I didn’t falter too much on Christmas week. I managed to get 1 strength workout in and 1 conditioning workout.
New Year resolutions are silly. Everyone breaks them, but I do believe in planning my year ahead and setting goals – something I recommended in a previous post. Well I thought I’d put up my physical goals on here…
I’m sure I’ve forgotten loads – I’ll be updating this tomorrow so stay tuned and subscribe to the blog!!
So what are your goals for 2009?
Motivation is one of the key ingredients in keeping up with a fitness program or diet. I know from personal experience in trying numerous methods, diets and regimes that the key to all of them is keeping going.
Its why I made a point of buying a book by a famous British psychologist and psychiatrist (aka: ’shrink’) called The Motivated Mind.
In this post I’m going to summarise his 20 point list of tips to stay motivated…
Without an end in site or a dream to follow its easy to drop off from your new regime. So set your goal, write it down and visualise it.
Or milstones. Just set a time at which you want to achieve your goal. Split it into parts if needs be. So for example if you want to compete in an iron man but have no idea how long it would take to go from couch to iron set times for 1km (2 weeks), 5km (1 month), 10km (2 months), etc.
Creating a path to your desired goal. Set up a schedule of what you’ll do and when in order to achieve your desired goals. So you want to do 10 pull ups? Create a pull up schedule 3 times per week, with reps and sets laid out. You can see my workout program here.
Its always useful to know where you’ve been to know where you’re going. I’ve found a great motivator with this blog and my program is when I go back to my old records and see how I’ve got better. Record all the way and track your progress.
Nothing stifles a plan like not having the tools for the job. Too often people will drop out of running at winter because they haven’t got a treadmill. Or they’ll stop their weight training when they realise they want a bar bell set. So get all of your information, tools, and resources before you begin. For an idea of what you need I’d recommend the RossTraining forum.
Most people find this one uncomfortable and will often rationalise themselves out of doing it. But with all the other parts in place this is one hell of a way to keep going. If you’re going on a new diet or program then tell everyone about it!! Its a LOT harder to fail publically than privately so let everyone know what you’re doing and that you’re still going.
The more chance your brain has to think of something the more likely you’ll not do it. Take decisions out of the process by scheduling a personal trainer to wake you on Sundays for a run. Or cook and prepare your meals for the week on Sunday so they’re easy to eat later on. Get into daily mini exercises like calf raises in the shower, push ups in the morning, etc.
The people most motivated by a goal are those who’ve learnt a lot about it. Don’t just decide your ideal weight but find out WHY and what range it falls in. Wanting more strength? Fine – but learn about the different types of strength. This knowledge makes you hungry to experiment, and drives you harder than you’d think. It also stops you from being side-tracked by the latest crazy fads if you’ve got an armoury of clear information to back up your ideals and targets. Visit good sites: RossTraining, BodyWeightCulture, etc. Read good books: Turbulence Training, The Naked Warrior, Relax into Stretch
Why are you wanting this? Why the strength? Why the muscle? Why the weight loss? Why the abs? Why, why, why?? Don’t just superficially answer this. The deeper you go into why you truly want something the more emotionally connected with the end result you’ll become. Thefore the less likely you’ll drop out.
Here’s a spreadsheet to help you with this one.
This isn’t an easy one to figure out but a simple example is: You want to lose weight but also build muscle mass. Sorry – no can do!! You need to re-assess those goals because they conflict with each other. Muscle is heavy and building it will increase your weight. So the solution here would be to maybe: ‘Lose body fat and increase muscle mass’.
If you fall off the wagon and binge on 3 Christmas Dinners or you miss a whole week of training through ‘illness’ then don’t give up. Don’t think that the lapse makes it all worthless. The fact is that everyone falls along the way to their goals. What differentiates those that succeed and those that fail is the successful get back up, learn from it and carry on!
Just because its going well doesn’t mean you can slack off. You need to keep on the ball all the time and re-examine your plans and goals regularly to make sure you’re on the right track.
Find people who have achieved what you want to achieve. Emulate them, learn from them and be inspired by them. If you want to be an MMA star then let Bas Rutten be your hero!
A group of people with similar goals can help pull you up when you’re feeling down. They’ll help you stay focused. There’s numerous groups on Facebook, and running sites like FetchEveryone(UK) and MapMyFitness(US/UK) are great for clubbing together and tracking progress. Spark People(US/UK) is great for losing weight.
Sages form thousands of years ago used to bang on about knowing yourself is the key to enlightenment and such. Its not far from the truth. For if you know yourself, deeply, then you can develop strategies to overcome your weaknesses and exploit your strengths.
For example: I’m a fast learner but get easily bored. The last thing I need is a program thats repetetive but one that’s constantly challenging me to learn more. Then this blog can give an outlet and stop me from getting bored.
Always be thinking of the long term consequences of your actions rather than the immediate fix. So you can’t be bothered doing a workout tonight? You’re tired, long day at work, etc? Great – take a rest. But in the long term – you’re only ruining your health. Think about that and less about your current tiredness.
Everyone is so scared of fear its silly. Fear isn’t something to fear; fear is something to use! Its one of the most powerful forces living in your mind so exploit its power. Fear the heart attacks to come. Fear the strokes from years of cake and burgers. Fear the increased risk of cancer from smoking. See, smell and taste the fear – constantly and relentlessly. If that doens’t keep you going you’re not human.
The most important of all this list is goals and I’ll revisit it again. Goals are how we measure our success in life. Its the attainment of our goals that boosts our personal pride, self esteem, and confidence. By setting goals you’re investing in your happiness. So set those goals!
Technorati Tags: motivation, motivation tips, motivate
“STBF Rule #1: If you eat like sh*t, you’ll look and feel like sh*t”
I’m adding this blog to my list of regular reads. That rule alone shows the guy knows the score 100%.
So with all this working out – what the hell do I eat?
Here’s a summary of my daily food intake along with some variations…
Here’s where I pig-out big time and normally after a heavy workout or ju jutsu class. Here’s a few alternatives…
I don’t like complicated foods as I don’t have the time and I want to know exactly whats in it and as you increase the number and complexity of ingredients you start to lose a handle on whats in the meal.
I eat apples and clementines throughout the day. They’re my two favourite fruits. If I’ve got some nuts then I’ll have those and unfortunately I still have a weakness for chocolate which I consume at least once a week in eye-watering quantities.
Large quantities (6-15 cups) of black tea (Yorkshire Tea) every day, with a little skimmed milk and no sugar.
No – it doesn’t apeal at all. I used to drink a lot as a student but now it just makes me feel like shit so I avoid it like the plague. Having said that I do plan on having an Asahi Japanese beer later today but its the first drink I’ve had in 2 months (that was a small weak cocktail).
These have got to be one of my favourite exercises of all. Pull ups and all their derivatives, chin ups, wide and narrow grip, using a towel, assisted and non assisted.
Pull ups help a huge range of muscles but especially target your latissimus dorsi (see pic), biceps, deltoids (shoulder) and pectorialis (chest). They hit it all and it builds stability as well as strength. Since doing pull ups/chin ups I’ve noticed a general improvement in my upper body strength and performance. I could JUST do 1 pull up when I started. Now I can do 4 (on a good day 
).
Cantilever Type (aka: Door Gym) – If you live in a rented flat (aka: apartment) screwing and nailing pull up bars into doorways isn’t an option. Nor is having a large 8ft frame in the living room. The solution comes in the form of a cantilever pull up bar. It fits into your doorway without any screws or damage to the frame at all. I was unsure how secure it really could be but since getting it I’ve been doing pull ups every day, greasing the groove and its solid as a rock.Friday’s not gonna keep me down so Sat and Sun I did the following:
(2 minutes rest between each set)
Today wasn’t a good day. Bad news happened and it hit me hard. I just couldn’t do anything other than a few pull ups.
No ju jutsu either.
I do iai jutsu so wanted to add something sword related this week…
The way of the sword and the Way of Zen are identical, for they have the same purpose; that of killing the ego – Yamada Jirokichi
Forget the day. The one after the last one!
But I’m making Wednesday another conditioning day. So that’s 3 total in the 7 day week.
I’ll put up an updated programme tomorrow but in summary…
My numbers on the heart rate monitor are getting better and I’m noticing my heart rate takes longer to rise. I dunno why but this happened when I got better at running earlier in the year. My heart took longer to beat faster so I could run for a good few minutes before it hit the 170 area.
Normally I’d hit 170 in about 10 seconds!!
My max is about 182-5.
Today’s conditioning I did 15 minutes of the following:
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