We pin our hopes and wishes to the randomness of the world around us. Doing the best we can to reach our goal is a one thing. But a part of the success comes from crossing our fingers, hoping that a stray event doesn’t derail us from our grand plans. And all along our happiness is on hold. Days, months and years go by as we wait for a better tomorrow. That day when we can finally move into our…
Slim and toned models trying to entice you to join our gyms. Topless, fit looking guys on their paddle boards to sell our services. Lose fat, oil up the abs, look chiselled, bounce ice cubes off the butt.* Not appealing? Fair. Not everyone’s motivated by specific, easy-to-measure, look-like-a-cover-model-who-sleeps-with-a-barbell aesthetic goals. Focusing only on fat loss and muscle building and striving for the glistening fitspo isn’t everyone’s jam. But you keep coming back to the aesthetic goals. Only because you think…
During times of uncertainty many struggle with direction in training. Redirecting our focus on to a majestic goal can be like throwing aviation fuel to a nearly extinguished training fire. Choose a challenging end goal This should feel slightly unreachable, but not utopistic. Think climbing the Everest base camp vs jogging across Sahara without stopping for a pee. A goal that spikes you with nervous energy. Something that excites you about what’s possible when you really try. Think about something…
Training goals are typically set in three to six-month intervals. With my clients most goals fall into three somewhat fluid categories: return to activity after an injury (could be a sport, could be gardening), train for a specific sporting event (not always a competition either, but to participate), or look good for Barcelona*. All great goals for the short-term focus they bring to training. But we can do even better. What if you’d have an additional long-term goal that makes…
This is the third and final part of the series. If you haven’t read Parts I and II yet, I recommend you give them a geez before diving into this one. It makes this Part III far easier to get into. You wouldn’t watch The Godfather Part III before watching the first two, right? Not that I am comparing this to The Godfather. It’s just the first that comes to mind when thinking of a trilogy of any sort. Part I:…
This is Part I of a series of three. (Not unlike The Godfather).Part I: Overall health markers, movement, body compositionPart II: Are Your Strength And Conditioning Up To Standard?Part III: Measuring Fitness and Filling The Gaps To get clarity on what to focus on next in your training requires a thorough inspection of where you currently are. Let’s face it, most of us like to do things that we’re good at while ignoring the stuff that we suck doing. People…
This is for anyone who’s decided to turn their live around in 2017 by improving health and fitness. This scenario will play through in gyms around the world for the next 4-6 weeks. I want to help you to be clear on your goals and to understand what is possible and what’s not.
It’s ok. You don’t always have to know what you want. In which case it can be helpful to ask yourself “what is it that I don’t want?” Take the opposite approach instead of trying to search for the ultimate answer.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed when stepping your foot in a gym: rows of machines to choose from, there’s kettlebells, barbells, dumbbells, bands, benches, suspension trainers, balls, walls, chin up bars and the mysterious “thing” that looks like a medieval torture device, once reserved for the witches. Quite frankly, the list reads like the inventory of your local hardware store. You yearn clarity because it shaves time off your training while improving your results, so you can spend time on other,…
A lot of us think we need to know all the answers before starting. Or that the goal we choose now is going to last for an eternity, as if our interest are the same now and in 5 years time. So we paint these grand, and sometimes scary goals that requires enormous amounts of work. Focusing on process goals is a great way to achieve larger goals that might seem too intimidating at first.