank.

Whatever the blank in the sentence may be, the point is that there is way too much “used to be doing” going on in the world today and not enough “am doing”.

For me, it must always be about moving forward. Getting better. Getting stronger. Moving better. At 40 I am in the best shape of my life NOW. Not 10 years ago. Not even 20 years ago. Now. Today. Next year I intend to be even better. And the year after that.

Whatever age you are, wherever your starting point, if you are still breathing then you have the ability to improve, to get stronger. To train more. To learn more. To experience more.

Get out and do more.

Make it your mission in life to never catch yourself uttering the phrase, “I used to…”

Watch this video as a reminder of how great you are.

Motivate Thyself!

Jon — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 13:51:45 +0000

Last night, about 8:30 PM or so, as I was driving home from dropping my daughter off at my parent’s house for a sleepover, I had the following conversation with myself (in my head, mind you!)…

ME: “I’ll workout when I get home no matter what time it is.”

ME: “Awesome idea!”

ME: “What if I don’t quite feel like it though? Seems like a good idea now, but it’ll be late when I get home and I’m starting to feel a little tired… (hear the voice of Mr. Resistance creeping in there?)”

ME: “True. Plus you’re getting over that cold too. You might just want to skip it and go to bed instead. (Mr. Resistance is insidious!)”

ME: “Whoah… hang on there! You already made up your mind to workout when you get home. You WILL workout. Don’t let that negative crap in your head. Whassamada with you?”

So what happened when I got home? Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t be writing this blog post if I went straight to bed!

You are the only one with the power to motivate yourself. You are the last line of defense against Mr. Resistance. Yes, of course outside influences matter – who you read, who you speak to, what you watch, what you listen to, etc, etc, these things all have an effect on your thinking process and motivation. But when you are all alone with only yourself to guide you, you make the final decision to do or do not.

Each time you successfully defeat Mr. Resistance you create a stronger pattern. Your ability to impose your will becomes greater. You increase your mental and spiritual strength. You create a habit of winning out against resistance. The converse is also true, however. Each time you give in to that small voice of Mr. Resistance and stay on that couch in front of the TV or sleep in late instead of waking early to go to the gym, you create a stronger pattern. Yet this time the pattern is harmful. It works against you. It makes you weaker.

At the end of the day, who is making the decision to get you off the couch, out the door and into the gym? Who sets the alarm clock earlier to get up and go do the work? Push Mr. Resistance back in his place. Kick his ass. Motivate Thyself!

Battling Demons

Jon — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 22:22:34 +0000

To get good at any discipline, you must practice every day. To become great, you must practice all the time. The problem is, with so many pressures, responsibilities, and draws on our time in daily life, how does one manage to train every day?

For me, it’s a daily battle with my demons. These are the insidious little creatures that lurk in the dark recesses of my mind. Their sole purpose being to distract me from becoming the person I want to be. They rationalize and cajole to pull me off the path of self improvement. The path of training. For others, the path may be their daily struggle to make good food choices and lose weight, or it may be the daily battle to study at night while working a full-time job in order to earn that MBA. The path is personal. The demons are universal.

Currently I train for a few minutes every morning which provides the dual function of waking me up and setting me on the right path for the day. It primes my muscles, movements, and nervous system for the more involved training I will perform later that night. Additionally, I will train during the day at odd intervals when I have a few minutes of down time. These little periods provide the consistency I need to help me keep going. But, as I stated above, the bulk of my training is done at night after putting the kids to bed. Usually around 9 pm or so I head down the basement to my home gym. This is my dedicated training spot. For me, it helps to focus my efforts since the only thing I do there is train. It’s minimalist with very few distractions. Perfect for doing the work. For the most part, I beat the demons by just getting downstairs and setting foot in the gym. Getting there is the most difficult part, but once there, the demons are beat and the daily training progresses.

Sometimes, like last night, the battle isn’t won by just getting to the gym. Last night was different. I was tired. I was comfortable sitting on the couch watching TV with my wife. The kids were asleep. The house was quiet. Peaceful. I thought that the demons hadn’t even shown up to fight because getting down there was so easy. Once I was in the gym though, they attacked. It was a sudden, violent onslaught that took me by surprise! “You’re tired,” they told me.

“You don’t need to train anymore today…”,

“You did enough over the weekend. Relax. Take it easy.”,

“Why don’t you just go to bed early for a change? You need your rest!”

On and on it went, not just verbal but real feelings of being sleepy. Feeling like I should go upstairs and go to sleep. I almost gave in. Almost succumbed. Almost quit.

But mental fortitude kicked in. Training kicked in. The battle was on! I heard myself talking to one of my training buddies saying – “you have to train every day. You have to want it bad enough. How do I do it? Well, it’s like brushing your teeth, Dude. You just do it every day (usually twice!) no matter what.” This began the rally. But it was far from won. What won the battle once and for all (at least for last night) was the fact that I just started doing my solo conditioning exercises. I was in the right place. My mindset was returning. But the way to win the battle is to simply begin doing the work. Understand that your training is a necessary part of becoming who you want to be. Understand that daily training is a necessary part of that process. And get it done.

Wisdom by Will Smith

Jon — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:41:13 +0000

This montage of clips from Will Smith interviews is simply awe-inspiring. There is absolutely nothing you cannot accomplish when you put your mind to it. “The first step, before anyone else in the world believes it, is you have to believe it.” Check it out. Listen to the wisdom!

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Top 5 Mistakes When Starting an Exercise Program

Jon — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:39:26 +0000

In my experience there are several things that can contribute to failure in an exercise program, or any other goal for that matter. In the past when I would fail to achieve a specific fitness goal or suffer a setback, minor or major, I’d chalk it up to fate and just try harder the next time. As I grew older, and smarter, I began to see a pattern emerge. These things didn’t just happen, there were particular sets of circumstances, most often at the outset of an exercise program, that combined to allow them to happen. The list below comprises what I consider to be the top 5 mistakes. You may have discovered others, and I would encourage you to share them in the Comments section below, but in my mind these are the most critical errors. As Saint Thomas Aquinas rightly taught many times, “An error in the beginning is an error indeed.”

An Error in the Beginning

1. Too much too soon. Everyone wants results NOW! The problem here is that when talking about results, incremental progression reigns supreme. Let’s face it, if you are trying to lose weight, for example, it took a long time, maybe years, to get to be over-weight. Losing fat is not going to happen overnight, no matter what the TV ads tell you. It took time to condition yourself to be out of shape, it will take time to re-condition your body to be in shape. Be patient. Focus on the process – you’ll get there!

2. Lack of a training plan. In my mind, it is essential to have some knowledge of how to program an exercise selection to correlate with the goals to be achieved. Without this it’s pretty much hit or miss as to whether you achieve your goals, or even remain consistent.

3. Lack of effective warm-up and cool-down strategies. This goes hand-in-hand with lack of a training plan above. DOMS, or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness, is a significant contributor to people actively deciding to not pursue their fitness program. When joint mobility as a warm-up, and yoga postures, as a cool-down, are effectively combined with the exercise selection needed to be successful, they tend to reduce or eliminate DOMS.

4. Nutrition that does not support the exercise program. While the diet OR exercise approach has some merrits, it’s simply not enough. Get your eating in line with your workouts, and in line with your goals. Diet AND exercise is a powerhouse combination.

5. Quitting. Yes, this will really ruin an exercise program. But seriously, how many people begin a regimen with the best intentions yet due to other life pressures, lack of motivation, lack of results, or lack of interest, fail to be consistent?

How about you? What things contribute to derailing you from the fitness track? And, more importantly, how do you remain focused? I’d love to hear from you!

8 Ways to Fit in Your Fitness

Jon — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:07:28 +0000

It’s often been said that if you want something done you should give it to a busy person. While this may be true of some busy people, namely the ones who are highly motivated, highly productive, and highly efficient, what about all the other busy people? What about those who are busy through poor time management skills, or maybe those who are simply overwhelmed? How about them? Does the task they are given merely get thrown on top of a growing pile of “To-Do’s”, or even worse, shuffled to the bottom? What if the task they are given, or give themselves, is directly related to increasing their quality of life and most likely longevity as well? What if that task will help them be more productive at all their other tasks by reducing stress levels, increasing energy, and their overall sense of well being? What if that task would help them to reduce, remove, or otherwise prevent a host of daily aches, pains, and illnesses that are stoically (or sometimes not so) suffered as things that “just happen” as we grow older?

Here’s a list of 8 ways for these busy people to fit in their fitness and reclaim a healthy lifestyle.

1. Plan it out. Scheduling is the key to successful time management. Look at your weekly calendar and plan to exercise just as you would plan an important client meeting, a lunch with an old friend, or coaching your kid’s Little League team.

2. Exercise wherever you are. Joint mobility sessions can be done at your desk – see here.

3. Work in an office building? Take the stairs instead of the elevator. See how fast you can make it to your floor – beat those lazy suckers in the elevator to your floor!

4. Have a lunch break? Go outside and go for a walk. 10 minutes in the fresh air will do wonders for you. Eat at your desk while you work and then go for a walk. Want to make your walk more productive? Try inhaling for 5 steps, holding you breath on the inhale for 5 steps, exhaling for 5 steps, then holding the breath after the exhale for 5 steps. When you can comfortably do that for the entire duration of your walk, increase to 6, 8, 10 steps!

5. Get up earlier and workout **warning – this one requires effort and commitment!!**

6. Spend quality time with your kids. Exercise together – see Warrior Fitness for Kids.

7. Brief workouts. Got a spare 15 minutes? Bring the intensity and lose the long, boring workouts. See the Warrior Fitness WOWs for some ideas.

8. Isometrics. These require very little time to be effective, need no equipment, and can be done literally anywhere.

Obviously, this list is neither exhaustive nor all inclusive, but I do hope it has helped you and sparked some ideas to help you fit in your fitness no matter how busy you are. What ideas do you have?

Do You Know the Enemy?

Jon — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 01:54:35 +0000

Do you know the enemy? I do. It inhibits peak performance. It makes you lazy and keeps you unmotivated. It cajoles you into seeking comfort. It distracts you from your goals and dulls your mind. The enemy sells you on an “easy” lifestyle and lulls you into a false sense of security. It conspires to sabotage every move toward a healthier diet or consistent workout program. It will aim to destroy any action or activity that moves you towards bettering yourself, be it education, a new job venture, a move towards a more spiritual life, or writing the great American novel. Ultimately, it weakens your spirit.

What is The Enemy?

The enemy comes in many forms and assumes many guises. It may tell you that it’s alright to sit down on the sofa and watch Lifetime Television with your wife after dinner; you can get to that workout later. It may convince you that just one brownie bite is okay, after all, they’re just “bites”. You may feel tired from a busy day at the office, and rightly so – the enemy will whisper in your ear that you can begin your fitness regimen tomorrow and that will be good enough. What exactly is this enemy who kills our motivation and procrastinates our calling (sometimes indefinitely)? Steven Pressfield identifies the enemy as “Resistance” in his excellent book, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles.

“Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole… If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”

Sometimes the most insidious form the enemy can take is the form of knowledge. We fall into the trap of, I know what I need to do, I just need to do it. Knowledge comforts us. It allows us to rationalize that since we are in possession of it, we can carry out the action at any time. We don’t need to do it now. Tomorrow is fine. Next week is OK to start. So, why worry? One of my favorite quotes (just ask my daughter, she’s heard it often enough!) on this subject is:

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

How Do I Defeat The Enemy?

In his book, Awakening Spirits (Religion and Spirituality), famed wilderness survival guru, Tom Brown Jr., gives the enemy a different name, calling it the “Demon of Distraction”. No matter what you call it, if you call it anything at all, it’s the very same impersonal, unrelenting force pushing us away from our calling, deferring our goals to a “better time”, or for when “conditions are just right”. Here’s a hint – conditions are never perfect. There is no better time than right now. How do you defeat this omnipresent enemy? By doing your work. By starting right now. Don’t delay. Don’t defer. Begin. Do the work(out). Trade the 3 o’clock junk food snack for an apple. Skip McDonald’s on the way home from work and prepare a healthy meal. Don’t allow yourself the luxury of excuses. Be firm. Be strong. Get it done. Be resolute and committed to your health and fitness goals.

Goals for 2010

Motivation

Jon — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:48:43 +0000

Everything sounds like a great idea when you are thinking about it and planning it out. The problem, as they say, is in the execution. Sunday afternoon you are superbly confident of your plan to get up at 5 AM Monday morning and do your prescribed workout. However, when that alarm goes off, suddenly your mind finds every excuse in the book to hit the snooze button and sleep “just 10 more minutes….” How do you remedy this? What do you do in the early hours of the morning to drive the demons of laziness out of your head and get up to get that workout done? Well, there really is just one way. Force yourself. Drag yourself. Make yourself get up and do it. I know, that’s not what you wanted to hear. You expected something magical, something logical, something practical, something that wouldn’t require you to exert any effort to make it happen. Me too. I used to think the same way. Why isn’t there some sort of crazy mental trick I can use to motivate myself? Why does it have to be so hard to force myself to get up and get the workout done? There actually is a trick, in a way. It’s called the law of accommodation. Whatever you keep doing over and over again becomes easier. If I’m lazy and unmotivated, then as I repeat that action of hitting the snooze alarm, it becomes easier for me. If I drag my lazy ass out of bed and make it to my basement gym just one day, it becomes slightly easier the next. As I keep pushing, prodding, coaxing, cajoling myself to get up at 5 AM and workout, it becomes habitual. It becomes easy. My body and brain naturally “accommodate” me. Don’t just do it. Get it Done.

How do you get and stay motivated? Discuss!

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