Posts Tagged ‘Alwyn Cosgrove’

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.

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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.

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AC

I do quite a lot of seminars and consulting which means a lot of travel.

When I add in vacations – I realized I’d taken over 49 flights in the last year. Ugh.

That’s quite a lot when you consider that I didn’t do any travel in August or September and the first half of October. So it’s 49 plane trips in about 39 weeks.

The fun part of seminars is that I enjoy teaching, and really like meeting like-minded people (other speakers, or attendees). The downside is that with my medical history I don’t have the greatest immune system in the world, so the traveling often leaves me completely wiped out, or even sick for a few days.
And when you add in the missed workouts, jet leg, airline food etc – you can see why it can wreak havoc on your health.

So the key thing is to develop strategies to handle this. The first step is recognizing that there is an issue that isn’t optimal for you. Step two is to develop strategies to improve that situation or issue (this is why we will be doing more in-house events next year).

I developed on-the-road workouts, eating strategies and travel rituals that allowed me to arrive feeling ready-to-go and get home feeling at least somewhat fresh.
Really just ideas to avoid some of the problems with being on the road so much.

I was mentioning this to my friend Valerie Waters ( superstar trainer and creator of the Valslide) recently – and she agreed that strategies were a key part of her clients success and added:

“Strategy even trumps willpower. Studies show that willpower is actually in limited supply. Meaning, resist the cookie now, it might be hard to resist it later. Therefore, I believe it is more important to build in good strategies. For example, if you eat ice cream every night, rather than trying to “be good” and resist it, simply remove it from the house. If you consistently visit the vending machine because you don’t have time to go to lunch, your strategy would be to pack your lunch the night before and bring it with you. Anyway, you get the point.”

What situations cause you to miss meals, or make less than optimal choices? What situations cause you to miss workouts?
Start recognizing these limitations and develop strategies to allow you to succeed.

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AC

 

This DVD will teach you how to implement non-traditional cardio training exercises to create a strength, cardiovascular and metabolic training effect simultaneously.
Timed sets, density training, complexes and metabolic “finishers” are included.
This is the method we use to design metabolic training and group classes at Results Fitness, ranked one of America’s Top Ten Gyms by Mens Health magazine.

=> Click HERE to order

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AC
PS – You can save $10 if you order before Thursday at midnight.
Results Fitness Metabolic Training DVD

Here’s a quick interview that I just did with the creator of Bodyweight Bodybuilding - Zach Even-Esh

1) Why did you start doing bodyweight training ?

5) Your gym is for athletes only. Can these methods be applied to athletes & have you tested them on your athletes?

Years ago, when I first began train Football players a light bulb went off. The majority of these guys were big AND strong. But they sucked at our warm up: squats, lunges, push ups, etc.

They could bench 315, squat 405 and trap DL 495….. easily. But their ability to maneuver their own body was horrible at best. They skipped the necessary commitment to bodyweight training and were injured on a regular basis.

I decided to FORCE these guys to spend their first 4 weeks without touching a barbell. It was all bodyweight with sleds, sledge hammers and medicine ball training mixed in.

It forced them to tighten up their nutrition and get rid of the fat that was doing NOTHING for them.

For our wrestlers and leaner athletes, we were able to take bodyweight training to a whole new level.

We used bodyweight training for speed and power, added resistance for strength and muscle building and perform density work with push + pull or upper + lower body exercises for strength & power endurance.

We know have athletes who weight over 200 lbs climbing ropes, performing handstand hold & push ups, able to jump, sprint and move like animals. I got rid of the excuses of “I’m too heavy” or “I’m too Big” and began focusing on the fact that we ALL need to be athletic and that means being committed and getting rid of excuses.

Once the mindset is taken care of the results are powerful. Most importantly, our athletes are MUCH healthier and better prepared to compete at a higher level rather than feeling beat up from an overabundance of heavy lifting.

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AC

PS – You can check out an entire bodyweight program Zach has written – HERE