Monthly Archives: July 2014

Body shape, diet, eating, Energy, habits, muscles, self-image, time, you

Snacks – the more, the better.

Two days before Australian Championships

Two days before Australian Championships

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Placing: 2nd in Australia.

When my children were born, I was fascinated with their eating behaviour. They ate every 2 to 3 hours without fail, around the clock. As most of you would know (especially parents), the first few years of a child’s life can cause huge sleep deprivation on parents (especially mums).

I asked the question why society teaches us that the main times for food intake should be breakfast, lunch and dinner. Why don’t we just follow what we have all gone through in our first years. It seemed like we were biologically born to consume food every 2 to 3 hours. It seems that society’s expectation is forcefully applied to us as ‘normal’ eating behaviour because that’s just how it has been for centuries. Probably helps us all become better employees when we are older – less time eating, or for breaks and more time devoted to working.

Apparently, great for productivity and the “bottom-line”.

The thing is that the body works more efficiently and effectively with energy pumped in to it regularly and this is where snacks come in.

If you’re like most people and being ‘busy’ and busier than everyone you know, then  you would probably only make time to eat three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Whether your goal is fat loss, muscle gain or a combination of the two, the smarter way to get your daily energy intake is to spread them throughout the whole day. It’s the way our bodies are made to work.

We need to work with our body, not against it.

I’ve always told people that body re-engineering or transformation is mainly about hormonal management, through management of raw materials going in ( your body and your mind). Frequency of meals is a key factor to success in your body transformation.

You see, anytime you eat, blood is rushed in to your stomach for digestive aid. If you eat huge meals (as most people do three times per day), your energy and vitality levels get affected and fluctuate. Many people feel intense sleepiness in the office after a big lunch. The more food your body has to process, the more blood it steals from other areas of your body to aid in stomach digestion. The same can be said for digestive enzymes.

Losing blood from other areas of your body could affect your metabolic state and so slow down the distribution of energy within your system (hence the sleepiness feeling after a hearty lunch). This leaves you feeling less sharp and tired you struggle to focus.

Having large meals also triggers a higher insulin response which inhibits fat burning as it alerts the body to desperately store unwanted body fat. So, an answer to reducing your meal sizes is to go back to eating with more frequency just like you did when you were a baby, being luckily breastfed or bottle-fed every 2 hours. You need to eat more often and so increase your meals from 3 to 6.

How do you do this? Simple: eat more smaller, well-compositioned meals.

Try preparing or having at least three snacks ready to eat between your three main meals, spreading your calories throughout the day. On the face of it, it may sound like you will be eating more but spreading out what you eat can actually cause you to eat less. This is what I tell most if not all my clients – “I’ll show you how to eat more to change your body shape … and lose weight”. They then say, “but shouldn’t I be eating less?”

Another mis-perception propagated by the weight-loss industry.

You see eating six to eight smaller, well-compositioned meals instead of three large meals, keeps you blood sugar levels in a good range and does not encourage sudden fluctuations. For your body, this equates to a constant flow of readily available energy which reduces your tendency to eat more.

Eating smaller meals more frequently also allows you to feel fuller, longer and does not encourage you to over-eat in your main meals. More importantly, keeping your blood sugar levels in a good range, does not trigger the hormone – insulin, which when triggered forces your body in to ‘starvation’ mode that encourage fat retention and storage.

The key to body re-engineering and transformation is fundamentally hormonal management.

So, snacks are necessary but when people talk about snacks they think of ‘junk food’. It does not have to be. When possible choose snacks that are a combination of the three macro-nutrient groups: protein, carbohydrates and fats.

Some good examples of:

  • Protein sources: lean meats including chicken, beef/kangaroo, ham and fish, tofu.
  • Carbohydrate (low GI) sources include: fruits and/or vegetables like beans, broccoli, spinach, celery.
  • Fat sources: most nuts like almonds, cashews, peanuts and avocado, ricotta cheese

Each snack can combine all three, for example, two pieces of chicken breast (120g) + avocado (30g) + long beans (120g). Keep nuts to 30g or less per snack intake.

So pack your snacks in lunch boxes just as you or your parents did when you were a kid and have it ready to eat at work. It will save you time (waiting in line to get a sandwich) and will help improve your overall sense of vitality throughout the day.

Adding snacks to your life should help you take one step closer to the body you want. Little habits like this, when practised deliberately – daily, over time is where the real miracle is.

A little change within has a greater change – without.

Try this one change in your day. See how you look in two months.

All the best,

 

Until next time,

 

Paul V2 (1)

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body, body weight, Energy, Fitness, habits, mind, muscles, planning, time, truths, workout

A “Democratic Workout” may just be the thing for you.

_MG_5226   Great sets make great workouts. The more shapely, smooth and safe one’s sets are, the more structurally sound they will be, like good engineering foundation to a building – the better one’s workout will be. Simple right?

Not so fast. Lets break it down.

A great workout needs to transcend ego training. It needs to rise above fear but stay within the safety umbrella. It needs to progressively take you beyond your tolerance levels. Your self-imposed limitations. It must, within the limits of personal experience in the gym and domain knowledge, allow the person to feel what I call the ‘essence’ of each exercise. The aim of a good workout is to gain as much as possible as economically as possible, within a specified time-frame.

A set could be short, right and nice. Some people prefer that.

A set is a little miracle and a critical link to a successful workout. A miracle because of the way it makes you feel, when you do it right and nice. A number of repetitions make up a set. A set in weight training refers to the way we move a weight from somewhere to somewhere else. It metaphorically tells a short story – of what is, of what happens, of who did what and of what is done, when it is done.

All sets have a definite finishing point. It carries a trainee from calmness to acstacy, from being dry to sweaty and pulsating. From nothing to something.

A set in bodybuilding is as critical to a workout as a river is to a whole catchment. Namely, everything. The part serves the whole, it is what the whole comes down to. You see, sets alone or sets of exercises laid out in no particular order may get you sweating and burn calories but does not fit in to an organized pre-designed plan: 2 sets of 10 reps of squats. 45 reps of dead-lifts. Huh? Why? For what purpose? What goal?

Oh, I get it. Sets are part of a story.

I like to think of a workout that a person carries out is a short-story. His/her story through physical expression. Meaning needs to arise. How does meaning arise? It may happen because a suitably experienced personal trainer puts the sets and exercises into an order that allows meaning and purpose. Why do we need meaning/purpose (refer to my previous blog: don’t be a rudderless ship for some insight).

There is in each and every one of us humans, an innate need for story, for storytelling, for relationships between disparate things. For causality. We all like to make sense of and recognise patterns in everything in life, including the performance of sets of exercises in the gym. A set in a workout needs to be structured with the correct number of repetitions, weight, tempo to allow the gym trainee to see and allows us to discover meaning to patterns – and for storing and repeating them in body, mind and spirit for the future.

When you see the interrelationship, when you observe and feel the connection between the set and the workout – it is like pure art. It is like beautiful music. Like sex. What you get is sets performed – simple, compound, complex and compound-complex. Interspersed with rest periods and water/liquid breaks/chat breaks/toilet breaks.

Like sex. Orgasmic, really.

Even when you think you understand the interrelationship between the set and the workout. You don’t. You realize you don’t understand the chemistry and mystery behind it that give meaning because every time you perform each set, keeping all variables constant, the feeling and result is different.

How is that so? One can learn patterns by which this simple-complex system, the set, works. But how you get different results, different effects from the same cause is as mysterious as the soul of a man or woman or the origins of the universe. It comes down to the different mental states people are in at any point in time. A mystery at the best of times.

A set as I like to define it is a “15 to 45 second focused moments”.

People can understand a whole workout program without ever knowing the ‘essence of the exercise’ when performing a set. I have seen this in people who have trained with weights for many, many years. When you perform sets of exercises in the proper manner, you have rhythm and when you do it well enough you not only get  meaning but you make music. It is music in motion! Great sets make great workouts.

Great workouts include long and short sets. Long and short ‘focused moments’. Complex and simple and complex-simple.

Workouts of the rich and famous have gotten ridiculously short and everyone seems to be after the shortest workout in our every-increasingly busy, instant gratifying western societies. Workouts that include only short sets for an even shorter workout is to say the least, hypocrisy personified. People want to get all the health benefits of working out but don’t want to put in the work. Everyone wants to know how much less and less they can get away with fewer exercises when the are in the gym.

“Here it is”, an newspaper article or tv broadcaster would say “get the body you want by only spending 5 minutes in the gym once a week”. How ridiculous is this? Do you think Michael Phelps got the results he desired by spending only 5 minutes in the pool? Do you think Tiger Woods got the results he got by spending only 10 minutes out on the golf course? There are many more examples in every field in life. They got that way because they spent countless hours deliberately practicing certain habits within a structured and planned program over many years. Not 5 or 10 minutes!

Well I have news for you. There are many ways to perform a set, and a serious gym enthusiast should employ most of them, if relevant. Just as a golfer would use different golf clubs for different strokes, a gym trainer would use different sets. Some of your sets should be short – yes; some should be long; some may even be what I call a ‘midget-set’ – a sub-set of a set. Each set has a unique tempo to it depending on where they fall in the workout and purpose.

The point is to mix them up.

Mix them up within an overall workout goal and plan. You need meaning and purpose in your workouts to get the most out of them. Mix them up, like an ecosystem or local community, a workout thrives on diversity and mastery of execution. Just like a democratic society.

You see, I have had many, many workouts and have done many, many sets and spent many, many hours in the gym with deliberate practise over the last 23 years or so. One thing struck me as odd and interesting – some workouts took less than twenty minutes and were very short, some took almost all morning. Usually, these long workouts happened because I did not have any particular time set in mind to do them. Instead, I made a conscious choice to take the time. In the shorter workouts, I didn’t take the time. I got lost in the workout, enjoying the highs and lows of each set, sculpturing away.

Each workout still done with pleasure.

Each set and workout had no fixed intrinsic amount of interest. Instead each set and workout were interesting and pleasurable as long as I chose to focus and give my attention to them. Its similar to a surfer being out in the surf or a golfer out on the golf course for hours trying to hit a small ball in little holes. Or a swimmer doing laps in the pool or a person knitting a patterned jumper or a man spending hours servicing his car. Or a tennis player playing tennis. Why do they do it? How long?

Same answer as each of these activities would give  – as much time as you care to give it. Not an infinite amount of time, but more time than you first imagined.

So, put away the clock and time-piece and lose yourself in your sets – your workout. “Feel” each repetition of each set of each workout. Make the last rep as good as the first. Give more meaning and purpose to your workouts.

Make music. Allow yourself to make music with motion. Find your rhythm.

Give each type of set a chance – a voice, sometimes without the constraint of time. Give your least favourite exercises a try – an avenue to be heard.

You may just like what you see and feel (and hear).

This is what I call a democratic workout. Try it sometime.

 

Until next time,

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body, dreams, Energy, faith, Goals, habits, hope, life, long-term perspective, mind, perseverance, planning, self-image, time

Don’t be a rudderless ship.

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The one thing I know about going anywhere, is firstly, you have got to decide on where it is you’re headed. Usually before you depart. This increases your chances of heading in the general direction of your destination and – getting there!

Knowing where you want to or desire to go is very important in all areas of life – physically, financially, spiritually, relationships etc. The one thing that my successful clients have all got in common is a ‘sense of purpose’ in why they are going through a body re-engineering program and getting help from me.

I work with my clients to put together a picture of how they would realistically see themselves looking like. Once done, I design daily habits to help them achieve their goals, using my framework to body transformation – a Game Plan.

They get critical goal-achieving acts to be performed daily. These were habits that were not fun but necessary to achieving their goals. I differentiated them from acts which were merely tension-relieving and got them to FOCUS on the former. Once I devised the plan to make it happen, they developed the attitude of “I’ll do what’s necessary to get what I want”.

They had purpose.

You see, what I have learned in over 20 years of helping people in the gym is that purpose is the engine that powers our lives. What we’ve all got to do is work at increasing that ‘engine size’, maybe from a 1.8L to a 4L or 6L?

Everyone has purpose, yes. For some it is surf, and others the internet, still others it is to eat, for others it may be just to get through the day and for others still, it is revenge or getting even. In very challenging stages of your life, the response you need – purpose – is the healing portion that enables each of us to face up to adversity and strife. A winning positive mental attitude.

Don’t give up on life when the going gets tough and you’re in a little rutt. Always think that its only temporary. Don’t think that you no longer expect anything from life. Instead, think in the reverse: think that life was expecting something from you. That life is asking of every individual, including you, a contribution and it is up to YOU to discover what it is. What it should be.

Someone really wise once said:

“Where there is life, there is hope.”
“Where there are hopes, there are dreams.”
“Where there are vivid dreams, repeated, they become goals.”

So true.

These goals then turn in to action plans and game plans – life plans. When these goals are connected to the heart, when it becomes an inner commitment, the achievement of the goals is almost automatic.

I see that with everyone I have successfully helped – it means something to them, your goals has got to mean something to you, too, in whichever area of life it may be.

This is one of the critical reasons for over 80% of my clients who have achieved their body transformation goals. They had their heart in it and realised their desires through the game plan I set for them and worked the plan. This is critical – working the plan!

As the saying goes, if you fail to plan, by default, you plan to fail.

What kind of goals are you committed to?

Have you asked yourself “what do I stand for?”. What would I defend to the end? What would I want people to say about me when I am gone? What do you want your children to tell their children about you?

It seems that for many people, millions of people – getting through the day is their -goal and getting to the ‘end of the week’. You hear radio announcers re-iterating this pathetic line, tv hosts reminding you of the ‘slug’ of the ‘daily grind’. What a load of you know what!

Setting such goals results in people generating just enough energy and initiative to get through the day. Their goal is to watch television – soap operas by day, game of chance shows in the evening, cops and robbers, home renovation shows and situation comedies by night – seemingly having no goals of their own. They sit in a semi-stupor night after night with tunnel vision and watch TV actors and actresses enjoying themselves earning money, pursuing their careers and their goals.

Do you go to work everyday waiting to see what happens? And do you spend all your time making someone else’s goals come true?

Purpose, my friend – purpose.

Do you know where you are going in your life? Do you really know? If you do, then, I would say that you would be in the less than 5% of human beings who do. Congratulations!

The vast majority however, I would say, sadly, do not. Like a ship with no rudder, left to the changing tides of the sea of life, with increased risks of getting no where or possibly getting ship-wrecked.

Aim to be one of the 5% if you’re not there already.

Start by setting lifetime goals and then breaking them into bite-size chunks for 1 year or 5 years, a 6 month or just a season project. Once set, spend more time on high-priority goal-achieving activities, daily. Just like my clients who successfully got the body they desired, they stuck to the game-plan through deliberate practise of daily habits.

Most people spend more time planning a party, studying the newspaper or news and/or making a Christmas list, than they do planning their lives.

Don’t be one of the 95%.

Find your purpose – your life direction.

Take the time and exercise the discipline to decide on your destination and to chart a course. Captain your ship through life with proper sails and rudders and accomplish more in a few years than most would accomplish in a lifetime. Just like my clients accomplish in a few months what many gym enthusiasts fail to achieve in years.

How?

The 5% of human beings that have done it have developed their game plan for LIFE.

Work on yours today!

There’s no time to lose …

Until next time,

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adaptation, Energy, life, mind, muscles, needs

Attitude – the key to Adaptation.

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Look around you.

The world is winning some battles and losing others.

We do not seem to be winning a lot of battles – the eradication of terrorism, the conflict in the middle-east or the tensions within certain European Nations.

We seem to be winning the battle against infectious diseases and certain cancers which is good. All external battles. However, we seem to be losing ground to those battles that result from our own “inner conflicts”.

Inner conflicts, some of which are brought about by life’s stresses. How stressed are you? What are your inner daemons? Are you a tortoise or a cheeter? What I mean by this is how fast or slow do you move when you are faced with stress? Knowing how much stress you can handle is vital to your sanity in the fast pace of life that is your life today. The first stage to self development is self-awareness and trying to find your normal stress level in life is vital for you in managing it.

So once again, are you a tortoise or a cheeter?

Stress is part of life, part of everyday living. There are good stresses and there are bad stresses. A good stress is the force your muscles are put under when you lift weights. A bad stress could be thoughts about how certain work situations would turn out before it actually happens. The first step to managing stress is being adaptable.

Adapting to stresses in life should be viewed as a normal part of life. When stress is treated and accepted as ‘normal’ in the mind, that it is just another variable of life, adapting to changes in circumstances is easier.

Through increased self-awareness, you understand your tolerance level to stresses (are you a tortoise or cheeter?). What your challenge is to work towards maintaining coolness and presence of mind under all circumstances … being in control-always ….. calmness amid a storm … clearness of judgment in moments of great danger. How do you do this?

Adaptation is the answer.

A big part of being adaptable is having a positive mental attitude to whatever curve-ball life throws at you. And there probably have been hurdles you have faced to date and there will likely be many more. Its not how many hurdles you face that matters but it is how you respond to them that is of much importance. How you adapt.

Your response is dependent on your attitude as ‘you are what you think’. In the medical industry more and more evidence is showing that our attitude is a stronger indicator of our pending recovery than our physical status or prognosis. A positive mental attitude determines so many variables, in health and in the quality of your life.

Your attitude is either the key or the hand-cuffs to your ability to adapt to changing circumstances. The path you take in life.

Your attitude is never static, never constant. It is an ongoing dynamic, sensitive, perceptual process. The attitude you choose to display is entirely up to you – a choice you consciously make.

It is said to be the most powerful and priceless personality characteristic one can possess.

Everyone has the capacity to be positive under almost any circumstances. A positive attitude is the key to success in any problem solving procedure or major lifestyle change. With a consistently positive attitude it is possible to win the game of life in all directions: personal satisfaction, strong relationships and success in a meaningful career.

I repeat, your first step is to find what your ‘normal’ stress level is – are you a tortoise or a cheeter. Determine your tolerance level. Just like muscle, you need to know what your physical stress limitations are before you increase weights. Lifting excessive weights and putting your muscles under undue stress can likely lead to injuries and you can physically feel and see it.

Not determining your ‘normal’ stress level could likely lead to injuries too – only unlike physical injuries sustained through ego-training rather than proper, educated weight training in the gym, you cannot see it because you sustain ‘injury to the mind’.

Be courageous and harness your most priceless possession: a positive mental attitude.

This is the key to successful adaptation.

Until next time,

Below: Doing a “Side Chest Pose” on stage at the Australian Natural Bodybuilding Championships – 2011.

Placing: 2nd place.

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ageing, body, body weight, Energy, Fitness, life, workout, you

Sticking with what works, doesn’t always work.

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Maintenance 

A number of years ago, a member of my gym ( I owned & managed a Family gym for about 7 years) came in for his usual once a week gym session like he had always done. I could not help noticing that he did the same training routine for the last three months, so I asked him what his goals were. He said that he was just doing it to ‘maintain’ his level of strength, health and fitness.

He was doing maintenance.

I asked him when he started this training program and he told me that he started it over twenty years ago. I was shocked. He did the same thing for twenty years. Wow! Familiarity, I agree, is one of the comforting things about life. I guess it gives us a sense of certainty and steadfastness in a world that is ever changing.

We all try to cling on to something that is familiar and seemingly unchanging.

However, doing the same training program for twenty years for ‘maintenance’ may not be serving his purposes now. Yes, the program may have served his purposes when he was younger and in his twenties for a brief time, but for a brief time only.

 

Muscle is like life

You see, it is common knowledge now that your muscles adapt to any exercise within five to six workouts. I told him that if his goal has been maintenance than working out with the same program for that long may not be aligned with that goal. The thing is many things has changed with him since his 20’s when he set his original goals, the obvious thing being his age.

Front double biceps at my favourite beach here in Sydney, Australia.
Enjoying the sun and the creator that it is.
Be not like the moon, be like the sun.
Vv.

Studies show that after the big 3-0, your metabolism – the rate at which your body burns calories to function daily, begins to slow down, causing you to store more excess calories as unwanted body fat. A lot of men start storing a lot of ‘blubber’ around their gut and women tend to deposit it in the butt and legs.

Not what many people want.

 

Desire

What you want and what you get can be poles apart because of this metabolic reduction.

Your metabolism drops for several reasons, one of them being that you progressively lose lean body mass (muscle) each year and your strength levels drop as you get older. That is why it is so important to ‘off-set’ this ageing effect or rate is by doing strength training and promoting protein synthesis and muscle growth. For optimal health results you would try combining it with some sort of cardiovascular exercise.

What qualifies as cardio or aerobic exercise? Any activity that elevates your heart rate and trains your lungs to become more efficient at delivering oxygen throughout your body.

Back to our story – familiarity is important for us all. It was important for my gym pal. I get that. However, getting stuck in a holding pattern and doing the same workout for years which is not aligned with the goal (in this case ‘maintenance’), could imply that they are too scared to stray from a routine that works. People who do this though are forgetting that the routine may have worked once, yes, but in the past. It may not necessarily work now.

The truth is, sticking with what works doesn’t always work.

A few happy High School dropping by the gym on their way to their High School Formal.
Just to show off their beautiful outfits…. and hard-earned muscles making the clothes look great.

It could be holding you back.

The above could apply to many areas of life too, but in this instance, I am relating it to the successful achievement of your physical transformation goals. Whether your goal is to burn fat, build a stronger, bigger chest or put on mass. All these achievements is just your body’s physiological and biological response to the various stimulus you place on your body’s muscles in your exercise routine.

It is through adaptation that the body morphs or changes. These adaptations eventually cease as your body handles the stresses or stimulus more efficiently. The result? Well, the body’s response to the workout you have been routinely doing for twenty years or so is not doing you any good. Your body ‘knows’ your workout so well now. Basically, you are getting less for each successive workout.

Because your muscles are not being forced to adapt, your metabolism or ‘engine room’ drops and you start burning fewer calories. You wonder why you’re not losing weight or fat or putting on muscle like you used to. You use fewer muscle fibres during your workouts, and this would leave you an unsatisfying taste in your mouth as the results you get is less than what you desired. Not motivating. Very frustrating!

So, sticking with what works is not always the best when it comes to achieving exercise goals.

How do you break this awful cycle, you may be asking?

One word: variety.

In a future blog, I will give you a few alternative exercises to the basic average beginner’s training program outlined in an earlier blog “How much time do you have for a workout?” This will add variety as change is needed.

You don’t need to make wholesale changes. Sometimes, just replacing one key exercise with an alternative can feel different enough to make your body think its trying something entirely new.

Be brave. Embrace change.

Change is always part of a good exercise program. Managing change is important.

A good workout program is like life: life is about change – if you’re not changing, you’re not living. So, don’t always stick with what works if maintenance is your goal. Instead, spice it up with a little variety. A little change.

Train SMARTER!

Until next time,

 

Photos below: in the thick of contest battles in the recent past.

You win some. You lose some. One thing’s certain, you have to be prepared to lose – to win! DSCF9304

My version of the Incredible Hulk!

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Beliefs, body, Body shape, Energy, Fitness, Goals, habits, Imagination, life, workout, you

What it takes.

Find your superpowers. Know your superpowers. Work to your superpowers (strengths)

Stereotypical mis-perception.

A common mis-perception prevalent in today’s society of a person lifting weights in the gym is a steroid-buffed buffoon who hogs all the lifting machines. He (or she) grunts like a pig so loud lifting gigantic weights – a maverick risk-taker with a highly inflated view of their own self-worth.

Women and some men are still petrified about this even in today’s modern world and so they steer clear of the weights room. Very sad indeed. The consequence of this is that many people don’t believe they have what it takes to start and stick to a weight-training program because they’re not like that stereotypical mis-perception.

My family gym was for everyone – from all walks of life, from all backgrounds, all races and ranged in age from teens to 90 year olds.
Everyone abided by ‘old-fashioned value’ – respect, patience, care, compassion, trust, tolerance etc
Here I am with one of my blind members (and her guide dog) who visited my gym 3 days per week for 7 years. Many other gyms descriminated against handicapped population. Not mine.
My gym was an ALL inclusive Family Gym.

Take this supplement/drug and you can look like me.

Now, I am not saying that such gym-goers don’t exist, they do, but they are the minority. They have their place in the health and fitness industry. They are great for the supplement and drug industries. “Take this supplement/drug and you can look like me” sells. Its big money.

I can tell you that in my 20 plus years of training in gyms, the only people I have met like that are few and far between, mainly in magazines and some tv and big screen movies starring the one and only Arnold Schwarzenegger. The majority of people now don’t look like that.

One of my good old friends at the gym

Real Gym enthusiasts.

Real gym enthusiasts are real people just like you. Mums and dads and brothers and sisters and uncles and aunties. The only difference between them and the majority of people who do nothing or just go for aerobics classes is that they have, for one reason or another, decided to lift weights.

There is no qualification process, no entry requirements – just a decision to go to a gym, followed by action.

However, there are certain qualities that successful body sculpturers/builders/gym goers tend to have. Fortunately, they’re not uncommon and all of them can be learned.

Friends that workout together … stay together?
Some of the family of gym members that called my gym ….. our gym .. their gym.
Lovely people in a lovely phase of life.

Main Traits.

After 23 years and counting, here are the main traits that all good gym enthusiasts have as I see it:

1. Determination – above all else you need to have the stamina and drive to finish what you start and the desire to look a certain way – either for you or for your loved ones. However, I am just guessing here, I would say that for every 100 people who sign up to a gym, I reckon, 95 lose hope and belief in themselves and where they are going within the first 3 months of starting. Hey, a good example is those who start something as part of their New Year’s Resolution. Are you one of them?

2. Humility – not a quality you associate with a regular gym-trainer, is it? I say this because of the awareness the person needs to have to be able to accept that he/she is not perfect and that he is doing something about it. He/she is going to the gym to help make themselves closer to what they imagine themselves to be in the mirror. A better version of themselves and being their best for themselves, and for others.

Its means being honest with yourself and accepting that you don’t know everything. Its knowing that you don’t know much about body re-engineering and managing your risk levels, bringing them down to an acceptable level. You could either try seeking help from a trained professional or doing your research on your own and taking on all the associated risks if you decide to train on your own.

You’ll also have to be a person who likely has a mind open to learning new things, in a field that is not your strong point, every single day. But remember: arrogance is an injury waiting to happen and a workout killer!

3. Decisiveness – nothing gets done unless you make decisions. We all agree on that. Building and re-engineering a physique, a new improved physical version of yourself is a repeated process of action through a structured program, deduction through pattern recognition of observations made (how much weight, reps, rest times, energy etc), information gathering, feedback, followed by decision-making.

If you’re taking this journey on your own, you take responsibility for your own decisions and once you do this, you take control of your physique transformation and not blame anyone or any external factor. If you’re a beginner and smart enough to seek out an experienced professional, even better.

One of the highest risks is getting injured. Believe me, after 23 years of gym training I have been made aware of preventable injuries unfortunately suffered by many gym goers.

4. An analytical mind– you need to be able to evaluate every aspect of your workout, at every stage of your development. You must analyse whether things are working as they should and how you need to improve them. There are a lot variables – reps, sets, rest times, tempo, breathing and execution techniques etc. The list goes on. The best trainers/coaches have minds that think laterally and are not afraid to change workouts to adapt to the person being trained.

My Family of friends in my gym I owned and managed for 7
years.
All working towards being the ‘best the can be’

the right time in your life. 

Ask yourself if this is the right time in your life to undergo a physical transformation for the better. Say for example, you’re in your mid-50s and you have been thinking about reducing your waist line so as to lower your ‘life risk’ such as increased risks of heart-related ailments.

Is it something you have been thinking about for such a long time and have not done anything about? Stop looking for excuses and the situation you’re in, simply be honest with yourself and ask yourself “are you ready?”

Gym Extended Family Members enjoying a day of Lawn Bowls.
We had some great lawn bowls events over the 7 years.

It is never too late to start. 

It is never too late to start. I have helped hundreds of people get started, people of all ages including many in their 50s, 60s, 70s and even 80+ year olds. Their quality of life improves out of sight and they breathe vitality – the essence of life, back in themselves.

Recently, after achieving his original physical goals and more, a 72 year old client of mine said that the five months he spent with me was the best investment he had made in his life – and he would know as he spent a big part of his life investing in large property deals in his line of business.

He was a brave man, open-minded and determined enough to not only desire a better way to live his life but also adopt and adapt daily habitual changes that would help him get the desired results in the short-term but also for the next 30 years or so.

Collage of some bodybuilding poses .. presenting my physique art to the audience in my gym

Start a strength, health & fitness program. 

So, start a strength, health and fitness program. Even if you’re not, take a leap of faith and believe in yourself, believe that you can do it. Like I have said in earlier blogs, it may not only add years to your life but also life in your years. It does not matter what age you start or how out of condition you are – just start. Your life depends on it!

The sad truth is I would think that probably over 95% of gym goers stop going after a few months of starting, but that means that 5% continue and do succeed. You need to ensure you’re in the successful 5%. Adopting the four traits I have listed above and a ‘can-do attitude’ is what it takes.

How can you increase your chances of success in your program? Do yourself a favour: find yourself a trainer/coach that gives results – WITH CARE. This may not only be the best thing to get you started but also stay on track until you build up enough momentum to keep going on your own, progressing with safety.

Good luck!

Until next time,

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Beliefs, Energy, faith, Imagination, life, truths, you

Can diamond be soft?

B&W3339   We have all heard that advertising line “diamonds are a girl’s best friend”, haven’t we? What a fantastic line. Connected with millions and millions of women world-wide and fantastic for the bank of the dealers in this rare earth. Every girl would not settle for anything else. Diamond was and still is the ultimate gift. It was and still is a strong belief. Even if there is another substitute that was actually more valuable, you could not convince the millions of girls and women that they would be getting a better deal taking the alternative.

It’s part of every girl’s psyche now, part of their value-system. Part of a big part of society. Part of their belief-system that is almost unbreakable. This is one example of how belief can be so powerful. Whoever came up with that advertising line was a marketing genius.

Diamond is also one of the hardest substances on the planet. Can diamond be soft? To you? To anyone? Put aside cognitive theorising, but imagine, just think of the possibility of diamond being soft. If someone believed it to be soft, can he really think it so? Forget about it being true or false for a minute. If in his eyes, in his head, he believes something to be so, and really does believe it so, no one could convince him otherwise, could they? So, diamond can be soft in someone else’s mind. Just like the followers of the different religions of the world, lets name some of the leaders – Jesus Christ, Muhammed, Hare Krishna, Buddha and so on. Believers of each of these faiths and others believe a certain philosophy, and even if there was countless evidence to suggest otherwise, staunch believers would not waiver. It would not instill doubt in their minds.

We see a lot of examples in history and in our current daily lives.

Look around you, become aware of the power of belief in your every day life. Look at champion sports-persons, champion sports teams. The factor that makes them rise above others in the competition they’re in, especially given how equal teams are these days in terms of skill and talent, is belief. Belief that they are the BEST. Only a very good coach can get individuals to believe they are the best and keep them believing that so. Unwaveringly and with not an ounce of doubt at all. Just like a staunch Christian believes that their salvation is believing that Jesus Christ, son of their God, died on the cross for their sins and for all sins. All you have to do is to: Believe.

What examples can you see happening on the world stage? What beliefs do you hold to be true and have never questioned its efficacy all your life. Beliefs that you had adopted growing up, when you were just a kid, without the capability of evaluating its worthiness and overall effect in how your life turned out and still turning out. How these beliefs forming part of your belief-system, which impact on the decisions and choices you make in your life, without you consciously thinking about them. Choices that attract certain people and situations in to your life that may or may not contribute to your life in a positive manner. All this stems from your belief system. What you hold to be true or make appear true. Have you had chance to think about this possibility?

Your perception is your reality and yours alone.

A conclusion I have formed from the hundreds of people I have helped over the years in their body re-engineering goals, is that those that have been very successful, have desired the end-result. They have also believed in the product and have also been flexible enough to adopt changes to their belief system. They have been brave enough to learn how to think and act like the person they imagine themselves to be. Believing un-waveringly in their NEW SELF.

All successful goal achievements in life have to resonate with your beliefs. If you’re not getting the results that you desire in your life, don’t do what doesn’t work, do what does. For example, before jumping on a band-wagon and going on some fad diet, ask yourself, truly ask yourself if you have the right beliefs to achieve the goal you set out for. Do yourself a favour, learn how to think and act like the person you would like to be. Find someone who can show you how its done. Just like you would do when you go to an unfamiliar country, get yourself a ‘tour-guide’ of your mind. Don’t be scared. It could be one of the best investments you would make in yourself. In your life.

Recallibrate your GPS within yourself by adopting beliefs that get what you want, not what you don’t want. Once done, you can then sail more confidently towards different or better results in all areas of your life.

So, if you want to believe diamond is soft, to hell with anyone who says its not possible, that it is not true!

You have no doubt. You’re a believer!

 

Until next time,

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Beliefs, body, Energy, habits, Imagination, life, mind, muscles, Strength training, time, truths, Vitality, workout

No belief, no nothing.

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I love stories and storytelling. Do you?

I love listening to stories that people share. Everyone has a story in them. I have heard many stories from the hundreds of people that I have had the opportunity to help over the years. This blog is one such story.

A courageous story of finding the strength within and overcoming fear and the journey towards a better quality life. A few years ago, a member of my gym asked if I could get his wife to come and see me about ‘fixing’ her back. She had been suffering for about 20 years. He was very happy with the success he was getting in one of my programs and he asked me to call his wife as he had failed to persuade her to come see me. I did something a little different. I wrote her a little message on my business card saying “please come in and tell me your story”. I gave her a date and time.

To my surprise she turned up.

Typical of a lot of women, she was a little scared of gyms with a view that it was a place only for men, people who wanted to put on huge muscles and was an unfriendly, male-dominated domain that was not welcoming to women. I knew it was difficult because she had a belief fueled by mis-perceptions.

We sat down and I listened to her story to that point in her life. She had suffered from excruciating back pain and had been in and out of many different professionals for almost 20 years. Visits alleviated pain temporarily but her quality of life had been hampered by the pain and was slowly deteriorating. Her whole family suffered with her too. I discussed my philosophy to training and the framework I would use to help her. I asked her to give me 3 weeks of her life. She needed to see me for half an hour twice a week. A total of 6 visits.

She hesitantly agreed.

She had demonstrated a great deal of courage, just to consider trying something different but also something she truly feared: being in the gym. At this point in her life, she had tried almost everything and nothing was working and she desperately needed a better result. A pain-free existence.

My objective was to help her experience a better quality life, a life without daily back pain and life she could only dream about. I had less than 3 weeks to produce a result. A miracle, but I could not do it without her help. She faced a challenge and I reassured her that we would face it together. The first thing I needed her to do was to stop naming and talking about her pain. This would stop giving them power over her – sucking away at her life through her attention and fear of them.

I got her to imagine the end result (pain-free existence) and feel its reality. I needed her to change her belief and managed to convince her that “according to your belief, is it done unto you”. I then got her to tie this new belief mentally and emotionally within her being. With this renewed belief in herself, my program and me, we went to work. She got to do things that she had been advised not to do for almost two decades.

Let me give you an example: She was afraid to bend and reach for her toes and had the belief that it would make her back problem worse. She did things in the gym with me in her first week that she had feared. By the end of the second week, she told me that the pain in her back was gone. I expected it but not that soon. In the third week, her two teenage children attending university came in to the gym to personally thank me for what I was doing with their mum. It was the first time in their lives that they did not hear their mum complain of her back being sore. They had seen and heard her suffer in pain all their life. Every single day!

I was touched.

I told them the real miracle was that their mum was prepared to do the things she was afraid to do. The healing power was brought about by a changed mental attitude. She essentially cured herself with a little help from me. As I had been there before, I was only a tour-guide but she did the work and journey all on her own. The real courage she demonstrated was the open-mindedness and flexibility to adopt a new way of thinking and acting. That was my true challenge, not the weight-training part.

To cut a long story short, this lady who was afraid of even bending down to just touch her ankles went on to not only do it but she also ended up being the strongest woman in my gym. She dead-lifted 140kgs for 6 reps on a good day. And she was in her mid-50s with no prior training experience. She remained pain-free for the entire time she trained with me – over two years! She got her life back. Her quality of life improved greatly.

When I think back about her miraculous transformation, I knew from the time I first met her that she was a naturally strong woman but she had lost her faith in herself. Her belief in her own inner-strength. This is an example of the many little miracles that I have seen people produce, in their own little way. In their lives – changing their lives and changing the lives of others. Just like the many others, she was empowered. She was back in control.

The law of life is belief.

All religions of the world represent forms of belief and these beliefs are explained in many ways. This client of mine went from thinking why she was getting certain results to asking herself how she was creating the pain she was experiencing in her life. She tried to understand how her beliefs and philosophy generated what happened in her life and to cease to continue believing what did not serve her. I got her to shift her focus consciously and intentionally to what she did want (pain-free back).

She did it.

You too, can achieve your own miracles. Little miracles happen everyday and its all around us. What you focus on is the KEY to everything! For any outcome, whether internal or external, there’s a certain way of thinking and acting that will get it for you. Its like weight-training, if you want strength, you need to train a certain way, if power is goal, then a different way of training is necessary to achieve the goal desired. There is a different path for different goals.

Your task is to find this new way of Thinking and Acting. You then have to be flexible enough to adopt the way of thinking and acting that will get you there. Finding that new way is the easy part. The difficult part is the applying and adapting.

My tip to you: watch “inside” to manage “outside”. There is a saying that goes “it is done unto you as you believe”. What do you believe about yourself, life and the universe? What is the belief of your mind or put simply, what is the thought of your mind?

All your experiences, all your actions, and all events and circumstances of your life are but the reflections and reactions to your own thought in your thought factory.

Watch your thoughts!  

Until next time,

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body, Body shape, diet, Energy, Fitness, habits, muscles, perseverance, Strength training, time, you

Muscle-building success: some simple laws.

B&W3349-1I have described in an earlier blog the congruence of muscle building and  life and have concluded after over two decades of gym experience, that they both have the same principles, namely –

  1.  Simplicity
  2. Continuity

Getting the body you desire and getting in to shape can be complicated but not as much as you think so. If it was so complicated, why are so many witless people in better shape than you are?

The answer is simple: every occupation has its trade secrets, those little muscle nuggets of insider information that acts as recipes to achieving a desired physique shape or result. A lot of people are in the ‘dark’ about these nuggets of inside info and so end up with nothing to show for their efforts in the gym. You can find many helpful secrets in the many resources out there today. However, unfortunately, there are also a lot of BS out there too!

I will try to share some of my more than two decades of training in the gym building and maintaining muscle and what I have observed from the many people who have gone through my various programs to success. This is not only to help you get started or keep going but to also help you not end up being like the millions of gym-goers who start and stop before giving themselves a genuine chance of success. Or for those who have tried everything to lose weight, change their body shape and have been unsuccessful. Very frustrating indeed!

Understanding the basic rules of exercise and weight-training can help you see why the basic average beginner’s workout example I detailed in my last blog can help you get the body you want. If all you can spare is 30 minutes and if you learned and applied the program I shared, you will learn that:

  • Your muscles will not struggle and hurt as much as you think
  • Your body burns fat no matter how long you exercise
  • Your exercise program does not need as many sets as you think
  • Your don’t have to think too much as the workout has been simplified

Also, you’re quite safe in the gym. The simple part is its simplicity in training. The difficult part is the consistent and persistent practice, the dedication required. This is what YOU have to do. You alone. You take full responsibility. No one can provide the dedication for you. Only you.

Try thinking of your muscles with mathematics in mind. Changing them to a look that you desire is much easier than most people would realize. Once you decide what you want your muscles and physique to look like, its really just a matter of determining the right formula to get that result. This formula includes the right combinations of numbers: repetitions, sets, tempo and the amount of weight you should use. Its like a golfer selecting a different club for a different stroke on the fairway.

For example if you’re strength-training for muscular endurance and a leaner look, doing 12 to 15 repetitions is the way to go or if you’re goal is increase in strength, then keeping your rep range under 6 is recommended. Put simply, to succeed in muscle-building, you need to:

  • Know where you are NOW, imagine where you NEED TO BE and design a program to TAKE YOU there (seek help from a mentor if you’re unsure how to)
  •  Stick to your program (ability is > 90% stickability)
  •  Always use correct exercise technique
  •  Train hard once you’re beyond the initial few months
  •  Eat every 3 hours or so (except when you’re sleeping)
  •  Eat ONLY healthy foods. Practice good macro-nutrient portion control based on your program.
  •  REST well between sets – between exercises – between workouts
  •  Go to bed early enough to allow for necessary recuperation. Adequate rest and recuperation leads to adaptation which leads to muscle success.

All this takes focus and dedication.

These are a few of my SIMPLE LAWS OF MUSCLE-BUILDING SUCCESS!

You’re now aware. Act. Adapt accordingly.

All the best!

Your friend in body re-engineering and muscle success,

 

Until next time,

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