Failure...if you say so

We are our own biggest critics. Our daily look, performance at our job and perception of how we are as a husband, wife, mother, father, and friend are picked apart and analyzed to see if they live up to our sometimes-impossible standards. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in our personal body image.

There is nothing wrong with looking for opportunities to improve, but if the only self-talk going on in your head is negative it can completely tear you down over time. It is easy to blame a lot of things such as time, work schedule or kid’s activities as to why you can’t stay consistent with your health and fitness, but a lot of the time you are defeating yourself before any of these other things come into play. Whether it is a lack of confidence in following through that prevents you to start, bumps in the road that require adjustments, the comparison game or your rate of improvement; all the negative, deflating thoughts in your head are working against you. You might not even realize how much you do this. Here are some situations that can possibly trigger those negative voices and ways to shut them up.

1. Starting something new: If it is new then it is a change from what you are currently doing and anything that requires change always gets the critics talking. All the thoughts and excuses resisting this change will come to the surface. Chances are if you are thinking of trying an eating plan or workout routine that you never have it is because you have already tried several other things that haven’t worked. Failed attempts will affect your confidence, but think of it this way; if you don’t try this new thing you have no chance of changing your current situation. So what is worse? The fear of the unknown or the hopeless feeling of being stuck?

2. Making Adjustments:  Things are going well. You are making healthy food choices and crushing your workouts, then it happens. Change in work schedule, injury, new activity your child wants to start…fill in the blank with any life situation. Now what? Your mind will tell you to just wait until things calm back down so you can get back to your routine. I hate to break it to you, but things will never calm down. If you are ever waiting for the perfect time in life to do something, especially when it’s new, it will never end up happening. Remember when you started? You had to overcome a lot to get the ball rolling and make all of this a part of your daily routine in the first place. No matter if you need to modify the type of activity you are doing until something heals, change the night you meal prep or the time of day you work out, you have done it before and you can do it again.

3. The Comparison Game: This is a big one, especially when it comes to health and fitness. Your mind will tell you over and over again, ‘You will never look like her, you will never be able lift what he does, you will never be able to do the workout as fast as them, you will never be able to wear that.’ Don’t every try to be anyone except the best version of you. Look in the mirror…that is your competition. Focus on being better than you were yesterday every single day. If you truly take this attitude and apply it consistently you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.

4. Improvement slows: As a beginner the improvements and gains can be quick and rather sizeable. The longer you continue the smaller those gains become and the harder they are to achieve. It sucks, but it’s science. Those voices are really going to speak up now and tell you why even bother if you can’t keep seeing huge results. Look, I have been lifting weights for over 22 years. If I could lift more every time I walked into the weight room I could bench press my house by now. Before you get discouraged and start listening to all of that nonsense in your head, understand that it takes time for plateaus to happen. Secondly, it might just take making small adjustments on what you are doing to get your progress back on the steady incline. This is why tracking is so important. Maybe you need to adjust your calories, the amount of miles you run or how fast you run them. What it definitely doesn’t mean is to quit.

Ultimately you need to look to make lifestyle changes that will benefit you for the rest of your life, not quick fixes. Your health and fitness are a life long journey that require you to persevere through the tough times in order to consistently achieve your goals. Life can be hard enough, don’t make it worse but constantly beating yourself up.

ANGEL/DEVIL

TRAINING PLANS

5 steps to your next PR

Just you and the barbell. Focused, you step up while your friends and gym members watch. Deep breath and BOOM, new PR! If only it were that easy all the time, right?

There is a lot of work that goes in before those personal records are broken. It’s not just about always trying to go heavy every time you step into the gym. Here are 5 steps you can take to work smarter while you work harder.

Flexibility/Mobility: This is one that a lot of people neglect, but is one of the most important. As a society we spend so much time seated which causes a number of things to be tight or locked up. Tight hips and upper back can cause a lot of lower back pain as well as shut off muscles we need to work for us in the weight room. Check out the Quick Fix for Lower Back pain series on our Instagram and Facebook pages for exercises you can do during the day or before your workout to loosen up your hips, ankles and back. Your body will thank you and your weights will go up.

Weighted Core Work: It doesn’t matter whether you are going for a new Back Squat, Snatch, handstand pushup or pullup max; your ability to stabilize and transfer power is essential. There are 3 main categories to focus on; static, linear and rotational.

     Static: Weighted planks – Place a plate on your back for 3 to 5 sets of 30 to 60 seconds

     Linear: DB Situps – Hold a DB behind your head with your feet anchored and complete 3 to       5 sets of 6-12 reps

     Rotational: Russian Twists – Start in a seated position with ankles crossed, holding a plate,         medicine ball or DB rotate side to side touching the implement to the ground, complete 3         to 5 sets of 20 to 50 reps

Auxiliary Work: There are a couple different ways you could go about utilizing these to get the most bang for your buck. You can choose exercises that have carry over to multiple exercises or you can choose exercises that target specific weak areas of a lift or movement.

    Carry Over: weighted core work would be an example of this. Another one would be a                dumbbell or barbell strict press. Completing 3 to 5 sets of 6 to 12 reps weekly can improve        your handstand pushups, push press, push jerk, split jerk, handstand walks and even your          ability to stabilize the weight in overhead weighted movements such as lunges and                    overhead squats.

   Targeting Weak Areas: do you know why you fail in certain lifts or movements? Let’s look at       a few examples. 3 to 5 sets of 3 to 5 reps weekly

   Hips rising when pulling the clean or snatch off the ground – maintaining strong position off     the floor is essential in hitting big weights. Adding exercises like clean or snatch deadlift to       your strength training can make a big difference.

   Trouble getting the bar off the ground in a deadlift – add in some deficit deadlifts, standing       on plates to work the bottom half of this lift

   Trouble locking out the deadlift – add rack/block pulls, set the height at your sticking point

Technical and % work: Once again, if you always just go as heavy as possible every time you come to the gym your overall progress will slow. This is amplified in the Olympic lifts because of the level of technical difficulty.

   Technique work: adding in barbell complexes with an extremely light weight as a warm up         will allow you to get a lot of repetitions in while your body gets loose.

    Example: Clean/Snatch Deadlift, Hang Power Clean/Snatch, Front Squat/Overhead Squat. 3      to 5 sets of 5 to 10 reps

    % Work: 1-5 reps in the 70-80% range for 10-20 sets. The best way to complete this is in an        EMOM (lower reps) or every 90s or 2min (higher reps). This will allow you to lock in your            technique on moderate to heavy weights instead of always trying to max out.

GET YOUR MIND RIGHT: Don’t think you are, know you are. If you don’t think you can lift the weight, you won’t. Your mind is like a video recorder. If you say to yourself, “Don’t miss this lift.” or “Don’t let your elbows drop.” That is exactly what your mind just pictured, therefore that is probably what you will do. Replace those statements with, “Rip this bar off the ground.” and “Keep your elbows up.” This accomplishes what you wanted because your mind pictured success instead of failure.  Consistently hitting big weights and personal records is just as challenging mentally as it is physically. Practice positive self-talk and positive feedback every day in your workouts. Frustration comes along with training, but don’t get mad…get better.

If you have no plan, you plan to fail. Find what works for you and take action. Hard work breeds confidence. The more consistent work you put in the more confident you will be to crush those PR’s.

ANGEL/DEVIL

TRAINING PLANS