Enjoy it!

I've been under the weather enough that I haven't even been able to get out to the gyms to coach.  Without being dramatic, I really miss being under a heavy bar and seeing others struggle and succeed.  Being sick for the last week has given me some more perspective on training.  Enjoy it!  You don't know what might happen to remove you from the training hall for a few days, a week, or forever.  Be in the moment.  You aren't doing workouts just to do workouts.  We don't exercise here, we train.  Each time you enter the gym, it's a sacred space where you set aside the day and just live for an hour or so.  Hopefully, it's not the only part of life where you get to do that, but it's certainly one of the easiest.  Have fun with your training.  Train with people you like.  Make all the progress you can in the time that you have.  Most of all, just simply appreciate that you have a body and mind that can do the things we do day-in and day-out.

From now on, when presented with a workout that looks rough, erase phrases like, "That sucks!" and "I don't want to do that" from your vocabulary.  Instead look at every hurdle as an opportunity to learn something about yourself and improve.  You're doing everything you can to be more awesome every time you slay the dragon in front of you.  So never stop fighting.  When faced with the choice between training and watching one more episode of whatever on netflix, cancel your netflix and get to the gym, or on the trail, or the road, etc.  Work your tail off while you have time to do so, because there is a time coming when you will not be able to train like you do now.

While my illness is a minor and very temporary set back, it provides some focus.  What is important to me and why?  I'll tell you this, the first priority is not the gym.  I haven't been able to play with my infant daughter or spend much quality time with my lovely wife for most of the week due to my consistent elevated temperature, and that's a way bigger bummer than missing a training session or two.  It's reminded me that I do really enjoy lifting and coaching, and besides being bored out of my mind on quarantine, I'm beyond ready to get back to the gym.  I hope I'll see you there!

Exercising or Training?

When you think of the word exercise, what comes to mind?  Walking in circles in the woods carrying heavy stuff on military duty?  A thought experiment?  If you're like me, the first thing that comes to mind is the cardio theater.  25 treadmills lined up facing televisions to keep you entertained while you burn calories.  That concept alone is pretty crazy.  Think about this: if you are reading this blog, you likely live in a place where calories are so available and affordable that it's nothing to you to spend money on a gym membership to go and burn them.  That logic should shake you up a little bit.  Are you just exercising so you can burn calories, essentially wasting the energy that you consume on a daily basis?  I hope not, that's a pretty circular and pointless exercise, at least to me.

So what's the alternative to exercising and burning calories?  Simple, it's training.  So what's the difference?  As I noted above, exercising is essentially just moving around aimlessly.  Training is working towards a goal.  What is the point of basic training?  It is to produce something, a baseline capable soldier.  When you talk to a triathlete who is preparing for a big race, they will tell you they are training for it.  A strength athlete getting ready for a big meet?  S/He's training.

Consider why you're heading to the gym in the first place.  It is not my goal to get the exercisers out of the gym, although that could free up many occupied squat racks.  (Unless you own it, don't curl in it.)  Instead, I want to infuse their exercising with purpose and transform them into trainees.  If you want to think more on setting goals to give your training value, I recommend that you start here, with my article on setting SMART goals.

Need help figuring out how to apply the SMART principle to your training?  I'm always happy to help.  You can reach me through the comments or my email disruptivefitness@gmail.com.  Further, there are other goal oriented trainees and trainers hanging out at our facebook group who would love to get you know you and help you out.  As always, thanks for reading and supporting this blog.

23 Hour Rule: Sitting is the Slow Death

You're a gym rat, addicted to training.  You work hard in the gym on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis.  We're lifers here, there's no end to training until there are at least 6 feet of dirt holding you down.  You're doing everything right for about 1 hour a day, but what about the other 23?  When I taught school, and now as a coach and trainer, I often refer to the 23 Hour Rule.  You cannot undo 23 bad hours in 1 good hour a day.  This is especially true since most people only train 2-3 days per week.  That means that you have an accumulated 165 hours per week outside the gym with 3 in the gym.  That's a ratio of about 56 to 1.

There are a variety of things that the 23 Hour Rule applies to in everyday life.  Today we're going to key in on posture.  In the gym, position is power.  That means that if I am able to move correctly as I squat, run, jump, and pull, I will have greater output and therefore greater results.  It also means that I can do all the things I enjoy doing in the gym for the rest of my life instead of creating overuse injuries from poor movement over long periods of time.  Remember the ratio above, if you train for about 3 hours per week, your time outside the gym to time inside the gym ratio is about 56:1.  That means if you are moving with poor posture 56 times more often than you pay attention to movement you are never going to be able to correct that with just time in the gym.  If you spend a great deal of that time in a seat, the resulting posture is even worse.  Will your training time help?  Absolutely, if you are paying attention to position and form as you train.  (You are doing that right?  New gym personal records aren't worth being injured and missing training and future personal records.)

The Problem

Most Americans spend most of their time sitting down.  That would be great if it wasn't for the fact that your body was made for motion.  The only time you should be stationary for extended periods of time is when you're asleep.  It also means that you can very easily go a full week without bending any of the joints from your hips down to your ankles past 90 degrees.  You wake up and roll out of bed, walk to the breakfast table and sit down.  You get in the car for your commute to your desk where you sit for the next 8-10 hours.  Back to the car to the living room where you sit for the remainder of the evening before going to bed and doing it all again.  Why is this a problem?  Because it teaches your body that it only needs to move through these abbreviated ranges of motion.  That means very tight hips and ankles and knees that have to be unnaturally mobile.  This leads to lower back pain, hip pain, knee pain, ankle pain, pain pain, and all kinds of other things that you do not want.  In gym talk that means your squats will be terrible, you won't be able to get into position to deadlift correctly, you'll probably run and jump poorly, and you'll always have to contend with pain.  I think you can see that this is an undesirable situation.

The Solution

Move!  No seriously, get up from your desk every 15-20 minutes, even if it's just to stand up for a minute before returning to your chair.  Get a bluetooth headset so you can walk and talk.  Even better, get a standing desk and be a trendsetter in your office.  You'll be amazed how much more alert you are as you shake off the malaise that is the result of hours upon hours of sitting.  When you get home at the end of the day, don't just plant yourself on the couch for the remainder of the evening.  Go for a walk, play in the floor with your kids, do the 1 or 2 projects you've been avoiding around the house because you're just "too tired" to do anything else.  A moving body is a happy body.  And if you reduce the ratio of sedentary to active and good positions and posture to bad position from 56:1 to almost anything else, you'll see the benefits.

Stay tuned for more thoughts on the 23 Hour Rule as we move forward.  We'll cover more topics regarding posture, nutrition, recovery, and a handful of other things to which the 23 Hour Rule applies.  In the meantime, get up and move around.  Right now.  As always, you can interact with this and other topics in the comments or by emailing me at disruptivefitness@gmail.com.  If you'd like to get a notification in your inbox when there is a new blog or video available, enter your email in the box to the right to subscribe.

What should I eat? (New Video)

If you would like to see what I encourage my clients to eat, check out this video below.  It's so simple that it doesn't make much sense.  There are no silly rules, no confusing macro nutrient timing issues, just easy to follow advice that gets results.  You don't have to eat 6 or 8 times per day.  You don't have to weigh or measure your food.  If you will start here, you will see results.  Take the 30 day challenge that I issue in the video below and let me know how it works for you!

I apologize for the image quality, the lighting was pretty poor in the gym this morning.  I'm certainly open to suggestions as to how to make better quality videos, and the next phone I but will have a solid camera in it for sure.