Archive for December, 2011

Thanks to all of you for “tuning in” to my blog, reading my newsletter or magazine articles this year or attending one of the seminars I taught.
Have a great holiday season!

And remember — it doesn’t matter what you eat or how you exercise between Christmas and New Years…..

….it matters how you eat and exercise between New Year’s and Christmas !
Best wishes to all.

See you in 2012.
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Alwyn

One of my goals for this year was to complete 240 workouts – which translates to about 5 workouts per week on average or 20 per month.
Unfortunately, I was a little short – today I hit workout 220. I’ll end the year with around 225 workouts performed which I’m not too unhappy about.

My goal for 2012 will be 200 workouts. My travel schedule is busy, and with work commitments increasing, I’ll be very happy averaging four solid training sessions each week or around 16 each month.

This is what I call a process goal — it’s not an outcome that I’m looking for (e.g. lose 10lbs, increase my chin-up reps), although they are just as important – it’s a simple “do this” goal that I can make constant progress towards.

Goal setting is still hard for some people. I’ll often meet clients who are interested in losing fat and decide that they will start daily cardio, weight train four times per week, eat six small meals, cut calories by 20% and reduce their carb intake.

These are great goals — but most people are trying to do too much at once. John Berardi has said that studies show that if you want to make one change in your life, you have an 85% chance of success. However if you try to change two things at once, your chances of success drop to around 35%. Three things at once? Almost zero.

The solution to this is to use the goal snowball, an idea I first heard of from Chris Shugart. Here’s how to do it:

1) List five or six behaviors you need to improve or change to reach your goals. What do you need to be doing that you’re not doing? What bad habits do you need to kick? What good habits do you need to instill?

2) List these things from easiest to hardest.

3) “Maintain” all your other goals and focus your attention on the first thing on your list (the easiest one.) Spend two weeks just focusing on achieving that goal so that it becomes a habit.

4) Once that change has been made and ingrained, move up to the next item on your list and focus your efforts there.

5) One by one, knock out these changes and/or goals.

For example: Maybe you sleep late. First goal might be to get up 30 mins earlier every day.
Second goal might be to go to the gym as soon as you wake up – and go four times a week instead of three.
Third goal may be to make sure you always eat breakfast.
Fourth goal? Reduce portion sizes at 3 out of 5 meals…and so on.

So in 10 weeks or so – you’re getting up earlier – never missing a workout, have done an extra ten workouts, and eaten breakfast everyday (which is a key factor in fat loss) while consuming less calories overall. These goals would “snowball” into a bigger overall effect with long-term success whereas trying to do all things at once would likely result in short term failure.

–
AC

I spoke to Jim Wendler a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about goal setting and best practices.

Jim mentioned that when he was playing football, everyone wants to “win the game”. Jim’s approach was to tell them — “Just win the play. Win the play and the game will take care of itself”

Great advice.

Any task can be broken down into smaller more manageable steps. Business, training, weight loss etc.

A 4 year business plan can be broken down into one year goals. And then a goal for each quarter.
Then – we can further break that down into monthly targets. Then weekly. And then daily, perhaps even hourly.

But it just comes down to this….. Take care of the next client or customer. Do that and everything falls into place.

If you want to lose 50lbs — just take care of the next meal. The next workout. The next set. The next rep. Do that and the 50lb weight loss takes care of itself.

The whole premise is similar to the “process goals” that I talked about on Facebook — just set a number of workouts to be completed in the month and focus on the process of just getting the workouts in – not necessarily the outcome that you’d be looking for. If you take care of the attention to the process, you’ll take care of the outcome by default.

The conversation with Jim reminded me of a lesson my Taekwon-Do instructor taught me (excerpted from The Total Body Breakthrough)

I can remember having to face a scary opponent in a championship match once. This guy was on the covers of all the martial arts magazines and this was my first time competing in this weight class. He was bigger, stronger and more experienced than I was.

In short, I was terrified. My instructor, Mr. Campbell, recognized this and asked me –

“I know you’re scared. On a scale of one to ten, how scared are you?”

I answered with no hesitation “ TEN!”

He smiled and said – “Ok. How scared would you be if this match was only one round in length?”

I answered” Not as scared. Maybe a seven out of ten”

He said “Well keep that in mind. You only have to fight the first round. But what if the first round was only one minute long? Would you still feel the same way?”

Me: “No. That would maybe be a five out of ten”

Mr. Campbell nodding: “Ok. What if it was just a single exchange in the middle of the ring? One time. Then it’s over. How do you feel about that?”

Me: “ Ha! No problem. Maybe one out of ten. I’m too fast for him if it’s a single exchange!”

Mr C: “Ok – let’s just attack once and then we’ll take it from there”

At this point I’m buzzing with excitement, stepped into the ring and attacked my opponent. And just repeated that single activity over and over. No fear at all.

And I won the fight.

Success is just a series of small behaviors repeated over and over. Set the behaviors in place and the outcomes will arrive in due course.

As we enter into the last few days of 2011- take a look back at the goals you set earlier this year.
Are we on track?

What do we want to accomplish from now before the end of the year?

Break it down into smaller steps.

And just win the next play.

–
AC

I’ve said this before as regards to training:

“You can only really evaluate a program by giving it an honest try, for an honest length of time in it’s original form.”

I’ll get emails from people who have bought, for example, the New Rules of Lifting book that say,

“I’m taking MMA twice a week and I run 5 miles on my off days instead of doing your interval protocol, and I can’t do squats, and I only have DB’s, and I don’t have a bench and I want to to do some extra arm work – maybe 2 exercises for biceps and 2 for triceps – maybe 3-4 sets each. Also I can’t do supersets as my gym is too busy. Can I still do the program?”

Sure. But it isn’t the program I wrote anymore – it’s your own program and I have no idea what will happen when you are on it. the original program has a track record in our gym of working. Your version of it is the first time anyone has been on that program. (BTW – these emails tend to be followed by a whining email telling me that my program doesn’t work….)

Now I’m not saying don’t tweak a program to your own needs or substitute exercises based on your available equipment or an existing injury- but be aware that every change you make is one that the original author didn’t tell you to do. If you change the rest periods in stage one of a four stage program, what resulting change will you make to the rest periods in stage four? Everything has a purpose in a good program.

Velocity Diet

Chris Shugart of t-nation.com came up with the “Velocity Diet” and outlined exactly how he followed it and intends for you to follow it.

Dan John followed that outline exactly as written and got great results. Most people who modified it did not get as great results. Not a coincidence.

Can you use a different protein powder than Chris recommended? Scrap the other supplements? Use olive oil instead of fish oil? Do MMA instead of the morning walk? Have a salad every day instead of once a week? Do a bodypart split instead of the recommended total body workouts? Add Greens + ?

Of course.

But it’s no longer Chris Shugart’s Velocity Diet. Now it’s your own creation. And no one knows if it will work at all, as you are the first person ever to try it.

So don’t ask Chris about it – it was your own invention.

Hopefully you guys see where I’m coming from.

–
AC

What is it that separates you from your goals? Or from being at the very top?

If you want to be a World Class personal trainer – what is it that is keeping you from accomplishing that?

Is it education?
If so – what books do you need to read?
What DVD’s do you need to watch?
Who do you need to meet or consult with ?
What audio CD’s do you need to listen to?
What seminars do you need to attend?
Is it experience? If so – who can you study under to fast track that experience?
How many clients would you need to train to get more experience? If you currently train 20 sessions per week, if you got up to 25, that would be an extra 250 sessions per year (or over twelve extra weeks of experience each year compared to now).

What about a personal goal of fat loss or muscle gain? What if you want to lose 20lbs?

What foods would you have to eat on a daily basis? What training would you have to do? How much cardiovascular work? How many sets, reps, exercises in your weight training program? Should you even have a weight training program?

Who is the best trainer in your area that you can hire? What time commitment realistic for you?

Are you just lacking the information? Are you lacking a plan? Do you know what to do and just aren’t doing it? Are you supposed to take a 6am spinning class and sleep in instead? Are you just not taking action?

I bet most of you have never even figured out these factors. Most people prefer to stay the same, yet complain about where they are, and how hard it is, and how it’s “different” for them or in their gym/town/city/state/country…

As we wind up 2011 are you where you wanted to be 12 months ago? What about 12 months from now? What steps do you need to take?

If it’s a lack of information – then get that information and then take action.
If it’s a lack of action – then get off your butt and DO something.

If you can answer these questions make a list and start moving towards your goals.

–
AC

I was asked by one of our coaching members this morning what would be the first thing I’d do differently if I was to start over.

My answer was to define the core values of my business. It’s made every decision easier and really helped shape what Results Fitness has become.

If you are starting out now (or starting over) – spend a significant amount of time really getting clear on what your core values are.

–
AC