Category: Improving General Wellness

This category covers non-specific things that improve the quality of life or fitness but that do not really fit into any of the other categories.

Writing Out Your Goals: The Actualization and Evolution of What You Want

I was cleaning out the basement this weekend and I came across a list I made about 3 years ago. It is a “to do before I’m 40” list and I wrote it after I got laid off from my IT management job. I remember the list well because it was my first ever goals list and it looks like:

By 40

  • Record an album
  • Complete a triathlon
  • Own a business
  • Own a house
  • Have $50000 in the bank
  • Own a mountain bike trail
  • Complete a 24 hour mountain bike race by myself
  • Have written two books
  • Be working as a motivational speaker
  • Get a nose job
  • Have a suit made for me
  • Sing in front of other people
  • Bench press 200 pounds
  • Have a six-pack (abs)
  • Drive across Canada
  • Go out East
  • Have a recording studio
  • Have an MA
  • Have invented something
  • Meditate 30 minutes per day 3 times a week

It’s a lofty list with a few very challenging items, a few superficial items, a few status items and a number of fitness/sports goals. When I saw the list I remembered it instantly in spite of the fact that it was in a box in my basement and I hadn’t seen it for three years.

Of particular interest to me are the number of these items that I no longer care about (they aren’t my goals anymore), and the number of items that I have been able to cross off the list.

On the face of it, the few items that I have cleared off the list are fairly modest. But when I think about it more, I realize that many of my peers have similar goals but have not achieved them or are not even working towards them. Even if I didn’t achieve anything else in the last 3 years, I think I have achieved more success than most people have as far as setting a goal and moving towards it because I did achieve some of the things I put my mind to.

But that isn’t the case as this was just the FIRST goals list I made. As I worked towards building my own company (making video game cabinets) I realized that it didn’t really make me very happy – I wasn’t that I wanted my own company, it was that I wanted to work for myself and have my success be determined by my own effort. Given at this was the case, I needed to learn how to sell. Learning how to sell became an item on the next goals list. I also knew that I’d have an easier time being taught how to sell working for an established company vs. learning through trial and error with my own company. “Working as a sales person for an established company” was also put to paper as a goal. I ended up getting a job with GoodLife Fitness Clubs as a membership coordinator; it’s a sales role.

With reference to GoodLife and selling, my goals changed very quickly as I attained more and more of what I put my mind to. It went something like this:

  • Learn the theories of selling – 6 weeks
  • Make a sale – 10 days
  • Achieve my monthly goal – 30 days
  • Lead the team in sales – 75 days
  • Lead the division in sales – 120 days
  • Become a General Manager of a GoodLife Club – 160 days
  • Become a successful manager – did not happen

There was some over lap with these goals – I completed my first sale and achieved my monthly goal when I was still learning the basics of how to sell. The other thing that is interesting is the speed at which I changed my goals – what started off as a desire to prove whether or not I could sell became a desire for a career with a company in about 60 days. Recall that working for GoodLife was not one of the before 40 goals and even the goal of learning how to sell was only tangentially related to anything on that list. There is a sort of evolution with this – what we want can be changed by what we do today, one achievement leads to a desire for other related achievements or to a desire for something completely different.

My failure to become a successful manager was a bit of a disappointment but it was also a huge learning experience. I worked hard to be successful at it and had enjoyed some successes but did not achieve what I viewed as success and after a lot of soul searching I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to. Once I saw the futility of what I was trying to do, I conceded and stepped down allowing someone else to try and make good on what I had hoped to achieve.

The next goals list moved away from leading a team in favor of leading individuals:

  • Become a personal trainer – 4 weeks
  • Help someone start working towards his or her fitness goals – 2 weeks
  • Achieve my first month goal – 2 weeks
  • Sell over $3000 in training – 5 weeks
  • Sell the most on the team – did not happen

Again, there was a goal that I gave up on because I realized that I wasn’t going to be happy working towards it. In fact, I found training people to be one of the hardest things I have ever done, seriously. It takes a special type of person to work one on one with someone to help him or her achieve their goals. The problem was fit. I never had the goal of seeing someone achieve their goal, only to sell training, be a trainer and help people get started. Had I had a better idea of what the job was actually about, I wouldn’t have done it because it’s a long haul thing and not the simple once-off that selling memberships is.

So I left the job, particularly drained, and since I had saved some money I took a month to travel the east coast of Canada and do some camping. I went with my childhood friend Deb who loves traveling. It seemed to make sense to go with her because we had spoken about traveling together before and the opportunity just present itself last May. So that cleared off another couple of goals (one from the first list and one from a fifth or sixth list).

Now what does this all mean? Well, I think it means a bunch of things:

  • That by writing your goals out you make them real
  • Real goals will be achieved more often than imaginary ones
  • Goals will be achieved or changed based on new information
  • Every action you take can impact your desire for things that were never considered before
  • By looking at a list of your goals, you can begin to create a sense of entitlement or, at least, a sense of ability that you can do something
  • You’ll have a better chance of finding yourself doing what you want to do if you figure out what you want to do and working towards it
  • That your desires are based on what you are doing at the moment and less on what you think you want

I encourage everyone to write out their goals and I’m not sure how it goes. When I ask them about it, they say things like “I don’t feel like it” or “it feels really stupid” or “I don’t need to”. But I think that most people don’t do it because they don’t think they have the right to anything better than what they have now. Life is something that is done to them and not something they are willing to take an active role in creating. Life isn’t like for everyone, those who have taken the time to write out their goals tend to be working towards achieving them.

If you want to change your life, change your life and the best way to start is to figure-out what you want to get out of it. Go on, make that goals list!

You Just Touched Everyone In Town – Germs At The Gym

I live in a town of about 50000 people. It’s not a big deal except that we are considered a commuter town. We have 3 morning and afternoon/evening trains that bring people to and from Toronto. If you’ve never ridden on a commuter train realize that they are PACKED. It turns out that these trains are a great way to spread illness from Toronto to the surrounding areas and the gathering of so many local people is a fantastic way to make sure the illness gets spread throughout the community.

While I don’t take the train to work I do interact with some of these commuters every day. We touch some of the same stuff each day at the gym, we open the same doors, drink from the same water fountains, lift the same weights and hold the same handles on the cardio machines. Everyone who goes to the gym is exposed to this massive collection of communicable diseases and if they are not careful, they’ll end up infecting themselves with whatever virus happened to contaminate their hand. Of particular concern is any piece of equipment that is used during the workout because the moisture from sweat makes for the ideal conditions to cultivating disease. This is something that is made worse when some one does not clean the equipment after they use it.

My approach to avoiding illness at the gym is fairly simple. I assume that no one cleans anything so if I touch something that I did not clean myself I assume that part of me is dirty. I don’t think this borders on hysteria because everyday I see people pass on washing their hands after going to the bathroom, I see them leave their sweat on the cardio gear and benches and I’ve never see anyone clean an exercise or yoga mat after they were done with it. There is good reason to just assume that everything at the gym has germs on it because at least some of the stuff has germs on it.

How I try to avoid colds when I’m going to the gym:

  • I wash hands before changing and make sure to wash my arms up to the elbows.
  • When I need to wipe or touch my face, I try to use my forearm instead of my hand because I know they are clean and because they don’t come in contact with nearly as much as my hands.
  • Before I use a piece of cardio equipment I will clean it because the person before me probably didn’t.
  • I wash my hands well before I actually go to the bathroom because I don’t want to touch myself down there with dirty gym hands.
  • I wash my hands after I go to the bathroom because it is the polite thing to do.
  • At the end of the workout, I wash my hands before I change because they are probably dirty.
  • When I get home I wash the outside of any water bottles I brought with me.
  • I have a gym pen that doesn’t get used anywhere other than the gym and it never goes near my mouth.

While this may appear to be the todo list of an OCD bodybuilder it serves the single purpose of keeping me healthy so I can go to the gym and keep working out. Getting sick isn’t a very good option because I will lose training time or intensity. Plus, it sucks to be sick. I take these measures to eliminate as much of the risk as I can so I can keep doing what I love.

Just Move, Just Do Something

It’s hard to have a great looking body. It takes a lot of time, focus and sacrifice. People who have great bodies are revered for it because they have worked hard to achieve it. If you want six pack abs, it is going to take you a while to drop the body fat and build the size of the muscles; you are looking at anywhere from 6 to 18 months for someone who is in reasonable shape. It is going to be a lot longer if you are out of shape and dislike exercise. The reality is that only about 5-10% of the population will take the time to build their midsection to the point were they have that revered look, and these numbers drop dramatically for people who are older than 35 because it is harder to attain as you get older.

So what are you going to do about this? Well, my advice is to not care about it. If you really wanted to look like that you would already have taken the necessary steps to get yourself moving towards it. If you don’t, you probably don’t place that high an importance on it. From my experience, looking that way doesn’t bring you any extra happiness – the world doesn’t start treating you any differently just because you have a great body. Your problems don’t go away just because you look better than everyone at the gym. In fact, other than achieving a goal, the process of building a great midsection brought me very little fulfillment or happiness. The difference between a flat midsection and a ripped midsection is the last 20% of getting a great body, the first 80% is getting to a point where you look good. I have noticed that happiness does come to those who work to get a good body. So my guess is that most would be happy to just look better.

Looking better is very easy if you don’t already look good. All it requires is that you do something active. It doesn’t really matter so long as it’s something that you don’t normally do that requires that you move around. Some people like parking their car far away from the door, some like reading the newspaper while walking on a treadmill, some like making multiple trips up and down stairs to achieve a task that could have been accomplished with one well thought-out trip, some will join a gym, while others will take up playing a sports or a musical instrument. It doesn’t really matter what you do, so long as it gets you moving. Moving burns energy that you might normally store as fat and it gives the muscles a workout that they need to grow and remain strong.

A different way to look at it would be to say that if you want to look better, stop doing something that requires you to remain relatively still; television is a good example of an effortless movement-less activity, ordering in dinner instead of making it or spending time playing most video games or surfing the Internet are other examples of low movement activities. Ideally you will be able to liberate some time from ceasing a sedentary activity and fill that time with something that requires that you do a little more activity. You’ll benefit from this change in behavior very quickly.

If your goal is to feel and look better, just start doing something today. It doesn’t have to be much, but it has to be something. Regardless of how small it is, a first step is a first step and it is always the beginning of something new. Remember, it is hard to look great, but it’s easy to look better, just do something.

Body Weight Exercises Are Key

Consider doing some body weight exercises to help build that stronger body because:

  • The body will adapt quickly to them because it is a reasonable load. I don’t know if this is true but I’ve always found that I gain strength very quickly with body weight exercises.
  • They are very functional – the strength generally lends itself to real activities.
  • They do not cause undo stress to the body because the movements are natural.
  • They are difficult to do at the beginning. Yeah, but anything that you have not done before is difficult to do at the beginning.
  • Most people don’t and can’t do them, probably because they are hard and people tend to shy away from difficult tasks.
  • They add variety to your strength training workouts.
  • They can improve symmetry and will balance strength. Consider one-legged squats, they guarantee that you work each leg equally.

Pull-ups are, in my opinion, the best body weight exercise that you can do because they engage many of the muscles of the back, as well as working the biceps and the rear deltoids. They require a lot of strength to do and there are a number of different variations that allow you to shift the focus onto different parts of the back and body. For example, narrow grip will work the middle back, the biceps and the rear deltoids more, wide grip focus the load on the lats to help build back width and off level pull-ups, while a more sport specific move, will focus more effort one side of the body.

Other body weight exercises you can try:

  • Dips – these really work the triceps and chest muscles.
  • Body row – great for working the middle back and the rear deltoids
  • Push-ups – an often-overlooked classic that works the chest muscles very effectively. Try placing the hands closer together to increase the load on the triceps and middle chest.
  • Various single legged squat movements – if you are concerned about being able to do these, consider the movement of getting into and out of a car as proof that you can.
  • Front and side planking moves – great of building core strength
  • Leg raises (hanging, lying, Roman chair) – fantastic for building lower ab strength
  • Various balancing moves – I’ve found the starfish position were you are standing on one leg and have your arms and other leg full extended to really tax my legs and lower back.

Supersets: You can also benefit from adding body weight exercise to weighted movements to create challenging supersets:

  • Narrow grip push-ups finish off a set of machine flies to complete chest failure.
  • Hanging leg raises complement weighted crunches nicely.
  • Dips and pull-ups can be done together for a great push pull set that will work the entire upper body.

Next time you’re looking for a new challenge, improved results or a change to your workout routine try giving some of these body weight exercises a try.

Keeping a six pack while drinking a six pack?

We’ll maybe.

People have six pack abs because their muscles can be seen. Most of the time it’s because the person is lean – usually less than 10 percent body fat – to maintaining this level of leanness requires fairly strict adherence to a clean diet. However, this summer I saw something that changed the way I view ab training. I rode past a guy who had really big ab muscles. It wasn’t that they were well defined it was that they looked like Mr. Olympia abs on an average sized guy. It wasn’t until I got back to the gym that I realized the significance of what I saw.

I had been on vacation, camping in the east coast of Canada, and I hadn’t done any ab work. I had brought my bike and I got at least 2 hours of riding in everyday, but I had also brought along my bad camping habits, eating a box of cookies and drinking 3 or 4 beers a night. I gained a few pounds and lost some muscle mass from my upper body. Sadly, my 6 pack was gone, buried under a layer or two of too much enjoyment.

When I got back to the gym and training, I noticed that my ab muscles were still really hard. In fact, they didn’t feel like they had gotten any smaller and when I went though my routine it was clear that I had lost very little strength. The only difference was a layer of fat. Then it struck me, if I want to have my abs visible but don’t want to have to constantly worry about what I eat, just make the ab muscles big enough to be seen through the layer of fat. That’s what I had seen on the guy in the summer, huge ab muscles that were visible regardless of what was in front of them.

That was the day I change the way I train my abs. I made the decision to make them as big as I could so that they could be seen, even when I wasn’t paying particularly close attention to what I was eating. It meant treating them like a large muscle group (having their own specific training day and prioritizing their training). This was new to me, and from what I read it is not done by most people.

I used to treat my abs as an after thought, throw in a couple of sets whenever I felt like it and I’d always try to get a good burn from contracting the muscles very hard instead of working to make sure they were fatigued as a result of the weight they were lifting. I would also tear through the sets as quickly as I could to get them over with. Once I slowed down and focused on tiring the muscles completely, I began to see results. The hanging leg raises, weighted cable and DB crunches, and weighted machine crunches replaced my body weight only exercise that I had been doing to create defined hard muscles. The outcome has been fantastic. My body fat ranges between 8% and 12% and I have a six-pack regardless of where it stands. My body looks better when I’m carrying less fat, but my abs are always there.

If you listen to one thing, listen to this…

If someone was to ask me to give one piece of advice it would be this: eat only enough so that you are hungry in 3 hours and then repeat. I think it makes the biggest impact to overall health.

I say this because:

  • Digestion is very taxing on the body. Eating smaller meals avoids this.
  • Digestion can break down nutrients contained in food, lessening digestion time can increase the nutrient yield from a meal.
  • Quickened food absorption into the blood will help to stabilize sugar levels, allow for more consistent energy levels and the quick availability of nutrients improves exercise recovery potential.
  • Complete digestion improves bowel movement frequency and consistency.
  • Most junk or fast food meals cannot be digested quickly enough to be consumed automatically increasing the quality of the food that you eat.

Moving to this type of eating can be difficult however, as it requires a fairly substantial change in your eating habits. The three square meals a day approach that most of us were raised on was based on the need to maintain an 9-12 hour work day, allowing for big enough sized meals that would help someone avoid hunger until the next meal. This approach is effective at doing this, but it isn’t ideal for most people any more, given that we have improved freedom to eat whenever we need to vs. whenever we are allowed to.

The consequence to not eating whenever we need to, or to eating to avoid hunger for longer than 3 hours is fat gain unless you are particularly active. I say this because the body adapts to getting food every 5-6 hours and will come to rely on transient body fat to fuel energy requirements not met through eating – those periods of time when a meal is being digested and has no impact on blood levels. If we introduce food every 3 hours, we decrease the reliance on body fat to power our energy needs.

It will take you about a month of eating smaller meals every 3 hours before it becomes part of your daily life, but you can enjoy the improved health benefits after only a week or so. If your schedule and work allow for it, give it a try. It’s helped me add lean muscle mass and lower my body fat.

What did you learn last year?

Here is lesson 6 from the 13 things that Eric Cressey learned in 2006:

You see, goodwill — the willingness to help others — never runs out unless you allow it to by your own ignorance. These guys offered me tremendous information and expected nothing in return, but now that I’m in more of a position to help them out, their goodwill has paid off.