Appropriate Significance.

Relaxed.

In my last blog “To matter or not to matter”, I posed two questions –

Who am I?
Why do I exist?

How we answer these questions determines whether we live for about eighty years or eternity.

I mentioned that it would have to be one of man’s innate needs: to have mattered. It is the same for all men, whether you trying to achieve your full potential in life or only doing just enough to survive from paycheck to paycheck.

Maybe, some men can imagine it engraved on their tombstone:

“He made a difference.”

Man’s most innate need, I believe, is his/her need to be significant – to find purpose, to find meaning.

The important thing here or the difference between success and failure in achieving this need to be significant is HOW we go about satisfying this. You could go about it by fulfilling your own ambitions by sucking in all the spoils of this life and think this could get you closer to being significant.

Or,

You could succeed by becoming a part of a higher purpose – a club, a movement, a political party, a religion. You could find it in your relationship with a higher force, whatever it may be – God, Mohammed, Hare Krishna, Buddha.

So, how we answer those two questions determines how we seek out significance. It divides us in to two distinct groups:

Those who seek significance in appropriate ways
Those who seek significance in inappropriate ways

Which one are you? Which group will you fall in to when you’ve left this physical earth? Our hunger to satisfy this need of significance can get you closer to God (or whatever deity you pray to) or move you further away from him.

I believe authentic, lasting significance lies in your connection and belief in your higher force – your God. You need to be part of something bigger than you, something all-encompassing, something omni-present. Something God-like, or God himself if you are a Christian.

It does not matter what religion you belong to. Maybe, even construct your own bible or religious text.

Through communication with your God, through prayer and meditation, you can achieve significance that endures, that is lasting.

This communication link, like branches to a vine, will allow you to grow and seek your significance in appropriate ways. You will find your life purpose and remembered forever.

Dream: you will be remembered when you are gone. That Your Life mattered.

Until next time,

adaptation, Energy, life, long-term strategy, mind, needs, planning, respect, risk, time, Vitality, you

Camel or donkey travel anyone?

A little entertainment posing for family and friends at a party.
No tan. No contest colour.

Few days before Australian Titles.
Tanned. Coloured. Getting ready for battle.
Result: 2nd in Australia.

How busy are you? Busier than your brother, sister, best friend, work colleagues, neighbours. Everyone else? I don’t know, only you would.

Everyone rushes around from one task to another, one meeting after another, one seminar after another and so on. Never having enough time to do all the things you want to do in any given day. You know what I mean. It’s the life we live in the 21^st century.

We have many varieties of transportation too. You name it: fast cars, fast ferries, fast trains, fast planes. Fast everything. To get you from point A to point B, C, D …. all the way to Z. Doesn’t it make your head spin a little, just thinking about the ‘rush’ everyone is going through in their daily lives.

Such hectic “rush about” activities. All this constant energy-sapping activities takes a heavy stress toll on one’s body. Your body. Ever wonder why people come down with severe illnesses so suddenly? Respiratory illnesses like influenza, asthma attacks, anxiety attacks and so on, on perfectly healthy people?

Why?

Well, I believe it could well be connected to the over-extension of one’s self. Just like going above and beyond what you’re capable of lifting in the gym, every day. It is only a matter of time when it will lead to a serious injury.

The never-ending over-extension of one’s self leads to over-stress which leads to the lowering of your immune system. Basically, your immune system gives up!

Maybe, just maybe, our bodies were not designed for all these technologically faster modes of transportation (including advancement of communication mediums). Don’t get me wrong, these modern modes of transportation are essential to living in today’s modern cities. However, I just get the feeling that our bodies were not designed for constant “rush about” activities, adding increasing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual stresses.

Maybe our bodies was always designed for camel or donkey travelling and we keep putting it in faster and faster machines and using faster and faster devices.

You see, out in the deserts, camel or donkey travelling allows plenty of time for rest. Faster and faster modern day vehicles keeps or adds to people’s tension and stress.

We need to all slow down. A little. Try walking a little slower sometime.

Now, I am not saying we should give up driving modern cars, catching faster trains or getting on even faster planes or not using your i-phones and the internet. No, they are essential. What I am saying is that we need to recognize and accept that we are not super-humans and that the human-frame has its limits, just like everything else in life.

Unfortunately, a lot of people do not know how to recognize their limits until it is too late. Until there is a health disaster.

Recognizing your limits is one thing but then you need to build in adequate rest and recovery time so as to allow healing and re-charging/restoration to take place. You need to take ‘time-out’ in your daily life to re-charge. You need a ‘re-charge point’.

This is the problem: Busy people, people in a constant hurry, performing never-ending “rush-about” activities, never have time or choose to not make the time for recovery and re-charge. Their lives are so busy. Their minds are always in over-drive and so they have little time to meditate or ‘quiet’ their minds so that they can put all their problems in perspective.

Just because technology is changing at super-sonic speed, does not mean that everything else in life is. Relationships take time. Cultural learning takes time. Crops take time to mature and ready for eating. Knowledge acquisition takes time. The human body also takes time in its evolution. Not everything changes as fast as technology. Don’t translate the speed of technological change to everything else in life.

Quicker. Faster. More, more, more isn’t always better. Life is not meant to work that way. Protect your mind, protect your body.

Slow down. Know your limits. Before it is too late. Embrace your camel or donkey travel regularly, the way our bodies are meant to be travelling through life: with frequent, periodic rest and restoration breaks. This is akin to muscle-building and growth. Time away from the gym allows well-earned rest and recovery which leads to muscle development.

There are many ways to camel or donkey travel. Some ideas include – yoga, weight training, pilates, praying, meditation etc. Find your re-charge activity. Find your quiet time. Keep this time regular. Make it routine. Regain control of your restless mind. Regain control of your life.

In short, the people of today’s modern world – modern living have been increasingly showing signs of physiological and psychological disintegration on many levels. Why? Because we are living at a pace that is too fast for our bodies.

This is the essence of today’s mounting stress problem.

Until next time,

Beliefs, Energy, hope, life, needs, perspective, time

To Matter or Not To Matter.

I sometimes think of the human body as a community, and every part of the body playing an intricate role in it to function, and function optimally. All the way down to its cellular level, such as the white cell. As basic human anatomy classes have taught us, the cell is the basic unit of an organism. However, one of the great things about the cell is that it can live for itself, or it can help build and sustain the larger being – the human being.

So, the body can be seen as one unit, but it is made up of many, many parts – namely, cells. Though there are many cells, they form and make up ONE – one body. The cells cannot escape even if they wanted to. For example if a cell making up your biceps should say to the optic nerve cell, “hey, I am not an optic nerve cell, so I won’t be part of this human body”, it would still belong to the body, whether it likes it or not. You see, the cell is an individual and an integral part of the ‘whole’.

Every cell has a life and a purpose of its own. Every cell is arranged by God or whoever you believe in, just the way the universal, super-energy wanted it to be. If all the cells were the same, humans would not be able to do the things we do. We simply would not exist as we are. There would be no eye, no nose, no hand, no foot – no body. There would be no mind. There would be no – YOU!

So, we are billions of cells. But, one body, mind and spirit.

One, but many.

It follows from my analogy above, that even though a hand or a foot or an ear cannot have a life separate from the body, the microscopic little cell, can. It can be loyal to the body or just cling to and exist on its own, and only worry about its own life.

We’ve all got to be careful though, as some cells do choose to infiltrate and live in the body, with the other cells, other organs, sharing all that it has to give. Getting all its benefits and giving nothing in return. Taking, taking, and more taking, whilst maintaining complete independence, pilfering what the whole body, the whole community has worked for: the preservation of life. Giving nothing. This works against the whole being, better using the limited resources to the betterment and survival of YOU.

In time, these minority cells gain more strength, more power and more leverage as they have access to more resources.

These become parasites and cancer cells.

They wear you down and eventually kill. The human, unknowingly allows the minority cancer cells to repeatedly torcher, pilfer, exploit and weaken the majority. The majority that is the good white cells. You have the power to stop the spread of these cancer cells. How?

Become part of something bigger. Bigger than you. Bigger than the individual.

Become part of a group, a club, a community, a movement, a passion, a religion – like the tiny little microscopic cell in your body is. A part of you. Don’t be afraid of commitment. No, commit to yourself. Sign up for life membership with this group. Share your voice. Let your voice be heard. Don’t be afraid. Share your speciality. Give your time, your energy. Share your knowledge and contribute to that something that is bigger than you.

Help! That group. That team. That movement. That religion.

The greatest need for each and every one of us is not only the basic needs as outlined by Abraham Maslow in Maslow’s hierarchy. No, the greatest need is to have significance. To matter!

A man’s ultimate desire is immortality.

We want “something” to survive us. Have you ever wondered why monuments, buildings, stadiums, roads churchs and many days in the calendar is named after someone? To be remembered. To be remembered that your life had mattered.

Search your soul. Search your heart. Do you in some small way (or big way) wonder and hope that one day someone will remember your time when you were alive (now). That your life, above all else – MATTERED? Was it a life that had significance? Was it a life with purpose? I don’t know. Only you can answer that question.

And you will probably need to answer two other questions:

Who am I?
Why do I exist?

How we decide to answer these two questions is a choice between two timelines: One that is about eighty years old and one that lasts forever. To eternity.

What I do know is that you still have a chance to have one. You first need to look at finding your purpose in life, your little contribution to the bigger world of human beings is critical. Critical to your uniqueness of individuality and loyalty to man-kind as the cell is to the human body. One cannot live without the other.

Every thought you think. Every action you take will have an impact on some other human being, whether you intended to or not. Try to add value to rather than subtract value from another human being’s life through the way you think and act.

Nothing happens in isolation in your body just like nothing happens in isolation in the universe. There is a ‘flow-on’ effect. An imprint in the history of your life. An imprint on human-kind’s history. Of our universe’s entire life.

You. Me. Each and everyone of us form part of the whole – the whole human race. Just like the cell is an integral part of the human body. You have a part to play in your life – while you are alive. Find this role. Search high and low. Never-ever give up looking. Just like most things we look for, remember to look for it in the place you least expect to look. Sometimes, it could be right in front of your nose and you don’t ‘see it’ at first.

Sometimes, you may need to stop looking. You may just be too close to the problem. In this case, seek appropriate and relevant help.

Understand your role in your loyalty to the human-race to the best of your ability and play it. Find your purpose. Find your significance. How do you do this? Well, one vital step is to work on increasing your awareness of YOU. Look in to your belief systems, your principles. Your values.

Question them. Challenge them. Turn them upside down, inside-out. Shake them up and sieve all the bullSh#t out. What remains is the essence. Your essence of your life. This is a possible starting point.

The answer is uniquely yours. Your individuality. But remember, your independence, your uniqueness needs to also be balanced with your loyalty to the human race.

Here’s a little formula: Life purpose => Significance (positive contribution to a higher purpose) => Mattered (when you’re six feet under).

Just like the little cell in your body, doing its job for a higher purpose – doing its job to help you be YOU, you may just be surprised with how your unselfish contribution towards some higher purpose, may change your world.

It may change the world. The human race. For the better.

So make your life, a life that matters. Now and when you’re gone. Find your significance. Find your immortality.

Living a life without significance is close to not living a life at all.

Think. Do.

Until next time,

a better life, adaptation, attitude, awareness, beauty, belief, Beliefs, better choices, body, choices, compassion, courage, Energy, examined life, game of life, grace, gratitude, hope, Imagination, life, long-term perspective, long-term strategy, love, muscles, perseverance, responsibility, risk, self, self discipline, self improvement, self-respect, success, Vitality, workout, you, your life

Work your giving muscles.

Give.

Giving is a joy.

For the same reason that we should exercise our bodies, we should GIVE. Your body is functioning at its best when it is forced to work, specifically, when your muscles are forced to work. If you don’t do anything and live a sedentary lifestyle, then in the long term you are actually hurting them and yourself.

It is as simple as that.

The thing about muscle training is that you have to ‘expend some energy’. Some people just don’t want to do that, because it means ‘work’. Work equates to pain which equates to fear of it. That’s certainly a very common way of thinking of lifting weights in the gym, but that’s only one perspective.

Another perspective is that ‘working out’ your muscles, when done properly is one of the greatest and most vital pleasures you can possibly experience in your life.

Your lifetime.

In whatever goal you desire, you need to make sure you understand how to use the tools 🛠 necessary to bring about the change you seek.

Energy Crisis WITHIN.

We are constantly reminded that there is an ‘energy crisis’ in the world today. True, there is. The science says this and politicians argue over interpretation of facts about it. Different perspectives again, on a global scale.

However, the biggest threat to man-kind today is evolving within. I refer to the growing energy crisis WITHIN. Within each individual.

There is a direct correlation between what I call an ‘energy crisis’ within and the increase in sedentary lifestyle choices. If you don’t ‘spend’ any energy in the gym and work your muscles, strangely enough, the result is you will progressively have less strength and energy and VITALITY, than if you had.

This individual energy-crisis physically manifests itself in many life-threatening illnesses – both mentally and physically.

First test. Test YOU, always.

Re-charge.

The gym and weight-training is, I believe, one of the last remaining genuine “re-charge points” available for each and every one of us. Yes, available to you, too. Just like your mobile phone and other modern-day comfort and convenient goods need re-charging and energy to function optimally, you do, too.

The more energy and vitality you re-charge and ‘feel’ within you after expending energy working your muscles is akin to what you will get and feel when you GIVE and don’t expect anything in return.

Do you GIVE it just TAKE?

Are you a Giver or taker.

There are givers and there are takers in this world, but I would like to think there are more givers. Are you a giver or a taker?

Do you exercise your ‘giving muscles’?

“Giving muscles?” I hear you say. “What is that?”

Lets firstly look at what it means to be a “giver”?

We can certainly look up a definition if we google it but I will attempt to explain it by referring to some behavioural traits we observe in people around us, and you.

Well, there are many traits – you could say, giving people offer friendship easily; they are caring and empathetic – not only with their money but emotions and knowledge; they take genuine delight in the good fortune of others.

Education through a perception of the truth.
Increasing your awareness, taking sufficient and appropriate actions and adapting accordingly is key towards self-improvement.
Funny thing is that the process also applies to relationships and response.
Vv

Giving is an Attitude toward Life.

Just like making exercise a part of your life, giving is an attitude toward life than it is a specific act at one time or another. Givers have certain openness about them. Givers don’t seem to speak a lot about their ‘rights’. Givers do what is right. They generally find time to laugh and don’t wallow in self-pity. They are forward-thinkers but learn from the past and are keen observers of the present.

Givers do not run constant cost-benefit analyses to see if an opportunity for generosity is to their advantage. They are likely to not get too attached to the material possessions in their lives.

Help people strengthen their resolve, internally, with their own souls
so… that nothing can tear it out. I give knowledge to those who want to learn.

Want Less, Give More.

There are giving muscles in you, in every one of us. We just need to consciously use it and ‘feel’ the life-giving effects of using it. Feeling its essence. It is, in essence, what it means to be human.

Like training your muscles – for 20, 30, 45 or 60 minutes in the gym, you get back ten times the energy and vitality you expended which re-charges you and your being. Your life. You can’t afford not to invest energy. Give more and ultimately, get more. Add more life in to your years and not just be concerned with getting more years to your life.

Giving is to your benefit – physically, mentally and spiritually.

You don’t have to be a saint or martyr to give. Miserliness in all forms, diminishes you – diminishes us.

Diminishes the human race.

The more you keep, the less you have and the less you are.

Giving is a joy.

Want less. Give more.

Try it if it isn’t already a part of your attitude to life.

This is another of life’s interesting paradoxes.

Until next time,

Writing things down sometimes helps in the communication process.
The goal is not communication. The goal is EFFECTIVE communication.
Making real changes with the knowledge gained from ‘feedback loops’ allows me to formulate the right adaptive strategy for student – ex Australian Wallaby Captain, Phil Waugh.
Vv.

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

Don’t be a rudderless ship.

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,

adaptation, Energy, life, mind, muscles, needs

Attitude – the key to Adaptation.

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.

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

Sticking with what works, doesn’t always work.

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!

My version of the Incredible Hulk!

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,

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

Can diamond be soft?

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,

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

No belief, no nothing.

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,

Changing lives. Empowering people. One life at a time.

Triple A to Life: Awareness. Action. Adaptation.

Category Archives: life

Appropriate Significance.

Camel or donkey travel anyone?

To Matter or Not To Matter.

Don’t be a rudderless ship.

Attitude – the key to Adaptation.

Sticking with what works, doesn’t always work.

What it takes.

Can diamond be soft?

No belief, no nothing.