Archive for category Fitness

Don't neglect yourself

Mar 25

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Fitness, Health, Wellbeing | 6 Comments

It would seem to be straightforward that our own health & fitness is one of our key concerns in our existence (if not the most important then certainly right up there). One might argue that the health of a loved one is more important, however how can you provide, care for, love, enjoy the company of, or be any use to that person if you are ill, dependent, incapacitated or otherwise not in optimal condition?

I have clients who state point blank that their careers are more important than their health. I find this both astounding and frightening. What good is career success if you’re on the way to an early grave?

I have other clients who refuse to eat the way I prescribe even knowing that I am offering a proven method and (almost) certain positive results. Again, I am flabbergasted.

Others want to train but can’t find time. (I don’t really think they want to train at all.)

Neglecting your own health and fitness for any reason is inexcusable. Careers and not more important that your health and fitness, neither are relationships, deadlines, movies, or any other excuse that you can come up with.

In much the same way that you cannot help the poor by attacking the rich; you cannot achieve success in your life without health and fitness (at least not in the long term).

More uncommonsense (fitness training)

Mar 10

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Exercise, Fitness, Yourself | 1 Comment

Here are a few truths that may rock the establishment boat just a little:

anaerobic training will improve your aerobic capacity
power training is necessary for performance gains in endurance athletes
fit ball training is not remotely as efficacious as lifting heavy weights overhead
you are never too old to deadlift
you squat everyday outside the gym, so why not squat inside it too
intense exercise hurts, that’s why so many people avoid it
exercise without proper nutrition is pointless
you use the same muscles day after day in the real world, so you can exercise the same muscles on consecutive days in the gym without disaster befalling you

How to improve your performance…now!

Feb 3

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Exercise, Fitness | No Comments

I used to have the slogan “Advancing Human Performance” printed on the back of CrossFit Victoria t-shirts. Whilst the slogan regularly changes, the concept does not. My methodology – filtered through to everyone at CFVIC – is all about Human Performance.

Everyone wants to improve (or at least they should). You, the reader, I’m sure are interested in improving your performance. The thing to understand is that performance improvements are easiest and most noticeable when you begin. As you get further in you pay a higher price for smaller improvements. You may plateau. You just have to keep pushing through.

So, here are two easy – well, easy enough – ways to improve your performance…

The first is nutrition. Get it in order. Your food is your fuel, oil, coolant (everything you need – thank you to Bjorn for the analogy). Get on the Paleo Diet as a start. When you get really serious, get on The Zone. I cannot stress how much of a difference this will make. Nutrition is the single most important aspect of your performance. Garbage in, garbage out.

Next, practice what you suck at. If you are bad at squats, then practice them. If you know your strength is sub-par then do all that you can to improve it. If you don’t like to run, then run!

You will not get better by continuing to do the same things that you are doing now. You must change your approach, assess it and modify as required. Our bodies need constantly varied challenges in order to adapt. Performance is all about getting everything in the right place and going at it.

Tags: CrossFit, Nutrition, performance

The hotel room workout

Jan 27

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Exercise, Fitness, Yourself | 5 Comments

If you’ve got a small space you can still get a killer workout. No tools needed. No enormous space required.

First, select 3-5 exercises from this list (search online for examples):

hollow rocks
burpies
push-ups
sit-ups
back extensions
jumping jacks (star jumps)
squats
lunges
tuck jumps

Now, select a workout format from this list:

3-5 rounds of 60 seconds per exercise
10 rounds of 10 repetitions of each exercise
50 repetitions of each exercise
100 repetitions of each exercise
Tabata intervals for 3-5 exercises

Now, get a stopwatch and complete your workout as quickly as you can.

You can get a great workout (in fact a great series of workouts) by following this method. It is not a complete fitness training program but will suffice when you are travelling or stuck indoors without equipement (due to the weather perhaps). You can even do the whole thing without moving from the place where you started.

How to get the most out of every workout

Jan 26

Posted by Adam Stanecki in Exercise, Fitness | No Comments

Fitness training scares a lot of people, others do it for the wrong reasons, some people are fanatical. It’s very personal.

We all ebb and flow through many aspects of our lives and the taking care of ourselves part is no exception. Sometimes we’re all over it, sometimes we just couldn’t give a hoot. I’d like to think that most of us really do care about our health and fitness but that is pain delusional (just look out the window if you need proof).

I make the bold assumption that as a reader of this blog you are interested (hopefully exceedingly so) in your health and fitness. I have been involved in the industry for a few years now and have seen far too many fads, ideas, plans and programs to remember let alone critique. Suffice to say most of these do not work for the simple reason that they are either not applied properly or are unsuitable to the individual in question.

Once you’ve made the commitment to training (and it is a commitment) you should expect results. If you are not getting results then something is wrong. Very wrong. Either you are doing something wrong, or you have the wrong information, or there’s a disconnect somewhere (your diet maybe). I hope you get my point.

Now, we finally get to the subject of the post (re-read the headline if I veered too far off course). Here are three ways to get the most out of every workout that you participate in:

Forget about the outside world

When you are training your entire consciousness should be focused upon yourself and your efforts in training. No thoughts should be wasted on what’s going on at work, what you have to prepare for dinner, why you can’t find that black sock. Your mind and body must be connected and in complete alignment for you to achieve amazing results. (Case in point: how many people do you know that read magazines whilst walking on a treadmill who are dramatically fitter in three months?)

Make your workouts a meditation. Strip away all the craziness of the outside world. Clear your mind. Focus completely on yourself. Be a little selfish.

Get your diet in order

I am sure you’ve heard this before. It does warrant a reminder though. Diet is the key to your success even in singular workouts. What you eat before and after your workouts have a direct correlation to how you perform during your workouts. That’s not rocket science, it’s just plain simple truth. Don’t for a second think that a post-workout recovery drink will suffice. You have to be on the ball all (or at least most) of the time.

Your degree of diligence in following a sensible nutrition plan (either the Paleo or Zone diet or both) will directly correlate to your performance. If you adhere 80% of the time you will get 80% of the rewards and so on.

Get competitive

Competition is an amazing motivator. Even those people who say they are not competitive really are, it’s just they compete differently to the rest of us. And even those people will get competitive in a group, it’s just human nature. No one likes to come last.

You don’t necessarily have to compete against anyone else. You can compete against yourself. All you need to do is record your workout results and always aim to do better next time. Always aiming to improve is competition against yourself. What greater motivation do you need than to do better than before or to beat the guy or girl next to you?

Tags: motivation, workout