Dr. Wendy Walsh is a human behaviors expert. She teaches Health Psychology at California State University Channel Islands and speaks often about pro-aging (mental and physical wellness,) gender dynamics and relationship science. She is an award-winning television journalist, radio host, an influencer and brand ambassador. Time Magazine named her one of the Persons of the Year in 2017 for her work in helping to pave the way for the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

In this latest edition of the Outliers podcast for Breaking Muscle, I am talking to Dr. Walsh primarily about the mental aspects of health answering the question of what does an actual healthy person look like in totality.

Although some people may appear healthy from the outside, in their physical appearance, Dr. Walsh talks about all the components of a healthy life. Healthy people treat their body a little bit like a temple as far as diet, exercise, sleep, but then psychologically they have good stress coping habits.

They are able to do some mindfulness and find ways to be able to calm themselves so that stress and cortisol levels don’t get the best of them. In addition, healthy people tend to have secure healthy relationships, both social relationships within the community and interpersonal one-on-one relationships.

There’s a lot of great ideas and concepts to dig into here, dealing with isolation, infantile urges in our adult attachments, and general behaviors that sabotage our wellbeing. So, it’s not just enough to be physically healthy, you need to be healthy in your mindfulness, and healthy in your relationships, whatever they may be.

Find this and other Breaking Muscle podcasts on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, YouTube, Stitcher, PlayerFM and PodBean.

The post Building a Healthy Body, and Active Mind, and Strong Relationships appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Brad Davidson like efficiency, audits, accountability, measurable results, and offsetting damaging habits for real results. In this Outlier podcast, he talks to me about helping people to overcome outdated fitness and nutrition advice by waking them up to the possibilities of a truly healthy life. The great thing about Davidson is that he has walked the walk, having found himself in some distress at what should have been a high point in his fitness journey.

At the age of 33, having gone from coaching athletes to training himself to compete for a place in the Olympics, Brad finds himself confronted with the news that he is diabetic. his thyroid has shut down and he has the testosterone levels of an 85-year old man. Basically, at the age of 33, Brad is facing andropause, otherwise known as male menopause.

As a high achieving athlete, a successful strength coach in his own right, Brad begins to explore what is happening to his own body and makes some startling discoveries about the impact of stress on himself. And, not taking anything for granted, he starts to dig into everything even more deeply, his training, his nutrition, his lab work, all in pursuit of finding a way out of his unlikely situation.

In his conversation here, Davidson covers everything from his approach to identifying the real fitness blockers that exist in even the most active people to the ways that he sees high achieving people hit the same roadblocks as people at the other end of the health spectrum. Davidson talks about his adaptations and methods which can help anyone find the energy they seem to be missing, fire up their metabolism that has slowed down, and achieve a truly healthy, fit state of being. A true state of fitness.

You can also watch the conversation on Breaking Muscle’s YouTube Channel below.

The post Mastering Your Energy for True Health and Fitness appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

When I first visited Shannon Farar-Griefer’s website, I thought it was a typo. Did she really do a 292-mile ultramarathon? Did she run Badwater, one of the toughest foot races in the world, in the middle of July, in Death Valley, 282 feet below sea level, to the portals of the 8,000 feet peak of Mountain Whitney, 135 miles, and then decide to run up the mountain, too, and be the first woman to double Badwater? Was this the woman who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) and who puts her face in running extraordinary distances and maintaining a healthy diet? I had to talk to this woman, and dig into the power of the mind of this individual, look for inspiration that I can use in parts of my own life.

In my conversations with Shannon, we get a sense of the toll her sport takes on her during a race and the amazing ability that she has to push through the blisters, the lack of sleep, the overall pain of running beyond the limits of what you think you are capable of doing. She brings the same outlook to dealing with disease.

It was during a race, around mile 70, that she started feeling a pain in her leg. It’s not unusual to have pain in your legs if you’ve been running multiple 100-mile races. The pain got so bad that she had to go see a doctor and after a number of tests, a visit to a specialist ends with her getting the news that she has MS. Shannon takes us through her process of dealing with the diagnosis and her journey of discovery, finding ways to fight back and continue to do the sport she loves.

There’s a great energy about her, and there’s a lot that we can learn from someone like Shannon, someone who puts themselves out there, faces their fears, and overcomes the pain that invariably gets everyone in some way or another.

The post The Soul of an Ultramarathoner appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

David went on to earn a Masters in Sports Psychology and began counseling with athletes. In college, basketball and tennis were his two big loves and while he was only counseling athletes at the time, he was following his passion. However, the fitness world lost its allure somewhere towards the end of the 80s, and David felt like he burned out on the industry in 1989. He was fortunate enough to get a gig on Lifetime, just as cable television was really taking off. He was called Mr. Motivation.

From there, he went on to Fox TV in New York as a segment reporter and eventually got turned on to writing a book and expanding his counseling services beyond athletes.

“Even though it seems sporadic and kind of insane and crazy how I jumped from one career to another, the whole constant was always helping people to maximize their potential. That was it,” says David.

Recently, he published his most recent book, Focus!: Drop the Law of Attraction. Slay Your Goals, and I was fortunate to get a copy, was blown away by it and really wanted to talk to David about how he got to be this guy who is a guru in positive thinking. I have recommended the book to a lot of people I know and I love the way David addresses the shortcomings of the laws of attraction, putting into perspective the work that has to go into being a positive thinker and creating that momentum for success in everything you do. As David says:

“People fall victim to multitasking, which is not going to get you anywhere. We fall victim to procrastination, which is one of the greatest killers of dreams in the world. We fall victim to projecting that the reason that we’re in this financial situation, this weight, this health, this relationship is genetics, other people, the economy, the presidency, whatever. And when we stay focused, we start to look at the world differently.”

Now, listen to the rest of the conversation below:

The post Stay Focused and Slay Your Goals appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Use changes and new beginnings to reinvent yourself. Here, I’ve outlined five things you can do to help you during the process of your rediscovery.

Write Your Obituary

I know this seems morbid and crazy, but hear me out. When you start with the end in mind you can then go to work on creating a better life in the meantime in order to live up to your own expectations. Writing an obituary is an incredible way to drive yourself into a deep thought process and all you to make very big decisions. Once you write your obituary, you create some clarity as to who you want to become, the things you want to possess, the family life you want, and the career best suited to get you there.

Take the Next Opportunity

Richard Branson once said, “Opportunities are like buses, there is always another coming around the corner.” People who live a fulfilled life take advantage of opportunity when it arises. Whether it is to travel to a place unknown or join in a new business venture, treat yourself to a new beginning by allowing yourself to take the opportunity. There is no greater feeling in life than shedding your insecurities and trying something new.

Go On a Fast or Cleanse

There is no better way to kick off a new beginning than with a cleanse. Treat your body to a cleanse and rid yourself of toxins, let go of food to a great degree so the digestive system can go offline, and promote detoxification. A cleanse involves letting go of other non-food stimuli—things like television, your computer, annoying co-workers, and all the details that clutter our minds in normal daily life. Cleanses work best when they happen in both the body and the mind, plain and simple.

Start Meditating

Our minds and bodies are like satellites. If we are not pointed the right direction we end up picking up too many signals and the result is scattered. All of us need clarity, especially when we are about to hit summer. Meditation points our satellite in the right direction and helps create more clarity. Allowing yourself to meditate will open up more pathways than you ever thought existed.

Do That One Thing You’ve Been Putting Off

We all have that one thing in our life we just need to get done. It has been sitting on your to-do list for months, or maybe years, and you just haven’t done it. Maybe it’s a home improvement project or a conversation with a loved one you’ve been putting off. Maybe it’s a job you want to leave or a relationship you want out of. Whatever it is, once it’s off your plate you know you’ll feel better. But the longer you wait the bigger it becomes. It’s time to get it done—make today the day.

The post Create Your Own New Beginning appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It has been said many times that people make decisions for two reasons—to gain some type of pleasure or to avoid some type of pain. Let me ask you a question, would you be more inclined to exercise to live a longer life? Or would you be more inclined to exercise to avoid dying too soon?

Most companies in the health industry are focused on looks and strength and performance gains. But rarely do they tap into the major decision-making part of the brain, called the limbic system, which drives emotional decision making. If you could tap into the area of the brain that understands true decision making, how powerful would that make you?

It’s Not Only Cause and Effect

Most people live their lives in a cause and effect scenario and often won’t start eating healthy or begin exercising regularly until something bad happens—maybe a friend died young from high blood pressure, or maybe it is when they are diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Yet, the average gym, personal trainer, or health enthusiast focus their marketing on getting six pack abs, losing 25 pounds for summer, gaining muscle, and losing fat. Most never speak about the negative effects of not living a healthy lifestyle. Here are three questions to ask someone who is on the edge of living a healthier life:

1. What is the cost of the average ambulance ride to the hospital if you were to suffer a heart attack?
2. What if you don’t live long enough to watch your children graduate from college?
3. For Americans who file bankruptcy, the number one cause is health reasons related to large medical bills. Is that something you would want to go through?

Create Compelling Reasons for a Healthy Lifestyle

You see, people today have good intentions. They read a motivational quote online and it gets them going for a week or two. But to have sustained growth and consistent success it requires compelling reasons. Those reasons can be fear based or pleasure based.

Unfortunately, the United States is still the most obese country in the world. In fact, 75% of our country is considered overweight and there is no end in sight. By 2020 actuaries predict that number will increase to 85%. Choosing to live a healthy lifestyle is as real as it gets. It’s the job of gym owners and trainers to try to influence the masses.

If a healthy lifestyle isn’t the first priority of our clients or members, many will experience premature loss of a loved one, excess and unnecessary medical costs, and personal bankruptcy.

The post Health Clubs Should Focus on Our Fears appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Priorities and habits dictate our life. We make plans from a thirty-thousand-foot view on our lives. We are living the marathon and not the sprint. When we plan our week we assume things will go according to schedule, and the way approach our week is important in order to keep us on track despite life’s circumstances.

Everybody Hates Mondays

Monday happens to be my favorite day of the week. Go figure. I have always laughed at all the social media posts about people hating to go back to work and starting their week off. The way we see it is that anything that you give a meaning to, whether positive or negative, will inevitably affect your mood that day. I love Mondays because it allows me to start my week off with a bang. It’s the law of momentum. Any object in motion will stay in motion. The way we start is the way we will finish.

Look at Monday as the day when you hit the ground running toward your fitness, finance, and health goals. My Mondays tend to be very busy. I get to my office by 8:30 am and typically don’t leave until 8:30 pm. I do have some free time mid-day to incorporate some movement for about 30 minutes. I will typically squeeze in a workout that will look like this:

3 rounds:

• 20 calorie row (or a 400m run)
• 20 pull ups or push ups
• 20 95lb front squats

I spend about ten minutes warming up and then I go right into the workout. Intensity is exactly what you need if you only have a short amount of time to spend in the gym. I find that most people have the right intentions but lack the knowledge of how to get a quick workout in that is effective enough to get them to their fitness goals. As a young dad, I am not into bodybuilding anymore. Gone are the days of caring about how big my bench press is. I want to focus on health. I don’t need 90 minutes to go through slow moving body building movements and then mix in some cardio on the treadmill. The intensity of my workouts is by far the most important part.

Intensity Burns More Fat

Much of the old-school adage that you must “put in the hours” is no longer relevant if your goals are long term health. You can put in the work, but it must be the right type of work. With a busy schedule, the most important thing is to get in, get the work done, and get out.

For example, if you only have ten minutes to do a workout, then set a timer and do as many rounds of 10 burpees and 10 sit ups as you can in that ten minute time frame.

The nice thing about doing a short, intense workout like this is that you can be anywhere and still do it—go to a local park, do it in your living room, or use the area behind your desk at work.

The more intensity you use in your workouts the faster your metabolism will be when you’re in a resting state. If you workout with intense focus for at least 20 minutes per day, your body will burn more calories at rest and you’ll drop more body fat. Try to embrace your Mondays by making a plan for your nutrition and fitness. I think you will like the result.

The post Make Monday Your Favorite Day appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Our morning is a sprint to eat, pack lunches, workout clothes, work bags, and get out the door. We give each other our goodbye kisses, hugs, and we’re off. This is the life of our typical young family. Of course, we have all the normal stresses any family would: bills, work, my business, our personal health, and friends and family time to manage. Being healthy has become a way of life, but it didn’t start out that way.

Our Journey to Health

Our journey to health started about eight years ago after never paying attention to diet, sleep, or having any kind of regimented schedule. Prior to living a healthy life, we were both professional athletes who worked out for our sports, but never had much of a long-term health plan. Because of this, we both suffered from injuries related to malnourishment and had poor recovery and inflammation at relatively young ages. At the age of 23, even though I looked healthy from the outside, my blood work didn’t show the pinnacle of health. I was severally B-12 deficient and had high insulin levels. When you’re uneducated, you think you’re impervious to a healthy diet and that exercise will be enough. Much of my issues were due to this. I remember eating pizza after a workout and practice and thinking it was completely acceptable because I could burn the calories off anyway. I was one of those guys who spent a lot of time in the gym but ate fast food, drank alcohol, and never stuck to any scheduling or anything regimented. I used to think that fitness just happens and that my genetics would carry me through. But this was far from the truth.

Most people live their lives in a cause and effect scenario. When I was 26, a college teammate and ex-professional football player friend of mine passed away from a sudden massive heart attack. He was 27 years old and looked like Superman from the outside. In the autopsy, it was found that he had high cholesterol that went undetected. This ultimately lead to him dying within hours after a run on a treadmill. This concept shook me. How could someone so fit and athletic pass away from high cholesterol? I immediately changed my habits and took a deeper consider my overall health. Yes, we wanted to be able to compete in Crossfit and Olympic weightlfting competitions for fun, but we wanted to make sure our bodies were as clean as possible. We started to pay attention to labels, we dissected a menu when we would go out to eat. We started shopping a farmer’s markets and asking better questions of the vendors there. We stayed away from processed foods, gluten, sugar, and anything else we thought would hinder our health.

What my wife Katie and I do to stay fit may be unorthodox to some, but it has become highly effective for us. We are not your freakish 5:00 am workout people. We don’t eat 100% clean like robots. We enjoy food just as much as the next person. We are not personal trainers or gym junkies. We are now professionals who have careers outside the scope of fitness. My wife is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and I am a financial consultant and business owner.

We feel we can teach you to have it all.

It Starts with a Calendar Commitment

To us, Sunday is not only a day of rest and spirituality, but it is a day of planning. From what we’ve learned, most people don’t plan to fail but they fail to plan. One of the biggest steps we take in controlling our life is controlling our calendar. We plan our week every Sunday—from meals, pickups and drop offs, to workout times, and even a date night every Friday. One of the greatest gifts sports gave us is to create a schedule then stick to it. We recently bought a dry erase calendar board and posted it on our refrigerator. What Katie and I know is that we must stick to our calendar to get optimum results.

Every Sunday our routine looks like this:

• Wake up at 7:30 am
• Arrive at the gym by 9:00 am
• Katie works out while I hang with the baby 9-10 am

Katie packs in about 60 minutes of a very intense workout. Using this discipline can be rigorous. Prior to having our son, we would take our sweet time in the gym and be there for three hours doing whatever. Our intensity wasn’t as high, which means we would focus more on building muscle over maintaining health. Now we know we have to get in as much as we can so it has forced us to focus on what is most important—overall health versus aesthetics and performance. Our intensity is higher during our workouts, which adds another element that I’ll add to in our next article.

Once she is finished, I’ll do the same workout from 10-11 am as she watches our young son. Then, we are off to do our Sunday shopping from 11:30-12:30 at the local farmer’s market and Trader Joe’s.

We eat all organic, non-GMO vegetables and fruit. We also get our grass-fed meat, eggs, and poultry from the farmer’s market, as well. Trader Joe’s gets us the other essentials we can’t find at the market, things such as gluten free breads, almond milk, sparkling water, etc.

The remainder of our Sundays look like this:

• 12:30 pm – Eat lunch
• 1-3 pm – Meal preparation for the week – We make/prep full meals and package them in containers. At minimum three lunches each and three dinners. We will share these recipes in later articles.
• 3-8 pm – Family time
• 8 pm – Calendar review for the week – This is when we schedule days and times to workout, organize pick ups, drop offs, and any other plans that week. Obviously, calendars may change, but we schedule the most important weekly activities first and workout around those sacred times.

Our priority ranking system looks like this:

1. Family time

2. Exercise time

3. Work and business time (This is mainly for me because I run my own business.)

By organizing beforehand, we are fully in control of our week. As opposed to being reactive to what happens to us, we are active. This is a huge deal for most people because they get caught up in their busy lives and forget about themselves. We have been there. With all that life throws at us, we found that having a priority list keeps us focused, and the most important things, such as family and health, are never disregarded. What we have found is that by having control of our calendar, and living up to all of our high priority commitments, there is no way to fail.

Keeping Our Commitments

The biggest objection personal trainers get from their clientele is that they don’t have the time to organize themselves. However, time is just a matter of priority. Fitness is high priority for us, but family comes first. There are days where we break a workout commitment to spend time as a family after a long day at work, as opposed to going the gym. If you are struggling with regular exercise or healthy eating, usually it’s because there isn’t a strong enough reason for you to take action. As Malcolm X said, “That in which you do not hate, you will eventually tolerate.”

We believe discipline is what you want now versus what you want most. I’ve never met a healthy person who didn’t embrace challenges and change. Most people coast. They just don’t have a big enough reason to change their lifestyle. They do just enough to survive, but not thrive. Katie and I want to thrive, and we want to teach you how we do it.

Live Life On Your Terms

We believe that people should live life on their own terms while keeping health a priority. We have weeks where unexpected events occur, just as everyone does. We have times where we feel overwhelmed and fearful that we are letting certain things slip through the cracks. The key for us is that we want to be there when our grandkids graduate from college, get married, and have babies of their own. We want to live the longest and most fulfilling life possible. We want to be there for the special moments, the athletic and scholastic achievements, the travel, our grandbaby’s first Christmas, and everything else that life’s experiences will bring us. Without our health where would we end up?

Katie and I want to help you invest the time in what is going to grow your health, family, and spirit. Pay close attention to our next few articles and video logs. You won’t want to miss them.

The post Juggling Family and Fitness: Live Life on Your Terms appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

In order to thrive in this day and age, we must learn to “avoid the noise.” This means that it is important to avoid the things that don’t serve you while staying centered on the activities that promote health and growth.

Pay close attention. You do not want to miss this.

1. Ignore Your Email First Thing in the Morning

Why is checking email in the morning a bad thing? It’s because you’re setting yourself up to react to the day ahead instead of planning your day. Immediately, once you review those emails, you’re mentally pulled in multiple directions that usually don’t need immediate attention. If instead, you used the time to plan your day, it will set you up for more success and allow you to be on the offense all day. Ask yourself, where is the best place for my energy to go? It is critical to define early in the morning (or the night before) what is most important versus what is most urgent for that day. When we are running on only urgent messages we tend to avoid the most important.

2. Meditate

Meditation has become more mainstream over the last decade for many great reasons. The biggest reason of them all is results. It is amazing what a 10-minute guided meditation can do for people. I have never met an overachiever that did not meditate and have those quiet moments to allow themselves to let go. Meditation is all about letting go; not trying, not doing anything, in fact. Successful people use meditation as their secret to success.

Try starting every day with a nine minute meditation that looks something like this:

• Minutes 0-3: Think about what you’re most grateful for
• Minutes 3-6: Think about your three major outcomes for the day
• Minutes 6-9: Imagine your three major outcomes in life

This is a very simple exercise and anyone can do it. Imagine what would happen if you practiced meditating on gratitude and your personal outcomes every day. You would be able to start playing offense and go after more of the things you want, not just what others expect of you.

3. Exercise Daily

Successful people understand that regular morning exercise can have a tremendous effect on daily focus, productivity, and happiness. Exercise has biologically proven to change and reorganize our brains to handle stress. Whether it is attending a class at a nearby gym or working out at home, exercise will drive more attention to what needs the most attention—you and your health.

4. Do Something Social

Successful people are social butterflies, always meeting and chatting with new people. They put tremendous effort into expanding their network because they understand that relationships are often the keys to success. Never underestimate the power of a $5.00 cup of coffee.

5. Eliminate Outside Distractions

Successful people don’t spend their time indulging in Netflix binge-watching. Instead, they substitute TV-time for books and education. The average CEO reads sixty books per year compared to the average employee who reads only six. A successful person is shaped by the meetings and events they attend, the books they read, and the associations they spend the most time with. Your current fitness and financial levels are the exact averages of the five people you spend the most time with. If you want a six pack, hang out with people who have a six pack. Avoid all the other distractions that won’t aid you in attaining your goals.

6. Squash Negative Self-Talk

A big step to manage a successful life is to stop negative self-talk in its tracks. Successful people avoid ruminating on negative thoughts because doing that only gives those thoughts more power. Any thought, whether it be negative or positive, can only be fed by focusing on the thought rather than the solution. Successful people are more solution oriented, and they choke out negativity by not feeding it anything. Feed your solutions instead of feeding your issues.

The Bottom Line

If being successful is important to you, then your daily activities are essential in order to back up your long-term desires. Eating healthy, practicing meditation, and getting regular exercise are critical for your success in life, but these can never be stand-alone happenings. Like any great workout plan or diet, there needs to be supplements in order to take you to the next level. Pay more attention to your daily routines and you’ll see a complete 180 in your fitness, your mindset, and your success ratio. Kick old habits that don’t serve you to the curb and sprinkle in the good ones instead. Like anything, your habits must be reinforced daily to foster long term change.

The post Make These 6 Subtle Changes to be Successful appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

1. Small Goals Lead to Big Results

By using a small set strategy, you’ll see yourself doing bigger sets of movements that you would normally break up.

For example, if you have a set of 50 wall balls to do, set small, attainable goals through your set of 50 wall balls. You may start with a set of 16 to mentally give yourself a head start. Then, you might tell yourself to do nine more without dropping the ball and you’ll be at 25— halfway home. Then you might trick yourself by thinking that you can do 10 more reps and get to 35 reps. Then at that point, you’ll think back to your ability to always be able to do at least 15 wall balls unbroken, just like the start of the workout. And boom, you just did an unbroken set of 50 wall balls.

2. Break Down the Wall

We all have a mental breaking point. Often, this leads to us ending up on one side of the fence or the other when a workout is finished. Regardless of your time in a workout, fitness enthusiasts measure effort more than anything to decide if they had a “good workout” that day. To get better, you must break through that wall when you normally feel like letting up. When you hit that wall, start purposely pushing yourself through an extra 1, 3, 5, or 10 reps to prove to yourself you can go to that place. We all have that little black box of pain—open yours daily. Remember that effort is a choice, and you can choose to push when your body is tired.

3. Race the Clock

One of the biggest secrets in mental toughness is forcing yourself to push through physical feelings when you would normally let up.

For example, complete the following every 3 minutes for 10 rounds:

• 15 calorie row
• 12 power cleans
• 10 bar facing burpees

This type of workout forces you to push through pain to complete your interval and have enough time for a small rest. There is nothing like an interval workout like this to build mental fortitude.

4. Visualize Success

One of the biggest secrets to success is having goals bigger than just one workout. Having a big picture mindset takes you out of the small thinking mindset and into mindfulness. Visualize yourself doing more than you think capable of prior to your workout and your brain will go to work proving yourself right as you push through the workout. Your visualization may include sights of doing a workout in a certain time or in a certain amount of reps in an AMRAP workout. It may include running a certain time on your 5k.

“Mental toughness is not something you have on a game day. It is a habit of mind that becomes a part of your pride and your self-image. It is something you carry with you everywhere—patience in a line of traffic, attentiveness in a classroom, nobility on the practice floor. It is a quality of mind.” – John Wooden

5. All Eyes Are Not on You

An inexperienced athlete is also an insecure one. They usually think everyone is watching them, which just isn’t true. So, if you can free yourself from that way of thinking, you will allow yourself to do your best and not what others think your best should be. Take your own breaths, have your own set plan, and do the absolute best you can do. We all take our own journey to health and only you can travel your road.

6. Watch the Best

We all learn in different ways, but if you can YouTube old CrossFit games videos and watch how the pros move when they are tired, you will really see how the best of CrossFit push themselves through mental barriers. Watching someone at the top of their game will force you to exceed your mental toughness barriers because you’ve now seen what is possible.

7. Stop Game Planning

Quit a few Crossfitters or endurance runners may disagree with this, but hear me out. If you constantly game plan but never go off feel, then you’ll never actually know what you’re capable of. Going off of feel is the true estimate of proving to yourself that you are mentally tough enough to fight through any challenge put in front of you.

Now, Take Yourself to Your Best Level

To take yourself to the next level in fitness you must start to focus on your mental game. Even the fittest athletes will lose a competition to someone with more mental toughness. There are plenty of people out there who may look heathy, but how strong are they mentally? When push comes to shove, can you handle it when the pain is unbearable? Can you open your little black box and go to a new place unknown? Take these steps one at a time and try them to increase your level of toughness.

The post 7 Ways to Create Better Mental Toughness appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Every gym, fitness, studio, and CrossFit box has a unique set of values and beliefs. What most gym owners won’t tell you too often is that they need you. They need you for more reasons than just your monthly membership.

Photo: Precision CrossFit

Every gym, fitness, studio, and CrossFit box has a unique set of values and beliefs. What most gym owners won’t tell you too often is that they need you. They need you for more reasons than just your monthly membership.

An awesome community can be a haven for so many other mental struggles that society brings us daily. A positive gym environment is often taken for granted. What can you do to give back to your gym?

1. Be Your Best Self

There is nothing better than walking into a gym after a long day of work than to see your fellow sweat buddies with a smile on their faces. Fitness enthusiasts are attracted to positivity and energy and gym owners thrive on positive members.

Be kind and cheer others on as they struggle through a big set of thrusters or introduce yourself if it’s someone’s first time in the gym. Shake hands with the new guy and introduce yourself.

Smile at your gym mates. Members are attracted to the environment, not just the tough workout. It’s your community and your space so, make it the kind of place that you would want to experience the first time you walk in.

2. Volunteer

Gym owners don’t like to admit they need volunteers because you are a paying member but think of it as participating in the well being of your environment.

Unfortunately, community gyms have big overhead and low margins – that’s not much of a shocker. Any time you can volunteer the coaches will appreciate your efforts.

Also, all local competitions need volunteers. You make the difference to the success of these events. Sure, there is nothing coaches love more than to have their members wear gym swag while volunteering at a local competition.

But, ultimately, it is about making competitions welcoming for everyone. Competition is adversarial, but not everyone wants to get into that battle. Everyone should enjoy it, though.

3. Don’t Coach the Newbie

Volunteering to help coach is different than coaching.

Unless you’re a seasoned vet who’s now a gym class hero, step away from Linda who needs to get strict pull ups before you teach her your secret kip. You mean well, but leave that to the coaches.

You can be supportive and encouraging, but everyone needs different motivation in the gym environment. You want to give people the right amount of space.

4. Leverage Your Network

Many members are business people and have their own network. There is nothing more helpful to a coach than a member who can help them on the business side.

Think of it as helping your community thrive. The margin for error in the gym business is pretty important. Don’t be shy about referring people to your community gym and offering business advice and help.

A great coach is not necessarily a great sales person or business person. They may not ask for your referrals and your help in getting their projects off the ground, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need the help.

5. Leverage Your Expertise

If you’re one of those people who has a part athletic experience and it can be a huge add on to a gym, think about what that could mean.

Some members have endurance backgrounds and some weightlifting experience. Whatever it is, talk to the owner about adding a class that you can teach if you feel you have the expertise.

Gym owners love it when members can take a small group to a pool and teach swimming on a Sunday morning.

They may even knock off some membership dues. Be a part of encouraging participation in any way that you can.

Put It All Together

The best gyms are built through positive members who put their gym’s success up with their own.

We can all add value to the places we frequent most. The fittest people I know are all givers and have a personal awareness of how they can help the others around them.

Follow these five principles and don’t be afraid to help.

The post 5 Ways You Can Help Your Gym Community appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

A person’s beliefs and behavior will always control their results. However, most people don’t see things that way. They have a goal and think they deserve it just because they want it. Believe it or not, hard work is the easy part. Most people aren’t lazy. A lot of people can put in the work in their craft to be somewhat successful.

A big reason why most people quit too soon or stop chasing their desired fitness or business goals is that they do not know what step they are in on their progression from novice to master. It is critical to know where you are in the process to properly assess yourself. Below I’ll outline these phases.

Unconscious Incompetence

This is just like it sounds: we do not know how bad we are. We go to the gym on our first day, and don’t really know how far we are from our fitness goals. Or in a business, we don’t know how bad we stink at it. This is where everyone starts who has ever mastered anything. You cannot avoid it; it’s the beginning.

Conscious Incompetence

This means we now know that we don’t have the necessary skills to be successful at our new endeavor. Our mind is working overtime to learn new skills and mechanics. It could be learning how to run properly, or learning how to run a business that we just started. We now know we are beginners and are putting in an exorbitant amount of time to get good at it. We are still not proficient and are very mechanical because our mind is working the whole time to learn a full new system as we are also doing it physically.

Conscious Competence

Most people quit on their fitness or business goals before they get here. Their fear of failure stops them from even getting through step two. But if we stick with it to here, we will have developed our skill, and gained confidence. We now know enough to do the task, but we do not know enough to do it unconsciously. We have developed the basics through tons of repetition. In the gym, you may now see body composition improve.

Unconscious Competence

We possess a high degree of confidence now. Our muscle memory and mechanics are completely fluid. At this stage, new instruction is minimal. Now you know how to and what to do.

Unconscious Mastery

There are now no mechanical thoughts. This is the zone. We all have been in the zone in something in our lives, whether it be fitness, career, sports, or studying for a tough exam. This is true mastery. You see the highest level of success in this domain.

If you want achieve mastery, first you must be conscious of where you’re at. If you want to progress to the top, the only way to do it is through repetition and practice. It’s taking 1,000 shots on the basketball court every week. It is making 100 phone calls a day, if you’re in sales or own your own business. It is going to the gym consistently for five years and eating right. It is having so much experience that you can operate on an unconscious level and get massive results. Only a true master can operate under intense pressure and have their positive results seem seamless.

The post The Five Levels of Skill Development appeared first on Breaking Muscle.