Category: Daily

It’s not the fact that you don’t have all the equipment you could dream of. I actually think that’s an upside.

A more minimalist training setup means that you’ll spend less time distracted by the latest shiny object and more time training.

The biggest downside, at least for those of us with kids, is that it’s often hard to have that interruption-free block of time for training. When you train at a gym, you’re there. The kids, the partner, the dog, and the cat are at home—or at least not where you are. It’s your time.

Now, it’s possible to make this work with home training as well. Put the TV on, ask your partner to entertain the kids, train when everyone else is asleep, whatever. But whether you always get that time is a different story, regardless of how well you might’ve planned it.

In the end, you’re under the same roof. And a few things are more distracting than having a child burst through the door in the middle of a kettlebell swing.

-J

A new study shows that resistance training has a significant effect on reducing the severity and frequency of hot flashes in post-menopausal women.

“Statistical analysis shows that vasomotor symptoms (hot flushes) were more common in the control group and decreased significantly in the resistance training group after the intervention”

Here’s the study. 

Good time to pick up that kettlebell.

-J

 

 

If you only care about general fitness for general life stuff, almost anything and everything will work. You don’t need a program or a plan.

Just focus on hitting two or three 30-minute strength training sessions each week. Top that with some cardio and get in your daily steps.

But even if you don’t need a plan, you still need to manage fatigue and training intensity.

Going easy in every workout won’t do much for your progress.

Going hard in every workout is even worse.

-J

According to self-determination theory, we’re all driven by three basic psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

When these three are in place, we’re much more likely to feel motivated to keep going instead of forcing ourselves forward with raging willpower.

Here’s how to use self-determination theory to help you stick with your workouts.

Autonomy means feeling in control and making your own choices about your training routine and goals. As long as you have the right principles in place, the tactics you can choose are almost endless.

Competence is about experiencing a sense of mastery as you get stronger and see improvements in your training and how it transfers to your hiking. Another reason why you want a solid foundation of training principles to stand on.

Relatedness involves feeling supported by others, whether that’s friends, a community of like-minded people, a coach, or a combination of all three.

When you feel autonomous in your training, confident in your ability to progress, and part of a community, you’ll be driven by intrinsic motivation that makes strength training feel more like a reward instead of an obligation.

-J

Only setting short-term goals and focusing on the day-to-day is guaranteed to make you feel like a failure.

When you have a tight fitness goal to reach, every rep, set and day counts. But as you well know, life has a way of not giving two shits about your plans.

Your fitness understandably takes the backseat when you or the kids get sick, or when your work overpowers you into submission. And if you’re focused on the short-term impact all that will have on your fitness, you will feel like a failure. And it can really zap your motivation

But if you zoom out to six months, or a year, you’ll notice that those days, or weeks, you missed, don’t make any difference. They’re not a glitch in your plan, but an unescapable feature of your progress.

Fitness that’s based on the realities of life is never linear. So when you feel like you’re failing, zoom out.

-J

I was listening to a podcast of a fitness professional sharing her insights on all things health and fitness. Half way through I got annoyed by how almost all of her answers started with an example of what she does in her day-to-day.

Now, it can be helpful to occasionally get an overview of what a subject-matter-expert does. If only for inspiration. I sometimes share those things too.

But if all the advice is based on “this is what I do”, who are we really helping?

No one. Unless you are exactly like me, with my personality, circumstances, likes, dislikes, and lifestyle, sharing tactics about what I do isn’t the answer you need.

What’s the alternative then?

Instead of learning tactics, learn principles. And then make them work with your personality, circumstances, likes, dislikes, and lifestyle.

-J

 

 

 

No, not your physical location, but the way you feel.

On most week days, when I close my laptop after a day’s work, I am a ball of anxiety, frustration, and everything in between. Just name a negative feeling, and I can find it’s home somewhere deep in my brain.

That’s rarely the reflection of the tasks I do throughout the day (unless I’ve been doing the taxes) but rather the tasks I haven’t done. Combined with all the sitting. And I know that I will carry that negativity with me if I transverse myself through that door behind me and attempt to hang out with the family. I also know from experience that it just sets a negative tone for all of us for the rest of the afternoon.

So I have to take 10 minutes.

And I know nothing that changes my state, the way I feel, in 10 minutes as effectively as movement does. I assume people who do heroin feel the same way when doing heroin. My heroin just happens to be movement. At least it’s cheaper.

So, I get up, pick up my kettlebell, and do some get-ups and swings and snatches and cleans and presses and whatnot for 10 minutes. And with every rep, I peel all this tension off me.

Until it’s all scattered on that floor. And then I walk through that door.

-J

We often see frustration as the enemy, but focusing on the negative means we’re missing something significant.

We feel frustrated when we hit a plateau, fail to meet our goals or face ginormous obstacles. These are opportunities for reflection and adaptation. They signal that it’s time to reevaluate our methods, set new targets, or simply push through that frustration.

Celebrating frustration means acknowledging your commitment to getting better. It’s not the absence of frustration that leads to success but the way you respond to those frustrations.

-J

Reps and sets only tell a small part of the story.

Building a strong body, not only for now but 15 years from now, takes so much more than x’s and o’s. It takes skills you can’t track. At least not day-to-day. Skills like:

Patience to delay gratification.

Resilience to come back after each setback.

Adaptability to do what you can with the resources you have.

Satisfaction to enjoy the process more than the end result.

Focus to ignore the noise and do things at a pace that’s right for you.

And the only way to improve these skills is to put in the reps and the sets.

-J

We’re almost two months into the new year.

At the end of last year, you made plans.

At the start of this year, you took action.

At eight weeks in, how are you tracking?

Are you still heading in the direction you want to go?

Now, heading in the right direction doesn’t mean that you’re constantly grinding and hustling onward like a bulldozer.

That almost never works. Especially when you have a dozen other responsibilities to juggle.

What matters is that you’re moving in the right direction at a pace that feels right to you.

-J