If you have to weigh in, it must not be the Winter Olympics!

I love the Olympics. It doesn't matter if it is the Winter or Summer games, it all has to do with competition and the sacrifices individuals and family members make in order for the athletes to participate on this world stage.

As I started watching the first events, Snow Boarding and team Figure Skating (what the heck is up with Team?) the difference between the Winter and Summer games hit me.  No, it's not that one has snow and the other doesn't! 

The difference between the two is that in the Winter games there isn't one event where the participants are weighed in, not one!  In the Summer games there are all kinds of sports that have weight classes; wrestling, weightlifting, boxing and martial arts.

This brought back some fond and funny memories of my Olympic weightlifting days when trying to make weight for competition.

For starters, there is a science to this madness, especially in strength sports.  You just can't go on a crash diet or starvation to make weight. It was a fine balance between losing weight and maintaining strength.  So it had to be done in a gradual and methodical way.

I was taught that you wanted to weigh no more than 5% of your target weight class two weeks out before a contest. So for instance, if I was competing in the 198 pound class, I had to be no more than 9.5 pounds above that or 207-208 pounds.

You didn't do cardio because that would interfere with your strength so you basically started eating a cleaner diet

On the night before the contest, you always weighed yourself on the scale that was used for the competition so you would have an exact reference point of where you were at.

Now you DID NOT want to be in at the desired bodyweight the night before, this meant you lost the weight too fast.  It was actually ok to be 3 maybe 4 pounds over the day before. This meant you could have a good meal that night then start shedding water the next day.  One quick way was to take a diuretic the morning of. That was always good for a couple of pounds of weight loss. 

Where we would get in trouble is when we were still 5-6 pounds away from desired weight the night before. This is what brought back memories!

One of those was when I was a teenager.  There were three of us competing in the Teenage Nationals that year. It was somewhere in Kansas City or St. Louis, I forget.  All three of us still needed a few pounds to shed that morning before weigh-in.  So we did something that was very popular back then,  sweat and spit off your weight.

So we got into baggy sweat pants, long sleeved sweat shirt with a coat over that. Got a couple of packs of gum, then we crammed ourselves into the tub shower and closed the door.  Placing towels underneath the door so no air could escape, we turned the tub faucet on full blast in the hottest position.

It quickly became a steam room where we could not see each other.  There we were, heavily clothed sitting on the tub, holding a cup and chewing gum and spitting into the cup every chance we got. Not a pretty picture.

What we didn't know was that the maid had entered the room to clean it up since no one answered the door when she knocked.  The maid heard the water running in the tub.  Whether she knocked or asked if anyone was in there, we do not know because we never heard anything.  But when she entered the bathroom, a wall of hot steam came rushing out and almost knocked her on the floor.

A split second later, three teenagers came spilling out of the steam, in full sweat gear and holding cups.  She let out a scream as if she was being attacked by vampires!  She went running out of the room, never to be seen again!

Now shedding weight was one way to make the bodyweight class you wanted to compete in. But there was also the opposite, gaining weight to avoid competing in a weight class so you move up to the one above it!

The reason for that could be that the competition in the next higher weight class was weaker and you stood a better chance competing in that one than the one you originally intended. Or that that weight class you were entered was extremely tough and you would not even place so you moved up one. Either way, you never really knew until the night before where you saw who was entered in the contest.

So this brings me to another funny weigh-in story that happened to a friend of mine.  We were now grown-ups and we were competing in a big state meet. I was competing in the 198 pound class and he was in the 220 class. He was right at or below 220 so he was going to make weight easy.

When we got to the competition site he saw that there were two weightlifters competing that were nationally ranked in his weight class. The best he could do was place 3rd.  However in the class above that there was nobody entered that could beat him. So he decided to move up to the 242 pound class. Now that doesn't mean you have to weigh 242, it just means you have to weigh more than 220.

I have no idea why he thought this would work and even stranger, why no one in his inner circles didn't advise him against it, but he decided the best way to get above 220 was to eat and drink something heavy, really heavy. So he chose egg nog and bananas!

He bought a gallon of egg nog and a bunch of bananas the night before. After a big dinner he started drinking that stuff while downing banana's.  As if that wasn't enough he continued the feast that morning since weigh-in was not until noon.

About an hour after finishing off his feast, the trouble began! His stomach was starting to revolt. In fact his whole body was revolting!  Not to gross out everyone but he spent the rest of the morning visiting the throne as he was giving back everything he had eaten in the past 24 hours from both directions!

At weigh-in he actually had LOST five pounds. So now he was a very weak and sick 220 pound class lifter!  Needless to say he did not fare well against his competition!

Yes, it's funny how the Winter Olympics can make your mind wander and bring back memories of how not to be....Fit Forlife!

4X Training

Disclosure first...

Before I get into my blog post on 4X training let me just tell you a little bit about myself.  I am 56 years old and have been training for over 42 years. Lifting competitively in Olympic weightlifting, my body took a toll, mostly in the joints and back.
 

After that career was shot I continued training but more to stay in shape and look good than anything else.  Over the decades I have tried every type of gimmick routine(s) and health supplements. Some worked, most didn't and I also found out along the way that everyone is different. There is no such thing as a 'one size fits all' training program.  I tell all my clients they need to experiment with their bodies after they learn how each muscle works to see what works best for them.

In addition, I do not believe in any type of T therapy which seems to be the new thing with men once they hit their 30's.  At the age of 56 I feel I look better than ever before and I know that I am much more healthier than when I used to compete.

This post has no scientific backing, just 42 years of training, observing and reading any article on nutrition and exercise.

This post will deal strictly with my opinion of 4X and who can benefit from this the most.  I am not a bodybuilder although I have been told I should compete. So I am not giving opinion based on trying this routine and I won a bunch of physique championships.  It is solely based on whether I feel it worked or not.

Why 4X?

I had to decide whether to explain What is 4X first or Why 4X so I chose the latter.

Ok, I have mentioned that I have been training for 42 years and that I am 56 years old about a dozen times already. This is very important because this means that my body has taken a seriously heavy toll on the joints over the years.  Although they are stronger than the average person, I still punish them pretty good.

It is my opinion that your muscles do not lose their strength as they get older compared to your tendons and ligaments. I feel that tendons and ligaments are like rubber bands.  Over the years with all their stretching and contracting, they start to lose their elasticity.  They are also more prone to pulling, breaking or snapping just like a rubber band.  It doesn't matter how well you take care of them, if you are constantly stressing them, they will break at some point ESPECIALLY if you are going with heavy singles or 3-5 rep maximum weights.

The same is true with your joints, where you slowly wear away cartilage and you start having arthritic conditions.

Add to that, your muscle recovery seems to be slower.  When I was in my 20's I could blast muscle parts twice a week easily and get away with it.  Today, there is no way I can do this. Mind you I am 100% natural.  I am sure if I was on some sort of hormone therapy I could get away with this training but I choose not to do so because I believe in long term health and fitness not short term.

So how do you stress the muscles WITHOUT going with an all out heavy weight? This leads me to the next.....

What is 4X?

It is a method of doing sets for any exercise on any body part that uses moderate weight. Although there are e-books out there explaining the science to the method, it's origins date way back to Danny Padilla and Vince Gironda.  As a side note, I met Mr. Gironda when I trained in his gym back in 1984 in Beverly Hills.  He was a very cool person with quite a wealth of training knowledge that is still used today.  He was very eccentric but his methods worked.

Ok so here we go, 4X training explained....

First, you find a weight that you can do for a particular exercise where 15 reps is the max you can do.  Right off the start, any exercise that you can do 15 reps with a particular weight is obviously not your max but it is a moderate amount of weight anyways.

Using this 15 rep max weight as your starting point, you warm up until you are already to perform the 4X set. My suggestion is to take a nice 3 minute or more rest before doing the 4X set because this is where the boys are separated from the men.

4X is very simple and it goes as follows:

First set with x weight 10 reps........... rest 30-35 seconds
Second set with x weight 10 reps...........rest 30-35 seconds
Third set with x weight 10 reps............rest 30-35 seconds
Fourth set with x weight, rep out.  If you exceed 10 reps that means next workout add additional weight to the x weight you just did.

Now you will read articles where the rest period may be different, some suggesting as much as 45 seconds.  For 4X training I found that 45 seconds was too much rest. It does allow you to handle a tad more weight but the rest interval is just as important if not more so than the weight lifted, I will explain that a little bit later.

It has been my experience that for most body parts except legs, to use the 30 second rest. When doing legs I use 35 seconds only because legs is such a large muscle group, you need those extra 5 seconds of gasping to gut out the next set then the next then the next.

Variation of the 4X set...

As in any training routine, there are variations to 4X training.  One which I use on occasion when the joints are feeling good is to go a little heavier, perform 6 reps but only have a 20 second rest between sets. 

How often should you use 4X?

I like to perform at least one exercise per body part using the 4X method.  I also make sure it is my first exercise and the major body building one for the muscle being trained. So for example, I would use these exercises based on body part:

Chest - Incline Bench with bar or dumb bells
Back - Lat rolls or lat pulldowns
Legs - Squats or leg press
Shoulders - shoulder presses
Arms - biceps, barbell curls; triceps, tricep pushdowns

Science behind 4X...

Ok, I told you I wouldn't get into the science of it and I really am not. I am just going to explain a little bit of what a 4X set is doing to the muscle you are exercising.

Muscle hypertrophy (increase muscle size and mass) is broken down into two categories, myofibrillar and sarcoplasmic.  They both involve increasing the size of the cells but in a different way.

Myofibrillar accomplishes strengthening through increasing weight in an exercise while sarcoplasmic hypertrophy focuses on increasing actual size of the muscle.  Think of sarcoplasmic as getting that 'pumped' look.

In 4X training you hit a sweet spot where by using a moderate weight, you are hitting the muscle from a myofibrillar standpoint then blasting it from a sarcoplasmic standpoint with that shortened rest interval.

So, whether you are young or old (especially old) and you want to try something that I consider safer on the joints, tendon and ligaments yet very effective, give....

4X training a try in order to be Fit Forlife!

 

 

 

 

 

Ab, Core work... change it up!

I love working out abs!  It’s not just because it makes someone look good, it is the core (thus the name) of your body and helps support you in everything that you do.

Throughout this post I will feature some of the different ab exercises I perform. They are not all inclusive, I have more than a dozen different types that I am always changing up.

Strong abs (core) supports your back and alleviates back problems. It helps posture and gives one a look of confidence.

Now just working out abs doesn’t mean you will be able to display a six pack.  Ab work is all about making your core muscles stronger. Displaying abs is best done in the kitchen with what you eat and in cardio to help shed those last few pounds of fat.  One can have a very strong core and never really show it only because of their diet.

When I used to Olympic lift my training buddy was a heavyweight lifter. At around six feet tall and weighing anywhere between 250-270, he was never much for showing abs. In fact he used to joke that while most people strived for six pack abs,  he strived for wash tub abs!  But I will tell you this, he had some of the strongest ab muscles around. What he could do in terms of core exercises were hardly matched by anyone.

 

The purpose of this post is to talk about how I work abs, not how to display them since that is an entirely different subject.

Ways of training abs...

There are all kinds of ways to train abs. They are a muscle just like any other body part. As such, most people say to never train them every day. I kind of agree with that but not completely.  In my opinion, abs are like calf muscles. They are used daily and can take a lot of work. As such, they can also take a lot of punishment in the gym. They are unlike other body parts in that way where once or twice a week is more than enough.

 

As such, I hit a happy medium of training abs four times a week.  Since I work out six days a week, one body part a week except for legs which I train twice a week, I will do ab work on the days I DO NOT work legs.  So a typical week goes like this:

Day 1 Chest, abs

Day 2 Back, abs

Day 3 Legs

Day 4 Shoulders, abs

Day 5 Arms, abs

Day 6 Legs

Difference in training abs...

Now how I train abs is a little different than most people.  Many people will do abs at the beginning or end of their work out.  They also will do a gazillion sets and/or gazillion reps. I DO NONE OF THIS.

 

Having been working out for 42 years, I am constantly experimenting with what works best for my body. What works for me may not work for you. And there is no such thing as a ‘silver bullet’ that this is the exercise or routine one must follow in order to be successful. 

What I am going to describe may or may not work for you. But I definitely recommend you try it for four weeks and make changes to it along the way to fit your style of training.

First let’s talk about number of sets and number of reps. Remember, abs are muscles, nothing special about them requires a gazillion reps.  There are four things that I feel are important for good ab development and work:

1. Limit the number of sets that you do
2. Limit the number of reps you do, it's resistance and contraction that's the key
3. Change the sequence of how you perform the ab exercises
4. Abs involved every twisting motion of your core, as such, incorporate a variety of exercises 

 Let's look at the details of training abs... 

Sets and Exercises, I keep my total set count at 10. Nothing more, nothing less.  This consists of five different exercises, two sets each. That’s it. What kills your abs is the variety. I don’t sit there and do five sets of crunches and call it a day. You did nothing to hit all the possible angles of your core.

Reps, the maximum number I ever hit is 20 reps in a set. Most sets I perform only 10. Trust me, when done properly, when performed in a slow and methodical method, when you completely contract the muscle on each and every rep until it hurts, 10-20 is all you will ever need. 

I see so many people knock out 50-100 reps and think they really hit their abs. They did nothing. They were swinging their weight or in a poor position just for the ability to knock out those 50-100 reps. In other words, they were using other parts of their body to assist in the reps, the abs WERE NOT doing the work. It would be like saying you did 50 reps on the bench.  Other than maybe get a burn, you really are not hitting the muscles as you should.

Sequence, ok this is probably the most important part because it serves two very important purposes.  Most everyone does their entire ab exercises one after the other. They also do it at the beginning or the end of their work out.

 

I prefer to space mine out throughout my work out routine. So for example if I am doing chest, a typical work out would look like this:

Abs – Incline Bench – Abs – Flat Bench – Abs – Decline Bench – Abs – Flyes – Abs

Five different ab exercises, two sets each. Perform them in between the exercises for the body part you are training that day.

This accomplishes two things. First, it gives a quick five minute rest to the body part you are training to recover in order to hit the next exercise as hard as the previous one. Secondly, it gives your abs a break before you go on to the next exercise because you are training a body part in between your ab exercises.

Trust me, the five minute break you are giving your body part is HUGE in terms of recuperation. The 10 – 15 minute break you are giving your abs between the body part you are training is also HUGE because it allows you to perform perfect, as strict as possible, as slow as possible, as much contraction as possible reps during your ab exercise.

Variety, Core muscles work in every twist and fashion possible. This is why I do five different exercises. Each one has its uniqueness. I like to use twisting or rotation movements in my reps because this is how abs actually functions in real life.  I also like to use machines that are not meant for abs but are quite effective. From the videos I have posted of some of my favorite ab exercises you can tell how something as simple as a pec dec machine or lat pulldown machine can be used to target your core.

Try it out and change it up if need be to suit your body.

Core work outs is one way to be Fit Forlife!

 

Great Back Workout today...

One of my favorite body parts to work out is back.  The back is not only important for core support, it is also the tie in points for delts and traps. A thick back is impressive so why not train it hard?!

How many exercises, sets and reps?

 One of the things most people do not do when training back is hit a variety of exercises.  I think the back is the most complicated muscle group in the body. From the upper half to the lower half and everything in between, in order to get a good back work out and have a nice development you have to hit it from all angles.

I like doing many exercises on back day. I usually do anywhere from 8-10 different ones.  Each exercise consists of 2 to 3 sets but mostly 3.  Rep range is between 6-12 reps.

Make it up as you go along...

As in all body parts that I work out, I love 'inventing' new exercises. Once you know how the muscle works, it is quite easy to do.  Many of the machines that I use in any gym I go to can have multiple functions even if it isn't advertised as so.

For example in this video, I am doing very wide grip pull-ups on a cable cross over machine where they have pull up bars on either side. Rather than doing the pull ups on one side or the other, I use the handle of one pull up and the handle of the other pull up.

The result is a pull up that stretches the lat more than usual, allows you to actually do a sternum pull up, and allows you to go a little higher than normal.  Try this between sets of another exercise or rip out three quick sets of these.

How are back exercises performed?

 I believe in extension as much as possible, stretch the back muscles and make every fiber in it work.

I also believe in doing both wide grip and narrow grip exercises to build width and thickness.

Since I had back surgery over 20 years ago, I make sure any rows that I perform is done with the chest supported so as to not stress the back or put it in a disadvantaged state. The pic below is the way NOT TO DO ANY back exercise yet so many people do.  The laws of physics will eventually catch up to you, I don't care how strong you are...

The pic below is the recommended way, the back needs to be supported some way, some how...

Once you are warmed up, you can start with a decent weight as you go from exercise to exercise. In other words, since I only do 2 to 3 sets, once I warm up and complete my first back exercise, the remaining exercises I start with a pretty good weight already.

Time can be a twist to your routine...

 Another fave to add to my routine is rest or lack thereof.  Rarely do I rest more than 60-75 seconds between sets. With as many exercises as I do, I still want to keep my entire resistance workout to between 60-75 minutes. It may be mental, but I feel that resting very little between sets gets my back looking more shredded.

Common mistakes...

Two of the biggest mistakes I see people make when doing back is that they pull with their arms too much and they jerk on the weight.  I tell everyone to think of their arms as nothing more than ropes holding on to the bar and you are pulling with your back by concentrating on contracting your shoulder blades together.  Pretend like you are trying to pinch a pencil stuck between your shoulder blades. Feel the squeeze.

Every rep in every exercise is done in a slow and controlled fashion. I don't like doing herky jerky movements when working out back, you get nothing out of it except maybe lifting more weight which didn't do a darn thing to working out the back. 

In all back exercises, you start using more of your arms as you get to the full rep so I never go full rep in any back exercises. Once I start feeling the arms kicking in more than they should, that is my rep.

I definitely do believe though, in letting your back muscles stretch as much as possible when putting the weight back to the starting position. That creates a longer range of motion and just kicks in more muscle fibers when you start the contraction.

The power of naps....

If you exercise on a regular basis and try to juggle work and life as well, chances are you do not get all the sleep that you need.

Did you know that when it comes to sleep patterns, mammals fall into two distinct categories. More than 85% of mammals are known to be polyphasic sleepers meaning they sleep for short periods of time throughout the day.

Humans fall into the other 15% called monophasic sleepers meaning that the day is divided into two distinct parts, one called the wake period and the other the sleep period.

However, it is still not clear whether this is what our natural sleep pattern should be given the fact that the way our lives have been structured for hundreds of years requires one to work and perform chores throughout the day. How would one naturally behave if you didn't have that requirement?

Well guess what? I will not going into the why or why not here but rather approach the subject of the power of naps.

Let's face it, in todays world, who can really get 8 hours of sleep a day?  There are some studies to suggest that 8 hours is just an arbitrary number that it may be more or less depending on the individual.  But one thing is for sure, being deprived in the amount of sleep your body is asking for can have negative effects on your health.

Sleep Deprivation...

There are two types of sleep deprivation.  One is Total Sleep Deprivation where you go for long periods, days even, without sleep.  This type creates havoc in your mind and body where your brain will eventually shut down all functions of your body and fall asleep in order to stay alive.  Total Sleep Deprivation is even used with interrogation techniques to break down the individual.

The other type is the one most people suffer, Partial Sleep Deprivation.  This is where the body suffers loss of sleep in increments of time, day by day, until the person starts experiencing detrimental side affects.

If you are the early morning athlete getting up at 5AM to run or go to the gym, you may run out of gas by mid afternoon. By the same token, getting up at 6:30AM to get to work then train after work also creates a toll on your body if you do not get enough sleep.  Individuals that exercise and train hard need extra recuperation for their bodies to repair and replenish themselves, so bad sleep patterns are magnified even more than the sedentary person!

Types of naps...

So how can one combat partial sleep deprivation?  Studies have found that short naps can have amazing recuperative effects on the mind and body.  Normally there are three kinds of naps:

Planned Naps is taking a nap before you actually get sleepy. A good example is if you are planning a late night out like New Years and you want to make sure that you are awake to enjoy the festivities. You may take a planned nap late afternoon or early evening.

Emergency Naps happened when you are very tired and cannot continue with what you are currently doing. One common type of emergency napping is when you have been driving for a long period of time and you can no longer focus.  You pull off the side of the road, exit or rest stop to take a nap and refresh yourself.

Habitual Naps is when a person takes a nap around the same time each day.  Children are quite often taught to do this as they are growing yet for some reason are weaned off of it as they become adults.

The Five Stages of Sleep...

Before going into how long one should nap and when, one should know about the different stages of sleep and what each stage does to the body.  Sleep has been broken down into stages of which not every may go through each stage every time they go to sleep...

Stage 1, this is the beginning of the sleep cycle also known as light sleeping. It is the transition of being awake to being asleep and usually lasts 5-10 minutes.

Stage 2, you body temperature starts to decrease and your heart rate slows down. You brain is producing fast brain wave activity. This stage lasts about 20 minutes.

Stage 3, the transition between light sleep and deep sleep and your brain is now producing slow waves. 

Stage 4, this is now deep sleep and also where sleepwalking is most likely to occur. This stage lasts about 30 minutes.

Stage 5, increased respiration rate and brain activity occurs in this stage along with rapid eye movement. This is the stage where dreams occur and you may go through several of these cycles
 

 So how long should I nap for and when?

Studies have shown that a 20 to maybe 30 minute nap is ideal for restoring the body's energy reserves. In fact, you have more energy and alertness napping for 20 minutes in the middle of the day than if you would have slept in an additional 20 minutes that morning!

Why is 20 minutes so important? Because this will put you in the middle of stage 2 sleep thus creating a boost of energy and stamina. If you napped into stage 3 sleep, you start getting into the slow brain wave portion of your sleep and if you were to wake up you would feel groggy and lethargic.

So it is very important that if you do take a nap, to take the proper duration nap otherwise you may be defeating the purpose of why you took a nap to begin with!

Nap time is based on many variables, mostly life and work related. Whether it is during a break in the day, lunch time, or what have you, make sure it is a place where you are comfortable, can make the room or area as dark as reasonably possible, and quiet as well.

Taking these 20 minute sleep breaks will make you understand why they call it the Power Nap.  It is like a shot of adrenaline that restores your body's energy level, fills up your sleep bank account, and allows you to perform at a higher level than if you deprived yourself of such.

Happy napping as you strive to be Fit Forlife!

Be visual and it will happen!

Self or Sport Hypnosis...

Hypnosis is defined as a trancelike state that is like sleep but it is induced by a person whose suggestions are readily accepted by the subject.  In self-hypnosis, the subject and person is one in the same.

History...

Hypnosis in sports started being used as way back as the 1950's by the Russian's.  Clinical psychologists studying the powers of hypnosis on an individual started wondering if it could have a positive impact on athletes.  Working with the Russian Olympic team they started experimenting if it could be used as a performance enhancing tool.

Since then, it is used around the world by athletes of all sports. Self-hypnosis is so powerful it can even be used in every day life at work or at home.  The logic behind it is that 'if you can see it, it must be reality and if it is reality, it must be true'!

There has even been cases of POW's, while in solitary confinement where they used self-hypnosis to survive. In order to escape the harsh environment and in some cases, torture they were being subjected to, they used this method to think of places they were at during their lives with family and friends.  It was one way of keeping your sanity.

More recently there was a study where they got two groups of participants to engage in muscular development. One group performed actual exercises while the other group performed the exercises using hypnosis in a very real and visual sense.

After six weeks, the group performing actual exercises had increased 30% in muscle tone while the hypnotized group increased 13% in muscle tone.  That is pretty remarkable proof of what the mind can achieve.

Use in sports...

Since the Russians, self-hypnosis has become common practice amongst many professionals across all sports.  Tiger Woods has been using it since his early teens. Jack Nicklaus has claimed that he never hit a shot on tour or in practice without having a very sharp picture of what that shot was going to look like.

One of the theories behind it as used in sports is that it relaxes the athlete, takes away nerves once you have convinced yourself you can do it.

Application of Self Hypnosis...

Brain studies have shown that thoughts produce the same mental instructions as actually performing an action. This mental imagery impacts cognitive processes in the brain which affects motor control patterns, perception, planning and memory.  In essence, through self-hypnosis, you are recording in your brain the actions you are about to perform so when it is performed, it will follow the 'film' of what you just recorded.

The key is that the imagery needs to be highly detailed, in other words, realistic. Bringing in as many senses as possible during this short mini-trance enhances the effects of the hypnosis.  Any smells in the area should be part of this visualization. Details in the room surroundings like ornaments, color of the walls, people, should be included. You are mentally filming yourself in the environment you are in then proceeding to perform your actions exactly the way it needs to be performed for success. FAILURE is never, ever part of this imagery.

The use of hypnosis offers many benefits that helps athletes handle that would otherwise negatively affect their performance. Hypnosis:

• helps to reinforce established sporting goals
• aids athletes to better handle nervousness
• contributes to relaxation
• facilitates stress management
• increases concentration
• provides the ability to eliminate distractions
• assists in controlling pain
• increases performance motivation
• improves bodily awareness

Anyone can do this!

Whether you are a professional or amateur, a regular Joe or a world class athlete, anyone can do self-hypnosis.  It takes time to practice but once you start visualizing success, and actually having success, you can fine tune your techniques.

I perform self-hypnosis in two ways. The first one is what I call 'prep self-hypnosis'.  This is actually running through your head the training you are about to do before you are even at the gym.  I do not go through every single set and rep, instead, I use 'highlights' of some of the big attempts I will make that day.  This can be done in short bursts of 30-60 seconds as many times during the day as you can. Envision what you will be wearing that day and make sure you wear it too!

The second method is 'on the spot' visualization going through the performance right before I am about to do it. This is also between 30-60 seconds in duration.  One can perform 'prep' and 'on the spot' visualization together; first during the day, then later when training.

One little trick that I use is that I may visualize a set before the 'big' event to get confidence up. Once that set is performed easily, then I visualize the big one.  After all, if the set before the big one worked out so well, why wouldn't the grand finale?

Give this a shot, I am confident this will improve your training in whatever sport you practice. We all know the mind is an incredibly powerful part of the human body, learn to tap it's resources and the rewards will be endless.

Fit Forlife

 

Happy New Year, have you broken your resolution already?

Happy New Year to everyone and hopefully you have woken up without a hangover or not much of one anyways.  For those that controlled themselves but still had fun, congratulations! You have proven that you can drink and party in moderation and have more fun than getting wasted.  Hopefully this type of discipline will carry over to keeping your New Years resolution if you made one.

Some people scoff at the idea of making a resolution because they say that most are never kept so why make them anyways.  I look at it another way.  You cannot grow as an individual without pushing yourself.  Life is all about adapting to change because it is coming whether we like it or not. To shy away from setting goals destroys your ability to tackle change and make change work for your benefit.

The reason most goals are not met is because no one ever sets a course of action or plan on how to accomplish it.  It is very easy to just say, I will quit smoking, it is quite another thing to actually do it.

So I am going to describe how I set goals and how I plan for them.  They do not have to come once a year or New Years eve. They can come at any time throughout the year. There can be more than one.

They can be short term or long term. They can be life or career changing. The fact is, goals are what you do when you want to better yourself, challenge yourself, change yourself.  They can be liberating, they can inspire others, they can lead to more challenging goals.

So how do I set a goal?

First you have to look at the scope of what you want to do.  Then look at the timeline of when you want to achieve it.  You also have to be somewhat realistic. Remember this, you can always revise your goal at any point along the way so don't try to bite off more than you can chew!

For example, someone that has been sedentary their whole life shouldn't just wake up one day and say, I am going to run a marathon in three months.  That is a perfect formula for disaster.

First you should read up on what it takes to run a marathon.  Read articles from trainers and experts on the subject. You start to get an idea of what it is going to take and can you commit to that.

You may want to start off your training slow and participate in a 5K run first. Then gradually work your way up.  Who knows, you may be a natural born runner and you never knew it. Use that to your advantage by revising your goals timeline.

Planning your goal...

The best plan for failure is to have no plan! Write down what your goals are. Set them up in mini stages whether it be weekly, monthly, quarterly.  They must be broken down otherwise you become frustrated.  The more details you have, the better.  You can always go back to revise or add more detail. Make it real, make it be your script of what you are going to do when you wake up every day.

There was an artist that many years prior was not very good at painting.  He set himself out one year to just do at least one painting a day no matter how bad they were. During this time he also studied the art of painting.

In the beginning, he was really, really bad. After the first year he had produced over 400 paintings. Although still not great, they were much better than when he first started. He had perseverance and continued his daily task. By now it was as routine as brushing your teeth. 

By the second year he was already becoming a pretty good artist having done over 1000 paintings and drawings.  Six years later, and still keeping to his daily practice, he was selling his painting, was considered a very good artist and they were being exhibited in art galleries.

The moral of that story is that this person had a goal with a very detailed plan. Note how he didn't set a goal of being a great artist by the end of the year. Otherwise he probably would have become frustrated and quit. His goal had detail and frequency, one drawing/painting a day no matter what.

Your goals plan needs to be written, have timelines, frequency and DETAILS noted and most importantly, it should be posted everywhere so no matter where you are, it is hitting you square in the face and you need to ask yourself the question 'Am I committing to it?'.

 Visualizing your goals...

Having been a competitive weightlifter, I learned 'self hypnosis'. This was a practice used a lot by the Russians and Bulgarians who were the best at the time.

Self hypnosis is a short term trance that you put yourself through. You visualize what you are about to attempt. Whether it was the entire workout or just a particular set in an exercise.

The key to it's success was to make it as realistic as possible. Like viewing a movie of yourself before you even do the lift.  Keys to making it realistic was that you concentrated on even the most trivial detail like a 'chalk mark' on the weight lifting plate loaded on to the bar, or a tear on your clothing that you were wearing. You imagined doing the exercise in exactly how you were dressed and in your surroundings.

In this trance YOU DID NOT VISUALIZE FAILURE, never! You envisioned success, the perfect lift. Practicing this hypnosis in every work out, you become very good and convincing yourself that what you are about to attempt will succeed.

So no matter what your goals are, wake up every morning and to bed every night visualizing yourself accomplishing this. So if it is achieving a certain level of success at work, for example, visualize yourself getting that commendation in front of your workers, or winning whatever prize they have at your company for performance excellence, or getting that nice big fat bonus that comes with achievement at work.

How do goals fail?

For starters, here are some quick failure traps when setting goals:

1. No plan was written or had some of the missing ingredients such as details.
2. Unrealistic goal, i.e. 'climb Mount Everest' in a year when you have never even hiked before.
3. Never taking the time to revise the plan, thus becoming frustrated and quitting.

How else can I make goals succeed?

Other than planning and visualizing, you should not let other factors creep in that destroys goal accomplishment.  For example:

1. Resist Temptation, so if you are trying to have a cleaner diet, you need to accept that there will be temptations around you at all times and mentally prepare yourself on how you are going to resist it.

The same is true for reducing alcohol intake, or increasing exercise activity. There will always be a 'buddy' tempting you to have that one more drink or lets skip the workout and go do something else.

If you don't prepare yourself on how you are going to resist those temptations and have plans on how you are going to resist them, you have dramatically increased your change of failure.

2. Concentrate on Progress, just as it is important to set goals and mini goals, it is also important to be able to look back and see all the progress you have made.  It is sort of like driving a car from point A to point B, a mountain let's say. It is very far away. It can become frustrating that you have driven for hours and you are not there yet. But it is invigorating looking at your GPS and see that you have already driven more than half the distance to your destination.

Progress breeds positive energy to keep moving forward.  It creates a sense of immediate accomplishment. It confirms that you are headed in the right direction.

3. Focus on the NOW, do not procrastinate. Nothing better than starting whatever your goals are right NOW, not an hour later or maybe tomorrow or maybe next week. Successful people always practice in the NOW, they do not wait for later when NOW is the perfect time to do it.

4. Refrain from Failure, as soon as you see yourself starting to fail at any point towards your goal or mini goal, STOP, REVIEW, REVISE! Do not FAIL, this is a negative that can take a toll on your mindset in setting out what you are trying to accomplish. Remember it is ALWAYS ok to revise your goals, NEVER ok to quit your goals.

Summary...

In order to succeed in your resolutions just remember this:

1. You can make resolutions (goals) at any time they don't just happen once a year.
2. Have a plan.
3. Visualize that plan.
4. Revise if necessary.
5. Avoid Temptation.
6. Review progress for positive energy.
7. Focus on NOW not LATER.
8. Do not let failure set in, there are always setbacks but learn to STOP, REVIEW, REVISE.

Have a Happy 2014 and make this the year that you change your life!

Fit Forlife