Tag Archives: online workouts

On The Habit of Excellence

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” –  Aristotle

 

Lately I have been thinking about the virtue of excellence. This wasn’t always an important virtue to me. When I was younger (and dumber) I believed that I could get by on just being adequate at things and sort of drift my way through life. The only problem with drifting is that things only can drift one way, downstream.

No one has ever drifted to the top of the mountain.

Now I am convinced that we must all live the virtue of excellence in order to have full, complete, productive, and happy lives. And to be of service to others.

The most often talked about value in Greek culture is areté. Translated as “virtue,” the word actually means something closer to “being the best you can be,” or “reaching your highest human potential.”

This is our daily struggle and goal as warriors – to reach our highest human potential. You see the funny thing about excellence is that you can never achieve it, one and done. You must constantly strive to be in a state of excellence every day pushing higher and higher.

The man or woman of areté is a person of the highest effectiveness; they use all their faculties: strength, bravery, wit, and deceptiveness, to achieve real results.

In that spirit, here is the Strength Training Workout I just completed:

1A) Kettlebell Swings 4 x 25
1B) Barbell Back Squats 4 x 10, 6, 4, 2

2A) Pull-ups 4 x SM
2B) Kettlbell Military Press 4 x 6/6
2C) Split Stance DB Rows 4 x 6/6

3) Heavy Partial Squats 4 x 2

4A) DB Hammer Curls 3 x 6-8
4B) Lying KB Triceps Extensions 3 x 12
4C) Warrior Sit-ups 3 x 20

Phew… 

Pursue excellence!

I am opening up a few spots in my Warrior Online Coaching Program. If you are someone who is interested in pursuing excellence in your life, you can apply HERE directly.

 Don’t just think about how you can become excellent “some day”… Learn how to begin creating habits that will make you excellent NOW!

The Top 3.5 Reasons Training is Hard

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The other day a student said to me during training: “This is hard.”

My reply was, “Well of course it’s hard. You don’t come to me to learn how to do things you’re already good at, do you?” 

But why is this difficult?

In my experience,training is hard for approximately 3.5 main reasons…

1. You are learning new skills. It’s hard to be good at movements, exercises, and concepts that are new to you. Your nervous system must adapt to the new and different stimulus and create, or sharpen pathways to build competence and skill.

2. You must work on your weak points. Working on things you are already good at is fun, but the only way to truly become all-around strong is to eliminate your weak points.

3. Your ego. No one wants to look inept or silly. But the only way to become better means that we must put ego aside in order to learn.

3.5. Superficial Expert Status. The amount of information available today gives people immediate access to any body of knowledge out there, no matter how obscure, in a matter of seconds.  We have all become SMEs – “Superficial Matter Experts”.  We think that just because we know “about” something we actually understand it. No one wants to spend the time and effort required to learn something deeply.

But these reasons are exactly why we need to train. And why we need to train with people who have greater, or more specialized knowledge, higher levels of experience, and greater levels of skill than we do.

This is why I still train with my martial arts teachers. This is why I still have a strength coach. This is why I participate in masterminds and have business coaches.

Because I know that I need to be pushed and challenged in order to grow, just like I must push and challenge my students and clients in order for them to grow.

Ready to be pushed and challenged?

It begins here <<===