Archive for April, 2011

This is one of my favorite essays. (Yeah I have favorite poems and essays….)
There was a time in my life when I was just so focused on “what’s next” “when I get the chance to …” “when this happens I’ll….” that I forgot to just be – be in the moment and enjoy the journey.
After cancer, I now make a point to always enjoy the journey.

I actually have a copy of this poem (that Rachel gave me) hanging on my office wall right next to my computer…

The Station
by Robert J. Hastings

Tucked away in our subconscious is an idyllic vision.  We see ourselves on a long trip that spans the continent.  We are traveling by train.  Out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village halls.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination.  On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station.  Bands will be playing and flags waving.  Once we get there, so many wonderful dreams will come true and the pieces of our lives will fit together like a completed jigsaw puzzle.  How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering – waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.

“When we reach the station, that will be it!” we cry.  “When I’m 18.”  “When I buy a new 450SL Mercedes Benz!”  “When I put the last kid through college.”  “When I have paid off the mortgage!”  “When I get a promotion.”  “When I reach the age of retirement, I shall live happily ever after!”

Sooner or later we must realize there is no station, no one place to arrive at once and for all.  The true joy of life is the trip.  The station is only a dream.  It constantly outdistances us.

“Relish the moment” is a good motto, especially when coupled with Palm 118:24: “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad.  It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow.  Regret and fear are twin thieves who rob us of today.

So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles.  Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot more often, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more, cry less.  Life must be lived as we go along.  The station will come soon enough.

–
AC

The Station essay reprinted with permission from http://thestationessay.com/

Guest blog from Michael Boyle

A few recent events have made me realize that all strength coaches will eventually evolve to the same place. Like many of us, I listen to and read a great deal from the internet. One trend that I have seen is that some of the previously “hard core” guys are gradually embracing the corrective exercise/ functional training side of the coin. This made me realize two things:

1- Why I think the way I do

2- Why others make fun of me

The reason I think the way I do and the reason lots of the “hardcore” guys make fun of me is because I am old. I am further along the evolutionary trail of the strength coach. You see, we all start at about the same place and we probably all end up at the same place. I just started my journey sooner. In fact I am in year 32 of my evolution. For me phase 1 of the Evolution of the Strength and Conditioning Coach, The Bodybuilder, was actually in the 1970’s. I saw Boyer Coe guest pose at a show in Connecticut and wanted to be the next Frank Zane. If you don’t know who those guys are, it’s OK. You are just too young.

The truth is almost all male strength coaches and personal trainers go through the evolutionary process listed below.

Stage 1- The Bodybuilder.

Face it, we all started here. Maybe we wanted to get better at sports but what we really wanted in our teens was to look better for girls. To do this we picked up a muscle magazine, joined the local gym , copied the routines and began bodybuilding. The beauty of this stage is that we knew it all. We bombed and blitzed our way to success as Joe Weider looked on from the pages of Muscle and Fiction.

Stage 2- The Powerlifter

At the onset of stage two the bodybuilder realizes that the really strong guys in the gym don’t give him the time of day. In fact, the truly strong guys laugh at him in his tanktop as he admires his arms in the mirror. The young bodybuilder and future strength coach is determined to get some respect so he really works on his bench press to gain that respect. What he then realizes is that these strong guys don’t respect anyone with no legs and a big bench. The bodybuilder soon evolves to the powerlifter. As in stage one we still know it all but what we know is different. We realize that what we thought we knew in stage 1 was not quite as true as we thought. At this stage we never admit any mistakes though. Stage two last for 2-3 years or until the first major injury. In this time period you really fall in love with the weightroom. You become diligent about diet and not missing training days and you get stronger almost every week. Your training partners cheer you on. Your technique is not perfect but you are moving big weight. Usually in stage 2 you also decide to enter a meet. A meet is great reality therapy. Your 315 bench done in “all you” form with just a bit of an arch and bounce becomes a 275 pause bench. Your “parallel” squats suddenly expose your lack of knowledge of geometry. Usually you bomb in the squat in your first meet and resolve to return a much better lifter. In stage two you are at your most macho. You laugh at anyone doesn’t do back squats and deadlifts and you post frequently to internet forums. All posts mention how strong you are and usually some line that belittles those who don’t lift heavy iron.

Stage 3- The Injured Powerlifter.

This stage begins with a bad back or a sore shoulder and usually lasts through one or two surgeries. Stage three is like denial in the substance abuse world. You realize that your days of lifting huge weights are coming to an end but you refuse to say it out loud. Your searches of the internet now focus on healing your wounds. You vow to make a comeback. Often, you have surgery and attempt to lift in a meet again. Like a guy repeatedly slamming his fingers in the car door, you can’t wait to get back under the bar.

You learn about ART, MAT and a bunch of other therapies that seem to have guys names. You also begin to sneak a few looks at books on injury prevention and heaven forbid, you begin to explore things like warm-up and mobility. At the end of the injured powerlifter stage you begin to apologize to those older and wiser that you made fun of and called names. You realize that much like your parents the guys you taunted on internet forums were just older and wiser.

Stage 4- The Functional Training Guy.

Most of us end in stage four. Usually we have a few scars from our time in stage three putting off the inevitable. In stage four we realize that we can still train however, the days of trying to pick up the heaviest thing you can lift goes by. You become an innocent bystander watching car wrecks as you see the young guys move from stage 1 to stage 2. You try to warn them but they laugh at you and go into their chat rooms and make fun of you. All you can think of is “call me when you are fifty and we can talk”.

The truth is evolution and development are both inevitable. Young men will always want to impress young women. They will also, in a very primal way, want to impress other young men. We can only hope to speed the evolution and save people some pain. As you read this hopefully you will see yourself in one of these stages and intervene. Next time you get ready to “lay it on the line” ask yourself why.

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For more from Mike, check out StrengthCoach.com

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AC

In honor of the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals I’m reposting this:

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Check out this study that Craig Ballantyne forwarded to me:

Recreational soccer is an effective health-promoting activity for untrained men
Krustrup et al.
British Journal of Sports Medicine 2009;43:825-831

36 healthy untrained men were randomized into a soccer group, a running group and a control group.

Training was performed for 1 hour two or three times per week for 12 weeks; at an average heart rate of 82% of HRmax for both training groups (so it was fairly intense)

During the 12 week program, the soccer group improved maximal oxygen uptake (a measure of aerobic fitness) 62% more than the running group. The soccer group also lost an average of 50% more fat than the running group (6lbs vs 4lbs)

The soccer group had an increase in lean body mass of 3.75lbs, an increase in lower
extremity bone mass, a greater decrease in LDL-cholesterol and an increase in fat oxidation
during running at 9.5 km/h. The running group saw none of these changes.

The number of capillaries per muscle fiber was also almost 50% higher in the soccer training group than in running. Both groups reduced blood pressure equally.

The researchers concluded that participation in recreational soccer training, has significant beneficial effects on health profile and physical capacity and in some aspects it is superior
to frequent moderate-intensity running.

What does this tell us?

Well, think about soccer. The difference is more than adding a ball while running (as most of the time you don’t have the ball)

Soccer is essentially a form of interval training (although the work and recovery periods are randomized – CHAOS training as my friend Robert Dos Remedios calls it).

It’s also multi-directional, multi-movement (jumping, heading, running, sprinting, kicking, tackling, with contact) and multi-planar. It’s random, opposed interval training.

Basically this study shows that open interval training, using multiple movements and directions is superior for conditioning, muscle building and fat loss when compared to the same intensity of running.

I just wish they’d discovered that watching soccer was just as good…..

–
AC
PS – I hate calling the game “soccer”…. it’s FOOT-ball. Played with your feet….

This was previously published Mar 2010

Muscles are just plain dumb. Despite their ability at some level to perform amazing Cirque De Soleil type feats, muscles only ‘know’ two things—tension and stretch. They can’t differentiate between tension or stretches regardless of how the tension got there..

Let’s talk tension. As far as a fitness enthusiast is concerned, muscle tension comes when you place resistance on the muscles. It doesn’t matter what form that resistance takes. As far as the muscles are concerned, resistance is resistance is resistance.

The muscles have no idea what form the resistance takes, whether it is a dumbbell, a resistance band, a barbell, or your body weight. Free weights are superior to machines when it comes to building strength because free weights require you to stabilize the load in three planes, however, the weight on the muscles is not any different.

In fact, the only reason to ever use an external load (i.e. weights) is because your body weight is not enough resistance. Most guys are making exercises harder by adding an external load when they aren’t even capable of handling their body weight in the same exercise. I’m constantly amazed by how many people I meet who can bench press whatever pounds of weight, but are unable to perform ten correct push-ups (typically due to a lack of core strength and synergistic muscle stability). As far as I’m concerned, unless you can do an easy 20 push-ups, you have no business getting under a bar for bench pressing. In my training facility, everyone begins with body weight exercises. You have to earn the right to lift weights.

Now, I’m sure some of you are jumping up and down, convinced that your body weight is not enough for you to get a ‘good workout.’ You think you’re much too strong. And you’re probably right. If you’re an Olympic gymnast, that is. Remember that most gymnasts use primarily their body weight in their conditioning programs, and they have no problems developing great physiques and great strength levels. I’d go as far as to say that most gymnasts have better physiques than most weight trainers. And these guys train exclusively for performance—not for mass or aesthetics. Former conditioning coach to the Great Britain Olympic gymnastics team, Nick Grantham, noted that the majority of male gymnasts, after years of body weight training, could typically bench press double their body weight the first time they ever benched. If that’s not evidence of the efficacy of body weight training, then I don’t know what is.

The key to effective body weight exercises is the same as with any exercise—time and tension. We need to select exercises that load the muscles effectively through the entire range of motion, and select a speed of movement that eliminates all momentum.

Sample Workout

CIRCUIT ONE:

1A: Rear Foot elevated split squat: 20 each leg with 2s pause at the bottom of each rest. 30s rest
1B: “T’ push-ups  10 reps each side , 30 sec rest
1C: Hip thigh extension (single leg glute bridge):  20 reps ea. 30s rest
1D: Inverted row:  15 reps 30 sec rest
Repeat the circuit one more time.

CIRCUIT TWO:

2A: Step Up (high box):  20 reps each side, 30s rest
2B: Mixed grip chins:  5 reps EACH SIDE, 30s rest
2C: Single Leg Bent Knee Deadlift:  10 reps each side: 30s rest
2D: Dips (or Wide Grip Push ups):   AMRAP (As many reps as possible), 30s rest
Repeat the circuit one more time.

Bodyweight only exercises are a great addition to your own training. If you currently train clients in groups, perform sports conditioning, do bootcamps outdoors, teach martial arts classes  or just want some extra workout ideas for days outside of the gym that can replace cardio training , check out  : 101 Bodyweight Exercises

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AC

If, at a seminar for fitness trainers, I asked what newsletters or journals they read on a regular basis – I think most would answer with one of the fitness profession newsletters or association journals. If I asked which websites they read most often -other than facebook :) — I’m fairly sure that it would be a “fitness” website. If I asked which magazines they read most often – it’s usually fitness magazines.

When I ask what they charge and why – it’s usually based on “what other gyms charge…” or “other trainers in my area”,  instead of a cost analysis and “step away” outcomes. We’re not looking outside of the fitness world for ideas.

Only reading or studying within your own field is a flawed approach because you simply cannot outperform your most common influences and your own mindset. You have to put new stuff in before you can get new stuff out.

Dan Kennedy uses the example of having 4 close friends or family members who are devout Catholics. In that situation, it would be very hard to truly be an atheist as you’re surrounded constantly by one point of view. You might not even question anything (or know that there is something to question) until you are exposed to new material.

Your own thinking is always going to be the average of your most frequent relationships, and influences within your own “world”. To change your thinking – you need to change what you put into your head, and who/what you surround yourself with.

The scary part is that your mindset and belief systems aren’t really built from anything other than the average of your experiences – or more likely – the average of the thinking and experiences of your five or six closest influences.

It’s hard to change belief systems when everyone around you is thinking in the same way. That’s why we need to look outside of the fitness field if we want to really elevate and change our profession.

It’s unlikely that you are going to reinvent the business concept in your industry when you only look within your industry for information (especially as when you think about it – it’s essentially an industry that’s really just looking back at you!). You need to create or establish different relationships and different input in order to change your thinking (one of the reasons why mastermind groups and coaching groups are so valuable). Without new ideas an opinions, growth never happens.

I can remember a top strength coach telling me that no product in the fitness profession could retail at more than $50-75. (Of course at the time, I agreed enthusiastically – after all it was one of the top names in our field!! He must be right).

But he wasn’t.

Because meanwhile you could purchase 12 30-min CD’s on “The speaking business” for $997.00, a course for the carpet cleaning business for $1497.00, an 8 -hour audio cassette program on buying mobile homes for $599.97, a home study course on plumbing for $8000.00 or a “martial arts school” marketing course for $2376.99

The coach’s perspective had been influenced by being too close to the fitness profession for too long. My perspective was being influenced by his, and so it continued, with my mindset being passed on to others also.

But there were several ideas outside of our  field that were game-changers. We were just thinking “incestuously” (another Dan Kennedy-ism) and looking at the average of what our field was already doing and trying to do more of the same. We should have been looking outside of fitness for new ideas.

Martial arts schools for example were charging 4-5x what trainers were charging (for group classes). They still charge more per month than pretty much any “bootcamp” business charges, despite being pretty close in terms of what is offered (instruction and training in a group setting).

And that’s just a difference on pricing. There are a ton of other factors that make up our services that we can change and improve just by looking outside our own little world.

For example – The “drive-through” window originally came as an extension of the ATM machine at banks – but the fast food industry saw the idea and used it (the first “drive-through” businesses were in fact banks!)

When Subway realized that “drive-through” wouldn’t work for them – they changed their image from “fast food” to healthy choices (and maybe even weight loss) and then they used Jared as their spokesman after seeing a Mens Health article on weight loss methods (where Jared was featured).

So fast food “stole” ideas from banking and Subway had an idea from Mens Health magazine!

We need to look outside our industry (whatever industry you are in) and continue to innovate and change the game.

Action Step: look at a completely different business and how they are generating leads, converting leads to customers and retaining customers and decide how you can use that idea in your business. what would an art gallery do? What would an auto repair shop do? A Vegas casino? A beachfront resort? A sports bar? A limo company?

That’s why we at Results Fitness are studying outside of our field.
Over the past couple of years we’ve been studying Starbucks, Zappos, (we’re in the Zappos Insights group), the Ritz Carlton, and Disney. Because of my travel schedule I’ve been taking notes on the way Virgin America is changing the game.
And Starbucks have literally reinvented themselves since Howard Schulz returned:

“Starbucks is not a coffee company that serves people. It is a people company that serves coffee, and human behavior is much more challenging to change than any muffin recipe or marketing strategy” – Howard Schulz.

You can pick up Howard Schulz’s latest book here.

Get out of your own little world – your own head – and think differently.
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AC

After presenting in Seattle this weekend, I took some time to walk up to visit Bruce Lee’s grave.

Bruce Lee was a huge inspiration to me as a young martial artist, and I think that was true for thousands of martial arts practitioners so his grave is visited often.

In fact, Dana White has said that Bruce Lee was the “”Godfather of Mixed Martial Arts”.

Bruce Lee passed away in 1973. Some time in the 60′s he developed a philosophy that there was no single best martial art. Lee felt that fighters needed to cross train in different systems as they all had their strengths and weaknesses. This was best summed up by his famous quote:

Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless.
Accept no way as the way, accept no limitation as limitation

Bruce Lee was violently criticized because of this. Martial artists fought it. They didn’t want to hear it. They wanted to believe that their own style – their own little world – was superior….

In 1993 the ultimate fighting championship was created.

The initial concept was to determine which martial art – under a no holds barred scenario was superior.

It was karate vs judo vs wrestling vs boxing etc.

Fast forward 18 years…..

We no longer talk about martial art styles — we talk about MIXED martial arts. It’s a mainstream term.

We no longer use the term ‘style’ to describe a fighter — we say “he has good stand-up” or a “good ground game”.

Because martial arts have evolved and have embraced a totality. Bruce Lee was correct – there was no superior style. Everything had strengths and weaknesses. In fact, styles were a reductionist approach.

A strong guy  in the American mid-west became a wrestler. A tall kid in Thailand went to kickboxing etc….

But a holistic or total approach to fighting was always superior. A mixed system using the strengths of each to create the best approach possible.

Here we are, 37 years since Lee’s death and the martial arts world has embraced that ideology completely.

But in our world – the fitness world -  we are still arguing about which method is better – powerlifting vs olympic lifting, aerobics vs intervals…. Which certification? Which course? DB’s or Kb’s? FMS or another evaluation? “If you could only pick one exercise…..”

The answer has to be — there is no one single best approach. A hybrid approach will always be superior.
But this does not mean “dabbling” or just picking stuff you like in training. Lee’s approach was to immerse yourself totally in one style to truly understand it.

From wikipedia:

[Absorbing what is useful] … is the idea that a martial artist can only learn techniques in their proper context, through a holistic approach. Styles provide more than just techniques: They also offer training methods, theories, and mental attitudes. Learning these factors allows a student to experience a system in what Lee called its “totality”. Only through learning a system completely will an artist be able to, “absorb what is useful,” and discard the remainder. Real combat training situations allow the student to learn what works, and what doesn’t. The critical point of this principle is that the choice of what to keep is based on personal experimentation with various opponents over time. It is not based on how a technique may look or feel, or how precisely the artist can mimic tradition. In the final analysis, if the technique is not beneficial in combat, it is discarded. Lee believed that only the individual could come to understand what worked; based on critical self analysis, and by, “honestly expressing oneself, without lying to oneself.”

In Lee’s world – the Litmus test of a technique is it’s effectiveness in an actual combat situation.
In our world we can only evaluate a training philosophy honestly by first understanding it completely and then looking at the results it produces consistently over time with our clients. At Results Fitness, if it works, we use it. If it doesn’t we disregard it.

We need to evolve from this reductionist approach and follow Bruce Lee’s lead. We need to become “mixed” training specialists.

Absorb what is useful

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AC