Recently I signed up for a running race that I am not quite ready for and I have been training beyond     my fitness level in order to prepare for the race that is in 7 days.

I have a habit of doing this as a huge goal…..one that seems out of reach is my method of getting my        butt moving.

In 2004 I signed up for 17 races…..triathlons, marathons, adventure races.  The year was awesome in terms of accomplishments but sub par in terms of performance.

So why am I writing this for you to read?  What lesson is there for you?

Well, I feel that everyone should determine what will motivate them.  Find a carrot to dangle in front of your nose.

In 2004 I also worked with Anthony Robbins and he taught me quite a bit about setting goals and really discovering your true motivation.

He says something like “you need to be fed up with being fed up”.  Which translates to really getting close to your feelings when you are fat, or lazy or whatever it may be and really owning the negative outcome of your actions which create the problem.  Get as close to those awful feelings as possible and let them fester a little so you become sold on discontinuing the negative behavior.

This is great except I hate it when I or someone I am working with seems so miserable during that time of getting to know your feelings.  Hard to stay positive during this time.

So back to the setting goals.

Determine what it is that drives you….whether it’s removing a painful behavior or creating new habits.

Remember that the foundation of your life and quality of which is based soley on your daily, weekly, and monthly habits.

You must define who and what you want to be and then create a to do list of what it will take to get there.

This list needs to be broken down into habits that are in tune with this.

Put them in your blackberry on a daily, weekly, monthly calendar.

This will create success quickly.  Momentum builds and usually if you have defined goals that reflect different areas of your life like family, health, & work you will be well balanced.

The only rule for all of this is to be realistic.  As I said in the beginning, I may have set unrealistic goals for this current race but I have been setting goals for quite some time and I know that I really need to reach to be motivated.

The trick in all of this is to take your success and failures in stride.  Your result is all in how you measure.

If I were planning to win all of my races in 2004 I would have been a huge failure.

Since I realistically just wanted to finish the races I succeeded.

The same goes for this upcoming race.  If I planned on running 7:30 miles I would fail but I hope to finish…that is all.

Set goals……make them realistic but stretch yourself……be flexible in your expectations as you move along through goal setting.

As for fitness, set goals in nutrition, strength training, and cardio.  make it simple at first with just a goal of getting in 3 sessions of each per week and eating 5 small meals each day.

Then adjust your goals and make them a bit more of a stretch like 40 minutes of cardio 3 times each week and 3 strength training boot camp classes along with a 50% carb, 25% pro, and 25% fat breakdown in diet.

The success you feel from accomplishing these goals and adjusting them as you move forward will really snowball and you will see results quickly.

Good luck on goals setting.  Hopefully this little article motivates you and defines what and how for setting goals.

Well, I have once again determined that due to my thirst for knowledge and my desire to stay current with the latest and greatest training methods I am absolutely utilizing the best methods, tools, and procedures for getting results.

So what is the secret for getting results you ask?

Pretty simple really!  It’s not what you read in magazines and on line I can say that for sure.  their is a process for getting results just like anything else and it has very little to do with a treadmill or ab crunches.

Most of that stuff is great but it has a time and a place in a program.  For example many clients are not ready for tire flipping and sprints but at some point they will be.  The part that you the consumer misses out on is how to get there and what you should be doing in your current physical shape.

WATCYAD Here is an example of athlete training using the assessment.

My abilities really shine during the assessment and exercise prescription.  This is where I create the individualized program based on your movements, movement pattern dysfunctions, body comp, blood pressure, goals, health history and other factors.  This is the knowledge a trainer has that the client does not….though not always….I have seen some trainers that had no clue how to properly assess and gave every client the same program.

NOW FOR THE GOOD STUFF!

NASM

So how do I go about getting results with clients?

I simply follow what I learned from NASM certification and others which means………

I start you off with stability training where we challenge your coordination while addressing your asymmetries and retraining your body to move properly.  During this phase we focus on controlling the weights and higher repetitions with a slower tempo and just a few sets.  This is done though a circuit of exercises with little rest between them.

Next we try to challenge the muscle fibers a little more as we  superset a stable exercise with an unstable exercise.

The idea is to challenge the prime movers and then the stabilizers.  We fatigue much more total body musculature in the process.  This is a strength endurance phase.

Now you are ready for building some muscle.  We do this in the next phase with the more traditional form of strength training where we up the weights and really shoot for momentary muscular failure.   This is the old 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps using traditional stable exercises like bench press, shoulder press, leg press, squats, etc.  Remember that all the stuff you see in the magazines and such has a time and place?  Well now is the time for some of that.

It is all coming together now.

The next phase is getting into true strength and not so much the size of muscles like the last phase.

Now we up the weights again and really focus on maximal loads.  We use long rest breaks to restore glycogen to the muscles between lifts and heavy loads with low reps, to stimulate the hormones, muscle contractions and more.

This completes most body composition type programs where the main focus is to change the way you look, add muscle, or decrease body fat.

For athletes we continue on for a few more phases.  All the phases generally last 4-6 weeks.

Since moving here I have started training a few new clients here at the Wasatch Altitude Training Center, in Mountain Green, UT.

Most of the people out here are already pretty fit and have been exercising for quite a while consistently.

This is the most exciting client for me because I can really illustrate the difference for them in the way they have been training and not getting great results and in just 4-6 weeks we start to see great changes.  The best part is that we have not really started a body composition altering phase…we are still in phase 1.  People are already gaining muscle and losing fat with just 2 days per week of training.  I will provide social proof to this in a few more weeks.

It is just awesome.  If you are not seeing results you need to change your program and follow a true periodized program.  I am partial to NASM  of course as I’ve seen where all the other certifications only cover some of these phases and no program is complete without all the phases.

If you need help with your program and you live in the Chicago area or Salt lake area we can help.  If not maybe you would like online training.  Just shoot us an email.

Hope this helps in your journey to getting results!

I often find that a client will come into my office with their goal being to weigh a certain number of pounds without regard for their body fat %. After I gather the information to show them their body fat % and specifically how many pounds of lean muscle they carry they start to realize what is realistic.

For example:
I may have a female client weighing 210 lbs that feels she would like to weigh 135 lbs like she did back in high school. That is great but after measuring her body composition we see that she already carries 110 lbs of muscle.

If her goal to be healthy is to have a body composition of 25% fat and she does not want to lose muscle in her weight loss process. (Losing muscle decreases your metabolism and your bodies ability to burn fat.)
She will only be able to get her weight down to 137.5 lbs. If she loses weight by exercising and diet she will likely gain muscle in this process as well so her new healthy goal weight at 25% BF would be about 140 lbs.

This is difficult for some people to hear because we are all so focused on the scale.

The truth lies in the BF%.

Next time you start on a fitness program you should get an assessment including your body fat % to set realistic goals!

To set up your assessment go to www.bodyformpersonaltraining.com and click on the request your assessment picture at the bottom.