Category Archives for "Coach Dean"

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Winston Churchill

I love that quote, and I need to be reminded of it often. I am NOT an optimist by nature. I wouldn't call myself a pessimist either, though. Probably I would describe myself as an analyst. Take a look at what's going on around me, size up the situation, and if there is a problem to be solved, try to figure out a way to solve it. I think you lean optimist when you think that way.

And I think analyst is different than being a realist. To me there is a hint of resignation to the situation in that description. Nancy would probably agree I a bit too stubborn to just accept things the way they are. Why do I have to just accept it? I can at least try to do something about it, right? 

You learn pretty fast in life that you can't control every situation. But you are far more in control than you think you are. One of my favorite movies is "A Knight's Tale", starring the late Heath Ledger. I know it's fictional, but there is a big lesson in there. Ledger's character William is from a poor family, and his father, knowing he cannot take good care of him, sends him to squire for Sir Ector. At a tournament Sir Ector dies, and William disguises himself as Ector and wins the tournament. And so begins an elaborate ruse as the poor William fakes being nobility so he can enter tournaments, and starts winning them. Of course there are bad guys and beautiful girls along the way, like any good adventure story.

One tournament finds him close to home, and he finds his father, now blind and even more destitute. In a touching scene William asks his father "Can it be done father? Can a man change the stars?" His father gently and resolutely replies, "Yes William. If he believe enough, a man can do anything."

And that's exactly how William Thatcher becomes Sir William.

Just a story? Maybe. 

But I've had the privilege of seeing many people change their stars. Lose massive amounts of weight. Be able to flush their once necessary meds down the drain. Make weak muscles strong and achy bones healthy. 

They do it because they believe they can. Because they are problem solvers. Because when life knock them down they get up just one more time.

Change The Stars. Change YOUR Stars.

I believe in you.

Coach Dean

I didn't feel like getting out of bed this morning. I didn't sleep well, had a lot on my mind in the middle of the night, and was kind of cranky.

I didn't feel like training this morning. The thought of getting under the bar for some heavy squats just wasn't doing it for me. 

I didn't feel like writing this article. Sometimes the words and thoughts just don't come, and I didn't want to wrestle with it.

And I did all of it anyway.

Why?

Well it really does not change the situation to stay on bed and mope. So I got up, did some reading and office work. When I saw Nancy I matter-of-factly told her I was in kind of a bad mood. "Noticing and Naming". Doesn't do any good to ignore it and bite someone's head off because of it. She responded kindly, gave me a little room, and everything is cool. 

Next was taking Andrew to work and then hitting my workout with my Monday training partners, who I always enjoy seeing. Did our thing, warmed up, and then got under the bar with a weight I had missed the last time I attempted. Couldn't get one single rep. Today I successfully completed every set and every rep on the training plan. Feels good.

And this article? It gets a lot easier to put a few thoughts down when I open the computer and start typing, rather than milling around the house ignoring the fact that Monday mornings is my writing time. And while these few words may not exactly be on par with Socrates, I hope the lesson I learned (or re-learned) this morning is that while we are emotional people, being driven solely by emotions is usually not a good idea, and if I didn't do something every time I didn't "feel like it" not much would get done.

In a few short hours, just by taking some action in spite of my feelings, some real productive things happened, not the least of which is I feel better.

My mood is better. 

I demonstrated to myself I am getting stronger.

And you get to share in my boundless wisdom. Ok, 2 out of 3 ain't bad. 🙂

The next time you "don't feel like it"?

Do it anyway.

Because that's where magic can happen.

Let's get moving!

Coach Dean

Josh Hillis is the kind of guy who makes you smarter just by reading him. The following quote is in an article he wrote about Brie Larson, who plays the superhero Captain Marvel in the movies. (You can and should read the whole article here.

"The irony is that people tend to get better results when they’re focused on process based goals (like doing the work) instead of outcome goals (like looking a certain way).  Paradoxically, people who over-value the end result often get disheartened and quit, when they don’t hit their goals fast enough, or maybe miss a milestone on the way to their goals.  They get thrown by each and every (normal) bump in the road.

On the flip-side, people get awesome results when they simply focus on doing the work.  When people just focus on doing the work:

1. The do more work
2. They do higher quality work
3. They do more consistent work

If you just focus on doing the work in the gym every day, you’ll get stronger.

Also, you might find it to be more empowering, more fun, and have a drastically more positive impact on your relationship to your body.  Instead of being entirely focused on some idealized body standard, your gym work can simply be an expression of being the kind of person you want to be."

When we take hold of this concept it changes everything. When we can stop trying to live up to some 'ideal" (usually perceived not real) and simply focus on "doing the work", training becomes more enjoyable. When we accept that results aren't instant and we are in it for the long haul, training really is more fun. When we look at exercise as a practice, rather than something we are instantly going to be good at, training is a lot more enjoyable. 

Think about it this way. You don't earn a black belt in martial arts until you have practiced for years. And nobody walks into the dojo thinking they will earn theirs in 3 months. We need to have the same mindset in the gym. Lifting takes skill, which requires practice. Training your body to get into the right position, create proper tension, produce stability and mobility in the right places. Practice. Practice. Practice.

And it's so worth it. There is genuine joy when due to your repeated efforts everything comes together and it feels easy. When the chin goes over the bar, when the Turkish Get-Up flows smoothly, when the bar loaded with more than your bodyweight breaks off the floor in one smooth motion. It's poetry. 

Results will come. But as Josh says, to be successful we need to do more work (practice), which in turn creates higher quality work, and we need to do it consistently enough to maintain our skill and flow.

Bumps in the road do happen. But don't let them throw you into the ditch. Slow down, correct the wheel, and get back on course.

Let's make it happen together!

Coach Dean

1. 2757.6 miles and 44 hrs 42 minutes is a lot of driving in 9 days

2. I never knew the etymology of the word "bunk"...until now (unless this sign is just, well, bunk!)

3. Nancy is in way better cycling shape than me. 

4. North Carolina has the twistiest roads I have ever driven on. My motorcycle would have been preferable to the minivan. 🙂

5. One of my favorite authors is buried in Asheville

6. The Biltmore House is really stunning. The history is amazing, the architecture and engineering is incredible. 

7. George Vanderbilt was truly a visionary. He purchased over-used farmland and was instrumental in creating the first managed forests in the United States. After he died, his wife Edith sold the majority of the acreage to the US Government for what is now Pisgah National Forest. One of the most stunning things we were told was that at one time, when you stood on the back verandah everything you saw in every direction (over 15 miles out) was owned by the Vanderbilt's. 

8. Exercise equipment has been around for awhile. Check out the various "toys" in the Biltmore House gymnasium. Barbells, dumbbells, Indian clubs, a rowing machine, a cable pulley machine. Even one of the first massage showers, which they called a "needle bath". Really cool for this gym geek to see!

9. North Carolina is really beautiful.

10. It's good to be home - see y'all soon!

Coach Dean

Anybody that walks into a gym to train for the first time, or the first time in a long time, deserves a lot of credit.

Unfamiliar place, all these weird looking instruments of torture, people standing around gawking at the "newbie". And dumbbells? That's how you are left feeling sometimes. Who needs that mess? (In reality nobody, which is why Cr8 Fitness is the real "anti-gym")

All that weirdness, and you did it anyway - really cool. As for results? In the beginning just about any workout will start to get you at least some results. But regardless of how long you have been training, you need to pay attention if you want to make the most progress, the quickest. 

Good training design incorporates progression. "Progressive Strength Training" isn't some political thing, it simply means that you need to be continually increasing key training variables, usually volume and/or intensity, to continue making progress.

And that's why you need to settle down and pay attention when you are training. For instance the most common "progressive" variable our training cycles here at Cr8 Fitness uses is volume. The work periods increase over the 4-6 week cycle; from 30 seconds to 60 seconds, or even more at times. That's the easy part for you, at least from a "paying attention" standpoint. Load selection, or how much you are lifting, is where we miss the boat at times. If you are not paying attention and tracking, at least mentally, how much you are lifting on a weekly basis you will not progress as fast. 

Here's an example why it matters:

Let's say we are working on single arm overhead presses. In week one we do 30 second sets, and you use a 30 pound dumbbell. Our speed of movement is 3-1-x, so you are getting about 6 reps per side. The next week you come in, notice we are doing 45 second sets, so you drop the weight to 20 pounds, because the work period is longer (not an ideal strategy, but I'll get to that). Or you simply don't remember what you used last week. In the 40 second set you get about 8 reps. That's more reps than last week, so that' good, right? Well if you add up the total work you are doing, in week one you lifted 180 pounds total (6x30), and in week two you lifted 160 pounds (8x20). You see where I am going with that? Even though the set took longer, you did less work. Dropping back only to 25 pounds would have been better, and in reality staying at 30 would have been the best strategy. 

The take home on this? You have to know week to week what load you have been using, so you can track how much work you are actually doing. This is the key to progress. Smartphone, moleskin notebook, permanent marker on your forearm. Any of those will work. 🙂

I was talking to another "athlete of aging" this weekend and we were commenting that the older you get, the faster you have to peddle just to stay in place. It may not be "fair", but it is pretty accurate. And you need to keep track of how fast you are peddling somehow. Speedometers on a car, thermostats on an oven, numbers on the scale. They all give us crucial information, and let us know how we are tracking and if and when we need to make adjustments. Keeping track of how much you are lifting does the same thing.

And to put it bluntly, that's about the only thing you are responsible for when you train here, besides showing up. Our training design and coaching takes care of the rest; proper exercise selection, coaching your form, number and length of sets, rest periods, macro and micro-recovery strategies, the whole gamut. This one piece is where we have "co-responsibility", which is why we are consistently encouraging you to increase load, where appropriate. (Coach Nancy is SO mean, right?) 🙂

We have a recovery week coming up next week (July 1-5). This too is by design as part of your overall plan. You can check out why here: You Are Not A Unicorn. Recovery Matters.

So now that you know, how are you going to keep track? It might just be the piece you have been missing to making even better progress.

Need some help? That's what we are here for!

See you soon, 

Coach Dean

Besides Cr8Fitness.com of course! 🙂

Seriously though, a huge shout out to my friend and fellow gym owner Ryan Morgan of Pursuit Fitness in St. Louis for turning me on to GrowingBolder.com

From the very first time I visited I knew I had found a kindred spirit in the founder, Marc Middleton.

Why?

Here's one reason:

As Athletes of Aging (and if you are reading this you are one or want to be one 🙂 ) you know how important exercise is. But what if you haven't exercised in decades? Are in bad health and lousy shape? Is it still possible?

These two stories show us the answer is a resounding "YES!"

Sister Madonna Buder (The Iron Nun) started in her 40's and is now the oldest living person, man or woman, to finish an Ironman Triathlon when she did it at the age of 82.

And while you (like me) may never dream of being on a bodybuilding stage at age 75, you'll find Jim Schaeffer didn't either, and then decided "What have I got to lose?"

Stories like these give the little extra push I need sometimes when I just don't "feel like it".

If Sister Madonna and Jim Schaeffer can do it - Why can't we?

If you are ready, click here to claim your free 2-week tryout.

Let's Make It Happen!

- Coach Dean

How would you feel if you could not do these things?

Stoop/Kneel

Reach Overhead

Write

Walk 2-3 Blocks

Lift 10 lbs.

Any of These

Check out this chart from our partners at InBody and the CDC:

Does this chart surprise you? Scare you?

I don't care what the average teenager thinks, 65 years of age is not that old. 

Certainly not to have your quality of life degraded to the point you can't walk a couple of blocks. Maybe there are a couple on there you have trouble with?

I have some great news!

It's never too late to get started. That's not just me saying it, I see it every day. Women and Men who have not exercised for years absolutely killing it in the gym. Not the first day, maybe not even the first year. But they keep with it and make it happen. Seeing it is my favorite part of being a coach. Sometimes there are very good reasons you are not able to do some of those things listed above, but I have never seen someone who dug in and really tried to improve their physical well-being fail to do so. 

As I share this I am approaching my 53rd birthday. I am grateful that I can still do all the things listed above. But I also know that this is not the time to start "taking it easy" when it comes to maintaining my health and fitness. As our bodies get older they actually require more appropriate activity and better recovery strategies to make incremental gains, or even just stay the same. Nobody said life was fair!

I've had the privilege to train some older adults in their 70's, and they are amazing. In fact they give me hope that I too can continue to lift heavy things and be active as I reach those years. I also have an advantage to younger coaches when training older clients; I know firsthand what a body in its sixth decade goes through, what it feels like after a heavy training session, and how it needs to recover. It ain't getting any easier, but it is being done every day, by people just like you.

I would invite you to read the entire article from InBody "Strength Training Has No Age Limit". 

But even if you don't, here's the take home quote from the article.

Sounds pretty good to me!

It really is never too late to start, so if you have been putting it off, now is the time. If you want to be an Athlete of Aging, you gotta get in the game, and you gotta play to win.

We can help.

If you are ready to get into the game, check out your Free 2-Week Tryout Right Here

Let me know how I can help.

Coach Dean

I think the effects of aging really hit me as I watched my grandparents bodies decline toward the end of their lives. They looked, and were, fragile. My recollection is that the first time I heard of Osteoporosis was in the context of my grandmother having it. It also occurs to me that these two were some of the hardest working people I ever knew; they had far from a sedentary job. They owned a small business, a bait and tackle shop in New Milford, CT. In the summers they would open at 5:00am and close at or often 7:00pm, and they were open every single day. Some of my fondest memories of my childhood were spending a week or two in the summer with them, as my grandfather had a route delivering bait and tackle, checking his chub traps, the shiner tanks sloshing around in his red International truck. There was a lot of manual labor involved. But even that wasn't enough to keep them from "The Twin Terrors of Aging" - Sarcopenia and Osteopenia.

Simply defined, Sarcopenia is the loss of muscle mass, and Osteopenia is the loss of bone density. These twin terrors have a cause and effect relationship on the aging process.

Losing muscle tissue (Sarcopenia) has been shown to cause a decline in your bodies ability to use glucose and a corresponding decline in insulin signaling and sensitivity. This becomes a vicious cycle, as a decrease in insulin sensitivity makes it more difficult for the body to grow and repair itself, which can lead to further muscle atrophy, which can lead to further decreased insulin signaling, and around and around we go. And don't miss the important distinction here. Muscle Atrophy is losing mass because the cell is getting smaller - this is largely reversible. But a muscle cell that dies is difficult if not impossible to replace. 

Bone mass has been shown to peak at about age 35 and decline with age. Our bones are living active tissue, and just like muscle if you don't give them much to do they will start to decline and you lose bone density more rapidly, which leads to Osteopenia, and can progress to Osteoporosis. 

And this leads to the frailty I saw in my grandparents - because of muscle and bone loss they became easier to break - they became fragile.

But let's back up a little. Why and how did this muscle and bone loss get started? While it might seem like it, nobody wakes up one morning after the "fragile fairy" visited, weaker and fatter. More than likely they have been experiencing a very gradual decline, which like a snowball racing downhill, becomes bigger and bigger as momentum gathers.

Have you ever been diagnosed with one or more of the following?

Hypertension - elevated blood pressure.

Dyslipidemia - abnormal amounts of blood lipids (triglyceride/cholesterol). In North America, this is usually hyperlipidemia - elevated cholesterol and/or triglyceride.

Systemic Inflammation - these can be measured with a Hemoglobin A1C and C Reactive Protein blood test, among others.

Insulin Resistance and/or Hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) - these were briefly discussed above.

Visceral Obesity - accumulation of fat around the internal organs. The InBody scanner at Cr8 Fitness is one way to get a measure of this.

Usually these disorders build on each other, and often lead to Metabolic Syndrome, which affects 1 out of 3 Americans.

Including, at one time, me. 

Yes. Yours truly had hyperglycemia, high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, high visceral obesity, and if I remember correctly my A1C tilted toward the high side too.

Key word: HAD

So what can we do about it? 

That is the million dollar question, right?

Now I don't want you to get me wrong here. I am not a doctor, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the hard work it takes to become one. There are realities of the system and constraints that medical professionals have to navigate and work within. But the cold hard truth is that much of western medicine is very broken.

If you look up the word "Medicine" in the Cambridge Dictionary, you will find the following definitions in the following order: 

1. the science dealing with the preserving of health and with preventing and treating disease or injury:
2.  a substance taken into the body in treating an illness:

I LOVE the words "preserving (health)" and "preventing (disease).

Yet I bet you if you asked, 9 out of 10 people would equate the word "medicine" with "drugs". And while there are certainly appropriate drugs to be taken in acute circumstances -  where would we be without penicillin? - I am talking about other kinds of drugs that function far differently.

In "The Barbell Prescription" Dr. Sullivan introduces a word, Polypharmacy, which he simply defines as "lots of drugs". 

It got me thinking. How many people do I know that take prescription medications regularly take only one?

Rarely do we see clients that are only on one med, usually there are three or four or more. Often we will see a diabetes drug (or two) paired with blood pressure medicine, maybe thyroid or statin thrown in, with a side of something to help indigestion, or just as likely constipation, caused by the other drugs. Prescription anti-inflammatory and SSRI's are also very common. 

Again, don't get me wrong. I am NOT "anti-drug", and recognize the necessity for these in certain situations. And I am not making a value judgement here, because I have no room to talk given my history.

But in my mind there is a crucial question and subsequent conversation we should be having. "What is this plethora of prescriptions doing to solve the underlying cause, rather than just covering the symptoms?"

Drugs are not like vitamins. You can have a Vitamin D deficiency. You do not have a Lisinopril, or Celebrax, or Zantac, or Cardizem deficiency. There is an underlying cause that is rarely being addressed simultaneously to the prescription being filled. 

And even worse is that some of these drugs can actually increase the rate of muscle and bone loss we discussed before.

Is that really healing? Preserving health and preventing disease? I think not.

Years ago I remember talking to a co-worker who had just been to the doctor. He said the doctor told him he was clinically obese, and if he got on a regular exercise program and good eating plan he could lose the weight, without drugs. But then he said (according to my co-worker), "Since I know you aren't going to do it, I am going to put you on X, Y, Z." I couldn't settle on if that was a bigger indictment of my (still unhealthy) co-worker or the doc. You decide.

Dr. Sullivan also pointed out an interesting thing about modern medicine. We don't generally don't die of syphilis and smallpox anymore. Instead we die of heart failure, stroke, myocardial infarction (told you he was a doctor) and dementia. And not when we are in our eighties and nineties. It's very common for any and all of those things to happen in our 50's and 60's.

I am not afraid of dying. But I have no desire to live longer if in reality it is just extending the length of time I hurt, don't want to move, and have no energy. And I am guessing neither do you.

So we've discussed one option to the "Twin Terrors" - drugs. Is there an alternative?

As an Athlete of Aging, I'll be you already know at least part of the answer.

We'll explore next time. Until then, take stock. If you take prescription drugs; Do you know what they are for? Do you know how they interact with each other? Have you discussed with your doctor a path to get off of any or all of them? If not, consider investigating these your homework.

Until next time,

Coach Dean

This post is second in a series called "Athletes of Aging".

Recovery Week is April 21 to April 27. Enjoy!

Ever since we opened the doors of our training gyms, recovery weeks have been built into the training schedule. This is not an accident. Neither is it just "vacation time" for Dean and Nancy, although those are the only weeks we can schedule time off.

To me recovery is instinctual. Training hard is taxing on the body and the mind. There is a point where your CNS (Central Nervous System" says NO MORE, and training starts to make you worse, not better. Our goal is that you never reach anywhere close to that point. We were doing "recovery" before recovery was cool, and we ain't a gonna stop now! 🙂

In fact proper recovery between workouts is factored in as we design your training program as well. It's one of the reasons we do not have regular training on Wednesdays. Two days on, one day off, two days on, two days off is by design. More is not better, better is better.

As I have gotten older, I have become even more sensitive to recovery. I recently read a book by science writer Christie Aschwanden called "Good to Go". The subtitle is "What the athlete in all of us can learn from the strange science of recovery".

"Strange Science"?

The science of recovery is pretty new, and there are some pretty weird, wild and yet-to-be-proven things that people do to recover. From recovery pajamas to float tanks, the book examines it all.

When it comes down to it, what we are trying to do is recover from the systemic stress that is placed on our body and mind on a daily basis. This is hardly just training stress. Work, kids, traffic, politics, illness - you name it, there are a lot of stressors in life. We want to manage the overall stress load in order that we can achieve physical and athletic improvement. 

The biggest take home I got from the book is no secret - the #1 thing you can do to de-stress, and enhance recovery is sleep. Not always easy, I know. You are talking to a guy whose alarm goes off before 4:00am. I get it. But I do what I can to get as much as I can whenever I can.

I have used a lot of different tools to measure my recovery over the years. Right now I am testing a piece of software called RestWise, which monitors overall training load based on objective measures such as Resting Heart Rate (RHR), HRV, SpO2, and Weight fluctuations, as well as subjective measures such as energy and mood. It's pretty interesting, and they boast clients from pro sports teams and olympic athletes. 

If you don't want to get that fancy, one of the simplest ways to monitor your recovery is to measure and log your Resting Heart Rate every morning when you get up. I use one of these $15 devices to take my pulse and SpO2 every morning - takes about 30 seconds. If your RHR is trending up, it's a good sign your recovery is compromised.

The bottom line. Enjoy your recovery week. It is a purposeful part of your training plan, and just like your don't want to miss workout days, you don't want to miss recovery days. You WILL NOT de-train in 7-10 days, so chill out - you are NOT a unicorn.

If you want more on the science of recovery, keep reading. 

Train Hard. Recover Harder.

Coach Dean

---

Our recovery weeks are what I would call Macro-Recovery. In other words we take a planned week off every training phase in order to let the body rest up from hard training and get ready for the next phase.

The Recovery Curve

I saw the recovery curve for the first time during my time with Australian physical preparation coach Ian King. His principles laid the foundation for the way we program, train and especially recover here at Get Fit NH. The principles that work with professional athletes apply to us too!

The following illustrates a “good” recovery curve:

The green line represents what we are all looking for – continual, never ending progress over time. We are getting stronger, faster, thinner, better looking (ok at least that’s what I wish for).

Reality Check – ain’t gonna happen. The process of changing your body is not linear, in fact what we are looking at in an optimal training environment is more of a “One step back brings me Two steps forward”.

A closer look at the chart will help explain what I mean.

The red line represents Equilibrium. This is where your body wants to stay, no matter if your goal is losing fat, gaining lean, or both. As you have no doubt found out, forcing your body to change is hard work – really hard work. When you walk into Get Fit NH, our training is designed to elicit that change. But it’s not as simple as “working out” day after day after day. In fact as I am about to illustrate, training without proper recovery is actually hurting you, not making you better.

The blue line represents the “recovery curve”. Starting at the left hand of the chart all the lines intersect. For this illustration that point is where your first training occurred – you “worked out”.

But what’s going on?

Instead of performance going up, that line is actually heading down – this is what is called Depletion. If you think about it makes sense – you have worked hard, you are fatigued, your body is depleted of nutrients – you are spent!

Don’t worry, your body will get over it, if you treat it right! This is what we call Adaptation. Your body wants to be able to handle the increased demand that was placed on it, and starts the process of getting better.

You are in charge of if and how fast that happens. A few of the factors that influence this adaptation include recovery nutrition, stress levels, sleep habits, supportive nutrition, age, and training history.

The recovery curve continues with Supercompensation. Here is how Coach King describes this process:

“It is only when recovery is allowed that we see the super-compensation effect, the unique phenomenon where the bodies physical capacity is elevated in response to training, in anticipation of another exposure to the same stimulus.” – King, I, 1999/2000, Foundations of Physical Preparation

In other words your body has gotten better in response to your training, a new Equilibrium is established and this state is when we will ideally train again. Our programming at Get Fit NH is carefully designed to give this the best chance of occurring, but as I hope you are discovering, you have a lot to do with this with how you treat your recovery!

As you can see, when things are clicking, this process when repeated over and over means you are getting better and better, the blue line is headed up – pretty cool!

The flip side to all this is what happens when the recovery process isn’t working so well.

This chart represents recovery gone “bad”:

When we continue to train in a state of “Depletion”, regardless of the reason, the adaptation to super-compensation effect doesn’t occur, and instead of getting better, we find ourselves in a downward cycle. This can happen when we train the same muscle groups too soon, when we haven’t taken the steps described above to recover optimally (sleep and nutrition for instance) regardless of time between training, when we train too hard coming off an illness, etc. The last thing we want to happen is new equilibrium to be established in a downward pattern – not good.

The long and short of it is your body absolutely needs to recover from hard training. Consistently training in a fatigued state results in injury and illness. Your body is an amazing machine designed to put up with a lot, but it was also designed to need rest. Recovery weeks provide that rest.

If you want to know more about the recovery tools I use and why you should consider them, hit me up and let's talk.

- DC

One of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite movies includes this exchange between Captain America and the Hulk...

Steve Rogers:
Dr. Banner! Now might be a good time to get angry.

Bruce Banner:
That's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry. (morphs into the Hulk and punches the leviathan)

HULK. SMASH!

I was reminded of that scene when I was talking to a client about their motivation, or in this case lack thereof. The gist of the conversation is that he found it hard to be motivated to train regularly, and to nourish his body with good food choices, and to lay off the alcohol.

But the kicker was when he said something along these lines; "Well it's easy for you, you're a trainer, you're always motivated!" 

Yeah. Right.

Because I am a trainer I have some unique genetic makeup that causes me to be full of energy all the time, never get tired, always feel like working out, and be predisposed to eating broccoli and sprouts, while vomiting at the site of chocolate cake.

Tell that to my 280 pounds self from 15 years ago. The one that couldn't walk up the stairs without getting winded, got home from work and crashed on the coach for four hours every night, was pre-diabetic and just plain unhealthy.

I am no superhero, but I do have a secret. Just like Bruce Banner.

Here it is. 

I am not motivated all the time. But I take action anyways.

You see we have motivation all wrong. Motivation is about emotions, and we tend to be ruled by our emotions, rather than control them. If I only trained when I felt like it, if I only ate right when I felt like it, if I only went to bed early when I felt like it - I'd be the mess I was 15 and 20 years ago.

Just like in the dictionary, Motivation follows Action. Feelings follow Activity. 

When you don't feel like it, do it anyway. 

It's not easy. If it were easy everybody would do it But think about it this way. 

Have you ever regretted getting that workout in, once it was over? Have you ever regretted biting your tongue and responding kindly rather than reacting in anger? Have you ever regretted an act of service when you rather would have stayed home?

Didn't think so.

You absolutely will need some of level of discipline, and success breeds success. The more you exercise a little discipline, the easier it gets to continue to do so. The opposite is also true.

Don't tell yourself you are not motivated. You already know.

Take action. Put your feet on the floor, and get your butt out the door.

You won't regret it.

Let's Get Smashing!

Coach Dean