“Training is life.”

“You gotta love the grind.”

“24/7, 365 hustle.”

“Training is life.”

“You gotta love the grind.”

“24/7, 365 hustle.”

I’ve been guilty of chasing numbers in the gym to the point of actually suffocating the good things in my life. It’s one thing if you’re a professional athlete and sport and training put food on the table. It’s another thing entirely if you’re pursuing personal growth, change, or a worthy goal that doesn’t make or break your career or your life.

Competing in a regional powerlifting meet is an absolutely worthwhile goal that you should be spending your time and energy in the gym pursuing. But killing yourself in the gym every day for two hours is a colossal waste of time and energy for most people just seeking a little personal growth or a change in their appearance.

Balance Your Time and Energy

The amount of time and energy you spend in the gym needs to correlate with the scale of the goal. If your goal is to win the Crossfit Games, then you should be spending 18-24 hours a week training towards that goal.

If your goal is to lose 5lbs or achieve a particular level of leanness, then you should be spending 4-5 hours a week in the gym at most. You should spend the rest of your time and energy recovering and, more importantly, focused on the much more important aspect of your goal: nutrition.

To put it simply, if you want to be the best, you have to put the time in. There are no shortcuts to transcendent performance. If the competition is putting in 20 hours a week, then realize that 20 hours a week is the minimum.

Chances are you’re not the outlier. But the point here is not to speak to that crowd. This is for the person just looking to be a little bit better than they were before—a little stronger, a little more athletic, a little fitter, to feel a little bit better about themselves.

That doesn’t take a lot of time in the gym. It takes much more effort outside of the gym because there are some things you’ll have to change in your life to help you achieve what you want.

Surround Yourself with What Makes You Better

Surround yourself with like-minded, good people. If you find that you have a problem drinking too much on the weekends for example, then maybe start hanging out with a new and different crowd. Be self-aware enough to realize that the people you happen to have around you might not have your best interest in mind.

At the same time, find some balance in your life and remember to have fun. Make a schedule and create a routine that includes periods of discipline that allow you to partake in the good things in life.

Have a beer. Go out for drinks. See a show. Eat good food. Take a vacation without worrying about which gym you’ll be able to drop into. But realize that you have to earn all of that with balance in your life. That takes time and it takes effort. No one achieves much of anything by accident.

The post Find Balance in Training appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I am writing an open letter to you to tell you how grateful I am for your trust, your commitment, and your strength. You see, it is with your strength that I have grown as a person and a coach. Your belief in me has led me to grow what I love which is helping others find their way through building their own strengths.

You are brave. You are strong. From the moment you commit to me, you have made a commitment to yourself. But, also know that when you make a commitment to me, I make a commitment to you. I created a program that is more than just fitness and nutrition, but about finding yourself and learning what your body is truly capable of.

But, as you go through the workouts and as the days pass I hope you learn and understand that to achieve greatness, you must first believe that you are great. I already know that each one of you is meant for something more and that you can achieve your goals, but you must believe it first.

You must understand the following five things in order to proceed:

1. Commitment isn’t just for three days of the week (number of Warrior workouts). It is committing to yourself seven days a week, taking care of your temple because we are so blessed to be healthy and active on this earth.
2. Be honest with yourself. Do you really need that slice of pizza or glass of wine because you had a bad day at work?
3. Surround yourself with positive individuals. You will have friends and family who will try to sabotage your progress. This is why you have a team of Warriors who look for you in class.
4. Change isn’t easy. It is actually quite scary, but change must happen in order to create a healthy habit. I am here for you every single step of the way.
5. You are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. If you just push through the pain, the difficulty, and the stress of making big changes, I promise that what you are seeking is right on the other side. Again, I am here with you along with your fellow Warriors.

What you put into something is exactly what you get out. You are just as much a human as everyone you take care of around you. So please take care of yourself first. Another thing, don’t be so hard on yourself! We are all a work in progress and we all change differently–physically and mentally.

Coach Micki Pauley with her Warrior Body trainees in Huntington, West Virginia

Progress takes shape in many forms. For instance, did you do more rounds of your circuit than you did the week before? Celebrate! How about picking up a heavier weight than you did after the first couple weeks? Celebrate! How about fueling your body with healthy foods for an entire week–heck even an entire day is something to celebrate.

Progress happens all around us if you are willing to open yourself up to it. Warrior Body is about embodying yourself as a whole, but you have to allow yourself enough time to appreciate it because without appreciation you will still chase after that number on the scale.

I believe in you. I learn from every single one of you and make continuous efforts to evolve our program. But, always remember you are meant for something greater–treat yourself like it. We choose what efforts we make, so choose the effort that brings you closer to your goals.

The post Dear Warrior, Choose What Brings You Closer to Your Goals appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

These “what’s” are your “why.”

Most of us have answers that range from:

Think back to “why” you joined a gym, began training, or committed to your fitness journey. What did you want from it? What changes did you want to see in yourself? What did you want to learn and accomplish?

These “what’s” are your “why.”

Most of us have answers that range from:

• The desire to feel stronger
• I want to look leaner, more toned, ripped
• Have more energy for my kids
• Protect my longevity for myself and my family
• Feel more strong and capable for my sport, hobbies, activities of choice

Very few athletes come in with quantifiable or measurable, big-picture goals. This is normal. While measurements can help track progress, and provide precious feedback of how things are moving, we do not think, dream, or plan in numbers.

No one says, “I’d like to make exactly $XX,000 per year.” We say things like, “I’d like to make enough to be comfortable, stable, financially free, etc.”

No one says, “I need to have a 3,000-square foot house with a chimney of at least 25 feet.” We dream of houses for how they will make us feel and if there is enough room for the whole family.

What Is Enough?

We dream in abstracts, ideas, and feelings, not absolutes. We thus need to measure our successes and satisfaction with “what is enough” and by comparing where we stand to our original aims. Nowhere is this more true than with fitness, and especially important in a community that I both love and love to critique: CrossFit.

Everyone starts with a fitness “why” and goals that stem from it. These can be as broad as “I want to feel better and look better” to as specific as “I want to do my first pull up.” However, I see so many people lose commitment to their why for sake of adopting the aims of their gym culture and community.

In fitness, we use specific results (weights, times, reps) to measure progress. As the old adage says, “you cannot change what you fail to measure.”

True, but the measurement isn’t the goal, it simply helps you determine if you are moving in the right direction.

So many athletes come in with a beautiful “why” and personal goals but easily lose sight of these and begin to emphasize the inherent values of the gym, coaches, and fellow athletes that they are surrounded by. While I love to see athletes in their 50s and 60s hyper-focused on their lifting, celebrating each incremental PR, yet I cannot help but question if this tunnel-visioned focus on Olympic lifting and CrossFit benchmarks fits their original reasoning.

Playing the Devil’s Advocate

Aims, dreams, and goals change. As athletes enter a gym setting, it is only natural to adopt new values as new influences enter their life.

Not all pursuits, fitness or otherwise, need to fit a big-picture goal. We should always feel free to explore, move, train, and play in any area we like, regardless of what our specific goals are.

We should continually re-examine our “why” to ensure that it is in-line with our values.

Staying Committed to Your “Why”

All of the above are both true and healthy. As we progress as humans and athletes we will constantly re-evaluate what aspects of life and fitness are most important. “Why’s” change, expect and celebrate this, but ensure that these changes remain internally determined.

I’ve seen far too many athletes come to begin a fitness journey with reasons and goals all their own, only to look back after years of training to realize that they have not accomplished (or even committed to accomplishing) what they originally set out to do.

Your “why” is beautiful. It walked you through the door on your first day. It remains at your side, something to fall back on when inevitable struggles arise. It is a lens through which you make your decisions and evaluate your progress.

Today, instead of fussing over percentages, beating your buddy next to you at all costs, or pushing for a new PR, ask yourself why you are about to train. What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish? Do you hold similar values to when you began? And most importantly, are your actions driven by your “why?”

The post Committing to Your Why appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

There are days when it seems like my life is an uninterrupted stream of awkward conversations. My complete inability to talk about anything that’s happened in pop culture for the last decade is one example. No, I didn’t see that episode of Game of Thrones, or How I Met Your Mother, or Big Bang Theory, and please don’t start explaining it anyway. I have never watched an entire episode of The Office. I see about three movies a year in theaters: the latest Star Wars release, and a documentary or two about running or cycling.

Then there are my interactions with the medical community. From the look on my surgeon’s face when I asked how soon I could be back in the gym after having my collarbone hardware removed, you’d think I was speaking Klingon. I never actually got an answer from him, so I took two days off and got back in there.

The eyebrows opposite me reach their zenith when I try to explain to someone why I would walk away from a military career after 15 years. That’s just not something you do, five years away from a pension and a guaranteed healthcare plan for life. For most military personnel, the point of no return happens around 10 or 12 years, and past that, they grit their teeth and stick it out to the end.

But underlying each of these countercultural decisions is my firm belief that life is too finite, and opportunity too fleeting, to waste my hours, days, and years doing things that don’t matter.

Purpose Creates Clarity

This is where the logic gets sticky. What matters to you isn’t likely to matter to me, and vice versa. Spending time relaxing with loved ones, even if it’s in front of the TV, is important. Giving yourself an adequate recovery window after surgery is essential. The work that I did during my time in the Air Force definitely mattered. I was fortunate to be involved in some things that had direct consequence on the lives of my fellow military personnel and our combat operations.

But there are other things that, to me, matter a whole lot more. A few years ago, as nearly everything I thought I understood about my life seemed to turn itself inside out all at once, I had to take a step back and decide what defined my purpose in this world. A lot of reflection and some solid advice led me to understand that learning, growth, and contribution to the greater good had become my top priorities. I had spent a lot of time trying to make my life better, but it was time to turn to improving the lives of others, instead. Once I had that defined, it became a lot easier to evaluate the things I was doing against the standard of my purpose, and leave behind the things that didn’t move the needle in the right direction.

The result has been a type of clarity that I never thought possible. Sharing a beautifully prepared meal with a friend matters; making every meal a delectable feast does not. Being present for family and friends in their time of need matters, and certainly more than chasing bigger paychecks; making an appearance at every single social event does not. Maintaining and improving myself physically so that I can be called on for help in any scenario matters; binge-watching Netflix does not. Studying, practicing, and seeking mastery in my crafts of writing and coaching to help improve the lives of others matters; occupying a desk for a further half decade to collect a meager retirement check does not.

This is not to say that I live a life of monastic asceticism. I don’t always succeed in adhering to my purpose in my daily actions. I occasionally stay out and have beers with friends when I should probably have water and go to bed early. I don’t always win the fight against the voice in my head that says I should stay in bed another hour, instead of getting up and getting after it. I get sucked into social media when I should be preparing for an interview, or reading a book, or building a new product.

The difference is that, without that clearly defined purpose, I would have nothing to pull me back toward the life I want to live. Purpose is a type of personal, internally created truth that serves as a guide in a world that is increasingly chaotic and fraught with temptation.

Life Through the Lens of Death

That I arrived at this mindset was not an accident. My Christian faith imbues me with the drive to seek goodness, strive for excellence, and treat people with compassion. My parents and coaches, from an early age, instilled in me the belief that it was okay to be different. Further, they taught me—in a world that rewards unethical conformity, treachery, and mediocrity—it is often preferable to be different. My upbringing created the intellectual and philosophical freedom that enabled my more recent pivot toward a life of purpose.

But none of that fully explains the urgency and resolve that have been evident in my life for the last decade or more. To the frequent chagrin of my wife (the most wonderful woman in the world and my parachute when I jump off the cliff before my wings are quite ready), I tend to dive headlong into pursuits that I know precious little about, other than they resonate with my sense of purpose. She and I have had many long conversations about why I seem to be in such a hurry to accomplish things, and gain experiences, and chase dreams. I tend to live life at full speed, and am likely to jettison people, things, and even careers that stand in the way.

The picture I just created of myself may sound flippant and noncommittal, but I believe it to be the opposite. There is a confluence of ideas in Christian theology and Stoic philosophy, summarized in the Latin phrase, memento mori. It means “remember that you will die,” and it finds ritual expression during the rites of Ash Wednesday: “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Too often, philosophical truths are treated as esoteric, but I believe they should always have practical application. At first glance, the instruction to contemplate your death is morbid and depressing. It could create a sense of futility or even nihilism. But for me, memento mori is a call to action. If our time is finite and our physical presence fleeting, then we are charged to do as much as we can with what little we have. When life is viewed through the lens of our inevitable, impending, and unpredictable death, there isn’t time to do things that don’t matter.

Life Is a Limited-Time Offer

Twice in the last week, this truth was unexpectedly placed before my eyes. On Friday, I buried a friend and mentor who left before his time. On Saturday, I mourned with a close friend over the passing of his mother, who was so recently well. That we should be present for each other and grieve together in these times is the appropriate near-term response. But to me, they also serve as poignant and concrete reminders that no moment is guaranteed. We don’t know the number of our days or years, so it is imperative that we live each of them, to the greatest extent we can manage, in accordance with the truth of our purpose.

The most frequent (and often unsolicited) excuse offered for why people don’t look after their health and fitness is that they don’t have time. Like most myths, there is a kernel of truth in that statement. Life is complicated and busy, there are only so many hours in the day, and I myself have often bemoaned the fact that there is only one Pete for all the things I need to accomplish.

But the truth of limited time is a sword that cuts both ways: What are you doing with the time that you have? Are you making yourself more useful, more helpful, more fit for the challenges life will bring you? Are you setting yourself up for a life of contribution and fulfillment, or of dependence and self-preservation? What are you putting off for a day that may never come? When you say you don’t have time to eat well and move often, are you really saying that you think that your hours of media consumption matter more?

Whether you acknowledge it or not, your health matters, perhaps more than any other aspect of your temporal life. Shane Trotter did an excellent job of illustrating why physical vitality and fitness remain of utmost importance, even in a world constructed to deemphasize them. Postponing the work that is required to maintain your health only makes it harder to do later. To tell yourself that you don’t have time now is to write a check that you may not have the funds to clear later in life.

Take a hard look at the story you tell yourself about the way you spend your time. You may find, as I did, that you really don’t have time for the things that don’t matter.

The post You Don’t Have Time appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

We all know that goals are what keep an athlete motivated to keep growing, but what essential aspects of training make achieving those goals possible? The magic lies in consistency and sustainability. These two qualities go hand in hand when it comes to working toward goals. Neither can be neglected without also compromising your efforts and time invested in achieving them.

If It’s Good to Do, Do It Often

Consistency means something is scheduled and repeatable. When you establish consistency with your training days, movements, recovery, rest, etc., you create habits and adaptation to these habits within your body. On the other hand, inconsistency creates chaos within your body. Your body cannot anticipate or respond appropriately to what you’re asking of it, and remains in a state of confusion on what it needs to do and when.

You’ll notice that when you don’t vary your sleep schedule, for example, you get better quality sleep, due to your body understanding and preparing for a good night’s rest. Likewise, when exposed to similar exercises, your body learns to become more comfortable, efficient, and stronger in those positions. It is intuitive to expect that someone who trains at the batting cages for multiple hours a day will progress faster in their technique than someone who goes only a few times a month.

Consistently doing something should not get confused with obsession. It isn’t about the “grind,” or being the small-town daily WOD hero. It is about taking care of the details, so you can keep doing it forever. This might mean taking a scheduled rest day, getting eight hours of sleep, staying hydrated—all things related to listening to your body to enhance performance. Don’t fall into crash-course diets (don’t get me started on 30-Day Paleo Challenges) and quick-fix fitness programs. Work to find the diet, strength progressions, endurance programs, rest and recovery habits that provide slow, sustainable progress that you can do on a consistent schedule.

How Long Can You Keep This Up?

Sustainability runs hand and hand with consistency, and means you are doing something now that you will be able to do 10 years from now. Take a hard look at what you are currently doing and ask yourself, “Is this a training program that I can maintain (i.e. is it sustainable)?”

Two things should be factored into your answer. Consider first how the program makes you feel on a daily basis. If your answer is tired, achy, under-recovered, or frequently injured, then it’s not sustainable. The second question to ask yourself is, ”Can I continue to progress on this program?” If there is not a clear path and progression in your training, then you will find it very difficult to continue your progress over time. So make it a point to ask your coach “what is our goal,” ”where will this take me,” and ”why are we doing this?” These should be easy questions to answer.

Small Changes Enable Big Progress

Goal-setting is a fundamental need for athletes and anyone looking to grow, but knowing how to practically work toward goals is where many people fall short. Take the slow, progressive approach and path of most resistance to move you into new areas of strength, mobility, and endurance that you will own for a lifetime. This progressive approach to everything will bring you to a healthy and sustainable lifestyle based on habits, as opposed to variety with no rhyme or reason.

Short aggressive changes like trying to gain a new skill from an 8-week program, or attempting to lose 20lb in a month will leave you bouncing back and forth with no true progress. Create gradual layers of adaptation and change instead, like working toward an overall healthier diet instead of crash dieting, or gradually increasing movement complexity instead of jumping to the most complex skill. Implement one lifestyle change in a 12-week period, instead of trying to tackle them all at once. That is how you create a body and mind that is always getting stronger and healthier, without having to do anything drastic. Your consistent and sustainable daily habits become a consistent and stable you.

The post Being a Small Town WOD Hero Is Not Being Goal-Oriented appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

(Source: Bev Childress)

Whether you’re new to training or have been battling away for decades, there comes a time when you need a new target or a goal to give you a fresh sense of purpose. Going through the motions and monotony can produce sub-par workouts and results.

The very premise of training is to create enough stress on the body for it to be able to adapt and improve. Doing the same workout for an extended period of time, you can only expect to stay the same, or even regress with age.

If you’re the sort of person who can stick to a healthy habit that involves the same workouts for months and years on end, I commend you! It’s certainly better than adapting to your couch and being a reality TV expert.

For the rest of us, having something new to look forward to is what keeps us coming back. Despite that, a lot of people get stuck doing the same workouts or plans for a few understandable reasons:

• They enjoy the routine.
• It’s worked for them in the past.
• They are comfortable.
• They don’t know what else to do.
• They lack inspiration for new training goals or target.

Unearth Your Own Goals

The last point I mentioned above is the key ingredient for getting yourself unstuck and inspired to move in the direction of improvement, rather than spinning your wheels.

It’s extremely common for new athletes to lack a clearly defined target or goal. Sometimes it can be a lack of confidence in what they believe is possible, or simply not being able to put a finger on what it is they want. Either way, if they don’t find a way to uncover a meaningful goal, chances are they won’t stick with their training for very long.

In this scenario, I recommend going small and short with the target. This makes it easy to start building confidence and momentum. Don’t overthink selection of the goal itself. I have never met or worked with anyone that didn’t have a weakness or need to improve in a certain area. Pick one of them, and a goal is born.

Ticking off that first goal or overcoming an obstacle will do wonders for confidence, and will create “buy-in” for the next step. People have a natural tendency to want to finish or complete what they began. Making this initial target within arm’s reach helps shift the mind into growth mentality.

(Source: Bev Childress)

Motivation Momentum

“Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.”

– John Dewey

It’s almost impossible to predict where overcoming a challenge will take an individual in both physical and mental aspects. We often refer to how training makes us physically better, but skip over the psychological benefits that come from improvement and confidence. Confidence comes from experience, and the momentum really builds fast, after you’ve started.

Also, being exposed to a training environment with others operating at a higher level will help cultivate ideas and aspirations for you to want to improve. Modelling those that have done something that you aspire to achieve is a shortcut to success. Why take the long road, when you can learn from others’ mistakes and triumphs?

If you’re getting lost on what your next fitness or health goal is going to be, here are a few simple tips that can get your momentum going in the right direction:

• Start with something bite-sized. Inspiration will come from action, not being stagnant.
• Make a timeline of the first goal, short and attainable. Having an early win will help build confidence, get the creative juices flowing, and build momentum for setting a larger, harder goal in the future.
• Find and immerse yourself in an environment where people are performing at a higher level. You won’t learn anything if you’re always the smartest or fittest person in the room.
• Model people that have the results that you are pursuing. This shortcuts mistakes and pushes you in the right direction.

Remember, you don’t need to see the whole plan when starting, just focus on taking that very important first step, and the rest will take care of itself.

The post Set Small Goals to Accomplish Big Things appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

3 Keys to Positive Change

If you’re reading this, it’s because you’re having trouble staying motivated or you have struggled to stay motivated in the past and want to do better this time around. There are three keys to making positive changes in our lives:

1. Want the change. Knowing that a change is good for us and the desire to make the change are two different things.
2. Believe that the change will make life better. Buy-in is critical if we’re going to stay motivated. The most common roadblock to success in nutrition changes is that athletes don’t really believe that the dietary changes their coaches are asking them to make will actually work. For example, eating clean is typically an easy sell, but telling an athlete that they need to eat more in order to lose body fat is much more difficult for athletes to accept and implement.
3. Believe that we are capable of the change. Finding resilience in the face of setbacks is critical for staying motivated, and this is where having a coach in our corner can make all the difference. Ultimately, we are responsible for believing in our ability to achieve our goals, but when the going gets tough, a coach can remind us of where we started, how far we’ve come, and can remind us that the day-to-day process is the focus.

What are the little things that must be done, day in and day out, to reach your goals? [Photo credit: Jorge Galvez]

Learn Focused Practice

The resources available to us to stay motivated are just about limitless. Formal accountability programs, like nutritional counseling and challenges, informal accountability programs, like getting our friends to text us and ask if we ran this week, and the many books, articles, and studies that have been conducted in order to figure out motivation are sought out constantly—not to mention internet meme sensation “Motivation Monday” providing weekly reminders to stay motivated and focused.

If resources abound, then what are we missing? Some would say that a lack of willpower is why we are unable to stay motivated enough to complete a task or make a lifelong change, and I would agree, but I think it goes deeper than that. Knowing and remembering what we want when faced with temptation is what allows us to resist temptation. That focused practice may be new to us and may make all of the difference.

From psychologist Kelly McGonigal’s book, The Willpower Instinct:

“When you think of something that requires willpower, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? For most of us, the classic test of willpower is resisting temptation, whether the temptress is a doughnut, a cigarette, a clearance sale, or a one-night stand. When people say, ‘I have no willpower,’ what they usually mean is, ‘I have trouble saying no when my mouth, stomach, heart, or (fill in your anatomical part) wants to say yes.’ Think of it as ‘I won’t’ power.

But saying no is just one part of what willpower is, and what it requires. After all, ‘Just say no’ are the three favorite words of procrastinators and coach potatoes worldwide. At times, it’s more important to say yes. All those things you put off for tomorrow (or forever)? Willpower helps you put them on today’s to-do list, even when anxiety, distractions, or a reality TV show marathon threaten to talk you out of it. Think of it as ‘I will’ power—the ability to do what you need to do, even if part of you doesn’t want to.

‘I will’ and ‘I won’t’ power are the two sides of self-control, but they alone don’t constitute willpower. To say no when you need to say no, and yes when you need to say yes, you need a third power: the ability to remember what you really want. I know, you think that what you really want is the brownie, the third martini, or the day off. But when you’re facing temptation, or flirting with procrastination, you need to remember that what you really want is to fit into your skinny jeans, get the promotion, get out of credit card debt, stay in your marriage, or stay out of jail. Otherwise, what’s going to stop you from following your immediate desires? To exert self-control, you need to find your motivation when it matters. This is ‘I want’ power.”

Hone the Process

In general, we know what we want when we come to the gym. We want results. The ability to remember what we really want when faced with temptation (staying in bed instead of going to the gym, eating junk food instead of healthy food, etc.) is an important first step in reaching our goals. Visualization can be a powerful tool here: picture yourself as the finished product of what you are working towards. How do you act? What do you think about? How do you walk? What are you eating? What do you look like? Now acknowledge that you only get to be that person if you do the hard work.

Beyond a lack of willpower, or what I’ll now refer to as focused willpower, with the focus being that powerful image of ourselves as the finished product, there is also our need for instant gratification. It’s a buzzword for good reason: we expect cause and effect to take place within a very short window. Unfortunately, that’s not how things work. The scale will fluctuate and the numbers we squat will rise and fall based on many, many factors. Progress is not linear.

These types of setbacks can completely derail us, and so an important practice, one that is often missed, is taking it one day at a time. Alcoholics Anonymous has it right. Each day is an opportunity to do the things we need to do to reach our overarching goals, those big scary ones, like lose 20 lbs or do a pull up for the first time or make it into the top 500 in the CrossFit Open. What are the little things that must be done, day in and day out, to reach those goals? Those are the focus. If we don’t do those things, if we mess up for whatever reason, then we do them tomorrow. It is liberating to be focused on the process rather than the goal.

You win the day if you do your work, and that is what it takes to reach a big goal.

Do the Work Every Day

The best part of training is that our training is never complete. Think about it: if you reach that big goal, that successful person that you pictured earlier, are you going to stop there? It is very unlikely that you will. You’ll set even bigger goals, because humans naturally seek out challenges. Training is a lifelong process, so when you experience failures or setbacks, remind yourself that you have tomorrow to do better. Stay true to that picture of yourself as a completed project, remember that it’s what you really want, and do the work every day. That is what it means to stay motivated.

Reference:

1. Kelly McGonigal, The Willpower Instinct (New York: Penguin Group, 2012), 16.

The post Build Better Habits To Stay Motivated appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Excuses come in one of two types: those that contain blame, and those that invite accountability. Learning to differentiate between the two will eventually allow you to minimize blame, eliminate excuses, and become more accountable.

Distractions and excuses are everywhere. It’s as if people are playing Pokemon Go and walking around trying to catch them all. Every excuse seems logical to the person offering it, and may even be legitimate.

Excuses come in one of two types: those that contain blame, and those that invite accountability. Learning to differentiate between the two will eventually allow you to minimize blame, eliminate excuses, and become more accountable.

Living a life of excuses undermines your confidence and prevents you from recognizing opportunities. [Photo credit: Pixabay]

Your Brain Works Against You

Making changes in our excuse-making behavior may be even more difficult than our attempts to keep New Year’s resolutions. Although making excuses is often a subconscious process, breaking a habit requires conscious effort. Habits are neural pathways carved deep in the brain’s basal ganglia, fed by dopamine neurotransmitters that reward and generate pleasure associated with the task at hand.¹

But there is a region of the prefrontal cortex known as the infralimbic (IL) cortex that may hold the key to breaking old habits. Researchers found that the IL cortex favors new habits over old ones. The old ones are only tucked away, not forgotten, which helps explain why it’s so hard to break old habits and why they consistently resurface.

With those mechanisms in mind, there are methods you can employ to break your excuse making habit. The following strategies are by no means quick fixes, but they are effective and will help you to achieve far greater life satisfaction.

Stop Playing the Blame Game

To overcome your excuses, you must first admit that you are making them. Then begins the work of identifying them. Take this seriously, because if you have been making excuses for most of your life, this is going to be a difficult habit to break. More often than not, these justifications have slid off your tongue so easily that you don’t even realize it is happening.

Start by thinking about commitments or decisions that you have been putting off or canceled. Ask yourself if you are able to recognize the reasons why you have delayed taking action. Fear is frequently the underlying culprit: fear of failure, of embarrassment, of success, of change, and of uncertainty.

Fear is not the only problem, and being scared is all too often used as just another excuse. There are also lack of willpower and self-discipline, which lead to lost focus and procrastination. The root of your excuses could also be a perceived lack of resources.

I work at a university that recruits highly intelligent student-athletes. These athletes have chosen to undertake a sizeable commitment to both their studies and their sport. When midterms roll around, so do the excuses. Understand, these kids are biochemical engineers and future architects; their course load is daunting.

But I have a complete lack of sympathy for them when they attempt to skip a training session. Their excuses aren’t really reasons, they’re just rationalizations they make to themselves and others for not pursuing what they want in life. The reality is that excuses are just a relatively painless way to place blame for their failure to take action. At the end of the day, we will only be able to succeed when we remove the “can’t” and start living lives that show we can.

Honesty Enables Responsibility

When something isn’t a priority, admit it. Once you begin to make excuses, the next one will come easier, then the next one after that, then another and another. A snowball effect takes place and before you know it, those excuses become your way of life.

Be honest about the fact that you don’t really want to babysit for your brother or serve on some committee. Saying that we don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings sounds like fairness, but more often than not it’s really about avoiding confrontations. Or you don’t want to have to admit that other things are more important to you.

When we choose fear as a primary excuse, this will result in self-generated complaints, more personal stress, and wasted time and money. Choosing to accept responsibility with your present fear still fully alive takes courage, but the positive outcomes are overwhelming.

Minimum personal stress, minimal wasted time and money, and the complete removal of self-generated complaints will be your rewards. The more often you pick the desire to win over the fear of losing, the more power you take back from the excuse making habits we all have built over the years.

Drop Your Vampires

When you feel less secure, excuses are much easier to come by. Real or perceived, avoiding your shortcomings provides only a temporary false sense of confidence. In today’s fast-paced society, the easy, popular excuse is “I’m too busy.” Life is hectic, but we all have the same 24 hours in a day. The difference lies in how we use those hours and how well we manage our priorities.

The reason we may not have time is because we allow other distractions to take the place of things that really matter. Focus your attention on eliminating your energy vampires. These vampires are all of the people, things, and commitments that suck your time and energy out of you.

Most of these vampires that you make excuses for don’t really matter or contribute to your wellbeing. Everybody has their own strengths and weaknesses, and it’s only when you embrace everything you are and aren’t, that you will discover your true potential.

Quit the Comparisons

To quote Admiral Akbar, “It’s a trap!” Comparing yourself to others can be very motivating. But it also makes it much easier to find reasons why you haven’t accomplished quite as much, or why you are at a disadvantage.

This habit can lead you to the dark side, because no matter how much you accomplish in life, there will always be someone, somewhere who as accomplished more. Compare yourself only to your own reflection. There is no one else in this world that can do a better job at being you than you can.

There may be people from your past who we use as an excuse for our current actions because of how they treated us five or ten years ago. Instead of using them as a crutch, call them, go knock on their door, and thank them for making you as tough as you have become.

These people from the past have help to mold us into the great people we are today. Without them, we could have never grown up enough to conquer our current fears, faults, and failures.

Hack Your Brain with Meditation

There is a specific part of our brain is devoted to habit-forming.² Even semi-automatic behaviors, like blurting out an excuse, are ultimately under our control. How can we become more aware of our semi-automatic behaviors and be more mindful or our actions?

Research has shown that even a brief period of mindfulness meditation can be a quick and effective strategy to foster self-control, even under conditions where we feel inadequate.² Even after years and years of habitual excuse making, it only takes a few minutes to refuel your mind, which will facilitate greater focus and increase your brain’s regulatory capabilities.

Take the Excuses Out of Your Life

Living a life of excuses undermines your confidence and prevents you from recognizing opportunities and developing talents. The irony is that the skills that your excuses have kept from you might have helped you overcome the very challenges you were avoiding.

Be persistent, be hungry for success, and make a little progress every single day. Imagine where you could be if eliminated one excuse per week for one year straight. It’s the small, consistent progressions that get the results, not the big tasks that you do every once in a while.

Reach your full potential: Inside-Out-Health Before Fitness

References:

1. Smith, K. S., A. Virkud, K. Deisseroth, and A. M. Graybiel. “Reversible Online Control of Habitual Behavior by Optogenetic Perturbation of Medial Prefrontal Cortex.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109, no. 46 (2012): 18932-8937. doi:10.1073/pnas.1216264109.

2. Friese, Malte, Claude Messner, and Yves Schaffner. “Mindfulness Meditation Counteracts Self-control Depletion.” Consciousness and Cognition 21, no. 2 (2012): 1016-022. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2012.01.008.

The post The Art of Making Excuses appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The overwhelming majority of us want to be leaner and stronger. Strength may take precedence for some, and body composition may be more important to others, but we all want a combination of the two.

This is obvious with athletes like competitive powerlifters and weightlifters, who need to be strong and lean to meet their sport-specific performance goals. But it’s just as true for everybody else. Grandparents want to keep their blood sugar under control and have more energy to play with their grandkids. Many people want to feel better about what they see in the mirror. Maybe you’re trying to lose weight for your wedding, or struggling with low back pain.

All of these goals boil down to becoming leaner and stronger. As a bonus, when you focus on those two simple goals, other training objectives like improved mobility, agility, endurance, and injury prevention fall into place.

Whatever your performance or aesthetic goals may be, they boil down to two things: get strong, and get lean.

Simple Goals, Simple Methods

Last week, I questioned the validity of five commonly-performed exercises in gyms today, namely planks, stability work, ropes, tire flipping, and box jumps. While all five of those drills might be helpful in the right context, in the vast majority of cases, there are better choices relative to the two goals that almost all of us share. 

When it comes to making the most of your efforts in the gym, forget the hacks. These are the tried-and-true ways to get lean and strong.

1. Lift Weights: Get off the BOSU ball and stop letting your lifting partner assist you to complete the last few inches of a rep. Lifting weights is about you and the bar. Focus on proven, multi-joint, large range-of-motion movements like squats, rows, deadlifts, presses, pull ups, and leg presses.
2. Do Cardio: Don’t get too hung up on the type of cardio you choose. Just pick an exercise that is the least obnoxious to you. Walking, jogging, rowing, cycling, swimming, skating, and hiking are all good options. Variety helps motivation and reduces the likelihood of injury, so switch things up from time-to-time. HIIT or sprint-style cardio is useful as well, but keep in mind that this type of work is fueled by the same energy reserves as your lifting sessions, so proceed with caution.
3. Get a Handle on Your Diet: Make sure you’re ingesting an appropriate number of calories per day, and focus your attention on macronutrient ratios. Get these two basics in check and your diet will begin to fall into place to support your training and body composition goals.

Don’t Get Caught Up in Complication

These three recommendations reflect how bodybuilders trained and ate back in the 1960’s and 70’s. The lesson here is that success always leaves clues. We’ve had these methods figured out for decades. But people always look for the latest trend to replace good old fashioned hard work, like training masks, Daily Undulating Periodization (DUP), or If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM).

When it comes to our training goals, our commonalities greatly outweigh our differences. Despite what you’ve been told, you likely don’t need more core stability, postural integration, corrective exercise, or “flow.” You probably just need less fat and more strength. I know I do.

This Week’s Training:

Volume: 103,280lb (Last Week: 96,988lb)

Significant Lifts:

• High Bar Squat: 250lbx8
• 4” Block Pull: 430lbx10
• Bench Press: 205lbx9

This was a strong training week, with a few PR’s and near-PR’s. My bodyweight is continuing to drop slowly, which makes these personal bests even more gratifying. My orthopedic health is holding up pretty well, and my only recent complaint is a bit of left elbow irritation.

Monday, April 18, 2016

Bodyweight: 197.6lb

Volume: 31,365lb

Goblet Squat

• Set 1: 10lb × 10
• Set 2: 53lb × 10
• Set 3: 53lb × 10

High Bar Squat

• Set 1: 45lb × 10
• Set 2: 95lb × 8
• Set 3: 135lb × 6
• Set 4: 185lb × 3
• Set 5: 225lb × 8
• Set 6: 245lb × 8
• Set 7: 250lb × 8
• Set 8: 230lb × 8

Deadlift

• Set 1: 135lb × 5
• Set 2: 225lb × 5
• Set 3: 275lb × 5
• Set 4: 315lb × 5

Leg Press

• Set 1: 90lb × 8
• Set 2: 180lb × 8
• Set 3: 270lb × 8
• Set 4: 360lb × 8
• Set 5: 410lb × 8

Standing Calf Raise

• Set 1: 200lb × 8
• Set 2: 200lb × 8
• Set 3: 200lb × 8

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Bodyweight: 198.4lb

Volume: 13,960lb

Bench Press (Dumbbell)

• Set 1: 100lb × 10
• Set 2: 140lb × 8
• Set 3: 170lb × 8
• Set 4: 180lb × 8
• Set 5: 190lb × 8

Seated Row

• Set 1: 135lb × 8
• Set 2: 165lb × 8
• Set 3: 180lb × 8

Military Press

• Set 1: 45lb × 8
• Set 2: 65lb × 8
• Set 3: 85lb × 8
• Set 4: 85lb × 8

Bicep Curl (Dumbbell)

• Set 1: 50lb × 8
• Set 2: 60lb × 8
• Set 3: 70lb × 8

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Bodyweight: 198.6lb

Volume: 34,806lb

Goblet Squat

• Set 1: 10lb × 10
• Set 2: 10lb × 10
• Set 3: 10lb × 10

4″ Block Pull

• Set 1: 135lb × 8
• Set 2: 185lb × 8
• Set 3: 225lb × 8
• Set 4: 315lb × 8
• Set 5: 365lb × 8
• Set 6: 405lb × 8
• Set 7: 430lb × 10 (Video Below)

Hack Squat

• Set 1: 90lb × 8
• Set 2: 140lb × 8
• Set 3: 180lb × 8
• Set 4: 210lb × 8
• Set 5: 210lb × 8

Back Extension

• Set 1: +150lb × 8
• Set 2: +150lb × 8
• Set 3: +150lb × 8

Seated Calf Raise

• Set 1: 90lb × 8
• Set 2: 90lb × 8
• Set 3: 90lb × 8

Friday, April 22, 2016

Bodyweight: 198lb

Volume: 23,149lb

Bench Press

• Set 1: 45lb × 10
• Set 2: 95lb × 8
• Set 3: 135lb × 6
• Set 4: 175lb × 4
• Set 5: 195lb × 8
• Set 6: 205lb × 9
• Set 7: 205lb × 8
• Set 8: 195lb × 8

Close Grip Bench Press

• Set 1: 155lb × 8
• Set 2: 165lb × 8
• Set 3: 170lb × 8

Chin Up

• Set 1: 1 reps
• Set 2: 2 reps
• Set 3: 3 reps
• Set 4: 4 reps
• Set 5: 5 reps
• Set 6: 6 reps
• Set 7: 7 reps

Incline Dumbbell Press

• Set 1: 100lb × 8
• Set 2: 130lb × 8
• Set 3: 130lb × 8

EZ Bar Curl

• Set 1: 45lb × 8
• Set 2: 65lb × 8
• Set 3: 75lb × 8

More Articles to Cut Through the Nonsense:

• Are You Working Hard Enough to Succeed?
• Your Diet Needs a Reality Check
• Is Perfectionism Holding Your Training Back?
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photo courtesy of Jeff Nguyen / CrossFit Empirical.

The post There’s Nothing Fancy About Getting Fitter appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Then Gertrude in accounting had a birthday. Gertrude is 71, and everyone loves her, and everybody brought in food. And there was this huge, photo-printed cake with a picture of her when she was in her twenties on it, and the next thing you know you’re eating Gertrude’s left cheek off a tiny “Happy Birthday!” plate with a spork. With every bite of cheap icing, you can feel your goals slipping months further into the distant future.

The next Tuesday, it was Stan in IT. Friday was Cheryl from HR. Your boss’s birthday is next week. So. Many. Cakes.

You don’t owe anyone an explanation about your lifestyle. Do what’s right for you.

It’s Not About the Cake

If you’re honest, you don’t even like cake that much, especially the cheap cake that tends to show up at corporate birthday parties. It’s the social pressure that has you sporking it into your mouth. It’s the frustration of having to explain, every time you decline some kind of food or engagement, why you aren’t just going along with everybody else. It’s the bizarre cultural construct that states if you don’t eat the cake, you’re not sharing in the celebrated person’s joy. In effect, turning down the cake becomes a rejection of people, an insult to friendship, not just an effort to maintain nutritional balance.

Some days, you can pull it off. You stiff-arm Betty Crocker right in the face and keep on track, and you’re proud of yourself. But more often, the pressure becomes too much, and you cave. While you pretend to enjoy yourself in the company of people who wouldn’t understand your goals if you handed them a coloring book that explained them, you’re counting in your head the number of burpees required to account for this nutritional transgression.

Be Who You Are: An Athlete

Why do you put yourself through these mental and emotional gymnastics? You don’t owe anyone an explanation. You’re an athlete. You’ve worked hard for a very long time to become that, and now it’s as much a part of you as the freckles on your arms or your hair color. Do you apologize for having freckles? Do they require some sort of embarrassed explanation if somebody notices them in public?

The lifestyle choices you make to support your athletic goals aren’t anyone’s business but your own, and possibly your coach’s. If people feel threatened by your ability to stick to your plan in the face of abundant temptation and social pressure, that’s on them.

When you order a salad at a steakhouse, or decline a night at the bars with your buds because you have to be up in the morning for a training run, you’re setting yourself apart. You become a psychological “other,” and humanity loves nothing better than to denigrate those who are unlike themselves. Worse, the reasons you are different will expose a whole lot of envy and insecurity on the part of those who pressure you to abandon your goals. At best, they’ll chide you. At worst, they can get downright nasty.

The moment you wake up and decide that you’ve had enough is your chance to make a change.

But you didn’t start training to become like everybody else. Quite the opposite: you were like everybody else, and that’s why you started training. For whatever reason, you decided you’d had enough of being counted among the nearly 80 million Americans who are considered obese. You were tired of being winded just walking up the stairs to your apartment. You hated what you saw in the bathroom mirror, and you decided to do something about it.

Your co-workers have a goal of winning their fantasy football league or watching every episode of Survivor. You have a goal of a bodyweight clean and jerk or a six-minute mile.

That change in mental priority, and the accompanying change in lifestyle, makes you different – and better. It has improved your life, widened your circle of friends, given you new abilities and confidence. Those are things to be proud of, not to shy away from just because they’re not the easy, popular thing to do at the office.

Don’t Sell Yourself Short

C. S. Lewis famously said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” With respect to Mr. Lewis, that’s a bunch of bovine excrement. Doing the right thing with no eyes on you is child’s play. The real test of integrity is doing the right thing when everyone is watching and expects you do to something different.

Don’t apologize to anyone for sticking to the goals and plans you have for your health and fitness. Dropping that inch from your waist, shaving that minute from your 5k, or putting those 20lb on your back squat require exactly the hard sort of integrity and dedication which are so uncommon in polite society. And those traits are nothing to be sorry for.

You’ll Also Enjoy:

• What People Eat Is None of Your Business
• 4 Mindset Lessons From the Legends
• How to Take Our Goals From Dreams to Reality
• New on Breaking Muscle Right Now

Photo 1 courtesy of J Perez Imagery.

Photo 2 courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post Stop Apologizing for Your Goals appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.” – Paulo Coelho

It’s a bloody shame that in today’s world so many dreams stay just that – a dream. Ideas and hopes are born in a person’s mind, yet don’t have the chance to actually live. How will you know if you can ever accomplish something if you don’t take a risk and put yourself out there?

What Gets in the Way of Our Dreams?

So what is it that stops people from taking the risk and pursuing their dreams? Is it the fear of failure? The fear of being judged? The negative self-talk telling you to just settle and keep your aspirations as a distant unrealistic thought?

Fear is not a bad thing. We all feel it – even the super bad-ass people you look up to. In fact, without it we would all be in big trouble. When fear pops up, it’s generally a sign of our edge. Whether it’s physical, social, emotional, or otherwise, fear calls our attention to an area of our lives we need to work on. It’s really one of our best teachers.

“[W]hen you’re thinking about starting a new fitness regimen, or making any change in your life for that matter, don’t let yourself get in the way.”

But it’s easy to confuse fear with actual danger. We mistakenly assign real risk to our internal fears of failure, embarrassment, ridicule, or any number of things that make us uncomfortable. This can lead to hindering behaviors, including analysis paralysis.

RELATED: How to Learn From Both Success and Failure

This paralysis happens when you get stuck thinking “what if” or “I’m not good enough” or any of the other nonsense we tell ourselves. This generally leads to a lack of action. But it doesn’t have to be this way and you can get over this hump and after your dreams.

4 Ways to Avoid Analysis Paralysis

1. Breathe: Take some deep breaths. A calm mind will make every step easier.
2. Get Crystal Clear on Your Goal: What’s your goal? Don’t focus on the obstacles. Not the real ones or the ones you fabricated in your head. Focus on “what is” not “what if.” Are the fears surrounding your goal actually an indication of danger or is your ego afraid of being hurt? The goal is what matters. Hold it in your mind. Emphasize your clear objective and stay focused.
3. Divide Your Goal Into Smaller Achievable Goals: This strategy will make any challenge seem more doable. Whether it’s losing ten pounds, achieving your first pull up, or landing a new career, to climb the ladder you must take it one step at a time. Don’t be afraid of failure. Remember, success can look a lot like failure half way through. There are no real mistakes – just learning opportunities.
4. Make These Smaller Steps Measurable: It can help greatly to have goals you can actually measure. “Be a better athlete/businessperson/partner,” “Get stronger,” and “Get leaner” are all fine things, but there’s no objective way to know when you’ve reached goals like this.

So set out some steps toward your goal that are measurable. Some examples of these might be:

• Train three times this week
• Have coffee with two new prospects
• Do 100 kettlebell swings a day
• Graduate to the next heavier kettlebell

Simple, actionable, and measurable steps like this help you see your progress.

RELATED VIDEO: What Everyone Needs to Know About Goal Setting

Taking Action

Now, it’s time to take action. Grab your big-boy or big-girl pants and put them on. Put one foot in front of the other and take a chance so you can get on the path to your goals.

If everyone were paralyzed with the fear of other people’s opinions, there would be nothing. Respect and admiration are earned much more by people who take a chance and fail, rather than hide and never risk anything. And if you’re not ready to take the risk, please don’t hide behind the curtains (or your computer) and judge other people for putting themselves out there.

Let’s discuss fitness as an example. A beginner trainee may be thrilled at learning the kettlebell swing. This person decides to post a video to social media showing what she just learned. Some people out there in the world choose to love and encourage her, while some may criticize the video and bash the poster.

But despite the negative words, the new trainee has developed courage. The trainee will continue to do what she loves, while improving upon her form and technique – without letting others get the best of her.

“Fear is not a bad thing. We all feel it – even the super bad-ass people you look up to. In fact, without it we would all be in big trouble.”

So when you’re thinking about starting a new fitness regimen, or making any change in your life for that matter, don’t let yourself get in the way. Don’t worry about the naysayers (there are plenty of them).

RELATED: Find Your Authentic Self By Setting Unreasonable Goals

Get your ass off the couch, get off the Internet, and make yourself a list of small things you can do right now to make your dream come alive. You don’t need to know every step it will take to reach your goal just to get started. The path has a way of revealing itself as you go.

And remember, there is no failure in life. Just learning opportunities. You’ve got nothing to lose. Go for it and make it happen!

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Don’t Let Fear of Failure Get In the Way of Your Dreams appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Let’s look at what might be getting in your way and some simple steps you can take to get back on track and achieve your big-picture goals.

RELATED: How to Take Our Goals From Dreams to Reality

What People Say Their Goals Are

Below is a list of common fitness/strength goals based on research (in order of importance). How much importance do you give each one?

• Appearance or weight management (fat loss, muscle gain)
• Better health (prevent a disease, get back to a previous health status, rehabilitation)
• Feat of strength (personal best at an exercise or strength goal; e.g., a pull up)
• Flexibility and mobility
• Socializing

A common goal, written on the whiteboard: “To be Strong. Katie V.” (age nine)

What People Often Work Toward

Unfortunately, I see a lot of people working toward other goals that might only be indirectly related to their intended goal. For example:

• Getting done as quickly as possible (completing each rep in a haphazard fashion)
• Working against a clock to beat someone else’s score
• Using dangerous technique to lift more than others
• Working out to exhaustion rather than training toward perfection

These unintended consequences can happen in any group workout setting. The consequences might seem balanced in some ways by the many benefits of working out in a community. But my hope is that you look at your current program and see what you can do to make it work toward your goals.

“If your fitness program is not directed toward achieving your goals, then it is time to reevaluate and change.”

We can work toward our goals even if the system puts up incentives or barriers that take us in a different direction. We need to remain focused on why we train to get what we’re truly after.

If It Is Important Enough, Do It Everyday

If your fitness program is not directed toward achieving your goals, then it is time to reevaluate and change. For example, if your goal is to do an unassisted pull up, what are you doing to achieve that goal today?

And “active rest” is an appropriate answer only if you are resting from something related to your pull up goal. Otherwise, start building a pull-up program into your plans (for example, you could do a greasing-the-groove style program before each gym session).

Do the Opposite

Let’s say you look at what you are currently doing and realize it is not directly related to your goals. What can you do to get back on track? You could follow George Costanza’s example and do the opposite.

• Timed Workouts – If your workout calls for a certain number of reps for time, you could slow down on purpose to make each rep perfect. Who cares about the clock? Will someone remember a year from now if you were a bit slower?
• Inappropriate Progressions – If a coach asks you to do banded pull ups, you could respectfully say no and do ring rows instead (or negative pull ups for fewer reps). You are in charge of your goals and no one should get in the way.
• Skip the Kip – Want to work on absolute strength in the pull ups? Then skip the kipping or butterfly pull ups and do strict pull ups for fewer reps. The same idea follows for the weight you use. If you have to lower the weight to achieve proper form, then lower the weights and work on technique.

RELATED: Successful Pull Ups for Beginners: Say No to Bands

George Costanza Doing the Opposite

It Is “Practice” or “Training,” Not a “Workout”

Working out to exhaustion might be fun to do every once in a while, but for long-term benefits and health, a more systematic approach is necessary. Pavel Tsatsouline once likened a workout to someone going to practice his or her tennis serve to exhaustion. What good would it do to practice a serve when your shoulder and arm are exhausted? Rather, it is best to train the serve while you are fresh so you can put full power into it. Do movements while you are strong and leave some in the tank for the next day.

“Working out to exhaustion might be fun to do every once in a while, but for long-term benefits and health, a more systematic approach is necessary.”

If You Are Training to Failure, You Are Training to Fail

Powerlifting champ Dr. Terry Todd said those words and Pavel is always reminding people of them. The way we train sets the standard for how we do movements later. If we lift with crappy form, do we expect to someday just snap out of it and lift virtuously?

Keep It in Perspective

I like the following quotation from Dan John talking about keeping a gold medal in perspective:

It’s just a Gold Medal or World Record. In the big picture of things, not everything we do is just very important in the big scheme of things.

Given that most of us are not even training in pursuit of a gold medal, Dan’s words become even more salient. Your score in your training session today is not as meaningful as achieving your big picture goal.

RELATED: Screw Goals: It’s All About Your System 

Wrap-Up

I like to ask people what their goals are. I have never heard anyone say they want the best time or to beat everyone else as part of their fitness program (competitive athletes want better performance in competitions, not in practice; we’re talking about practice here).

Sometimes it is just the competitive classroom environment that brings that out in people. But competitiveness and other factors can distract us from our goals. Organize your training around what brought you to exercise in the first place. Are you achieving what you want? If not, then it is time to refocus your efforts on attaining those goals.

References:

1. Cash, TF. et al., “Why Do Women Exercise? Factor Analysis and Further Validation of the Reasons for Exercise Inventory.” Perceptual and Motor Skills 78 (2): 539–44. 1994. doi:10.2466/pms.1994.78.2.539.

Photo 1 “To Be Strong” courtesy of Katie VanBuskirk (age nine) and CrossFit Empirical.

Photo 2 courtesy of CrossFit Empirical.

The post Is Your Training Taking You Closer To Your Goals? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.