Yep, The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. Ok, so I've mentioned it before. But I think the movie's various messages are what a lot of people need to hear.

The main thing that I took away from the movie was Socrates' idea of athletics from an internal motivation. Remember the scene where he took Dan out in back of the garage and showed him a set of gymnastic rings and told him to do the rings just for the sake of doing the rings?

That kind of motivation is what is missing in both sports and the fitness industry at large. Sports is all about winning and external motivations like medals, trophies, etc. Fitness is usually about how you look or some other shallow motivation. But internally driven fitness satisfies a deep human need to move and enjoy skilled movement for its own sake. It become about expressing and enjoying your body at a more efficient level. 

Yes, the movie is cheesy but how could it not appear so? The message runs so completely counter to modern thought that it must appear silly. But if you look past the cheese, there are some important messages in the film and book.

Check it out.

This is our student Cat. She lost a dramatic amount of weight through our training and we salute her hard work. She shows what training at Formosa Fitness can do for you. Way to go, Cat!

Here's what I did today with the 12kg kettlebell:

swings 2x25L/25R

clean and press 2x25L/25R

snatches 2x25L/25R

squats 2x25L/25R

push press 2x25L/25R

lunges 2x25L/25R

600 reps total and rest only as needed to catch the breath

I don't usually work with the 12kg kettlebell any more except to teach but I wanted this type of low intensity/high density work out today.

This type of work out hits everything and shows that you can still get a good challenge out of a kettlebell that may feel a bit lighter to you. This extends the life of the kettlebell, meaning that you don't necessarily have to go out and buy a heavier one unless you just want to.

Enjoy your kettlebell work.

One of the biggest misconceptions people have about nutrition is that if they start eating healthy, they can never again eat their favorite foods. Since they know they can never give it up completely, they feel they will fail so why even try. So then they say, "What the hell. Pass the bag of potato chips." That's not how it works.

You don't have to give any food up completely. It just isn't necessary. You simply have to stop abusing the priviledge of eating fast or heavy foods.

How to do that? Learn to eat according to a healthy nutrition plan like Precision Nutrition and stick to it 90% of the time. That means you can indulge somewhat for 10% of your meals each week.

But right here is where people run into trouble. They're usually glad to know they can indulge once in a while, but then they immediately rebel against the idea of eating healthy 90% of the time. If you eat healthy 90% of the time and you eat 5 small meals a day, that means you get to splurge for about four meals a week. Oh no, doesn't sound so fun now.

Two things:

One, unless someone learns to stop emotional eating, gain control of their life and eating habits, and learn to DELAY gratification, then they will NEVER get fit. NEVER.

Now this can be a process, it can take a long time, you can make small changes slowly as a kind of fitness and nutrition on-ramp, etc. But eventually someone is going to have to look at a bag of Doritoes and say "no." It's going to have to happen sometime. So expect it. The gain is delayed gratification in the form of weight loss and looking great. You trade that little pleasure of stuffing your face today for looking great naked later. There, I said it.

Second, you'd be surpsrised how good a well-prepared burger is when you don't eat them all the time. These foods become pleasure foods again, not staples, as they were intended to be. There's no way you should be eating at Burger King everyday if you're overweight. You probably don't even taste it any more if you it every day. Have it once a week at most and learn to savor it.

So remember, you don't have to give it up permanently. You just have to let it have it's proper place in your overall diet.

I see this a lot -- a fitness guru does something that seems unusual and the peanut gallery snickers behind their hands. Yeah, look at that silly stuff he/she says works. Now ask yourself why the guru gets the results they get and the peanut gallery remains the peanut gallery every year. Who's laughing now?

If you want to be high level at anything, then you MUST stop doing what everyone else is doing. You have to be willing to have friends or family say, "What the hell are you doing?" In fact, if they don't then you're probably not doing things right.

The masses are mediocre and tend to act like crabs in a barrel. Try to crawl out and they pull you back down.

If everyone around you is extremely overweight and you really try to lose your weight, expect a backlash. You'll be told, "Who do you think you are? Do you think you're better than everyone else?" Your answer should be, "You bet I do. And I'm going to prove." Then do it.

I don't much care for being elite, so don't misunderstand. I'm not a world champion at anything, but I can make a pretty mean tub of popcorn. But I also feel exactly ZERO inclination to do what others around me are doing. In fact, a pretty good formula for success is to look around at what everyone else is doing (notice how seldom they get results?) and do the EXACT OPPOSITE.

It's harsh and it's cruel and it's not politically correct. So what? But the fact of the matter is that successful people are willing to do the things unsuccessful people are not. The sooner you realize that this applies to fitness and dieting as much as anything else in life, the sooner you'll start making progress.

I'll step down from the podium now. :)

First of all, it likely took you a while to get to 400lbs. so it's going to take a while to get the weight off. Don't let "The Biggest Loser" fool you. You're likely talking in terms of years. So don't pressure yourself to change everything all at once. go slow.

Second, I'd recommend walking 30 minutes a day everyday. And do it. Don't fall into the "I don't have time" trap because everyone really does. Some people just don't want it badly enough.

Third, diet and nutrition is what gets everyone. People may exercise but few want to change what they eat. I'd recommend that you just take one step by not drinking anything but water. No sodas, no juice, no nothing but water. Keep your eating habits where they are for now.

Take one step into eating better and one into exercising and stick to it. Then go from there.

Finally, when you do slip up by not exercising one day or having one soda then don't beat yourself up and quit the program. It's very common for people to say, "I had one cookie, I ruined my diet and exercise program. Give me the bag." If you do that, there's no hope. Set your goal at 90% compliance and seriously aim for it. I allow myself two sodas a week. Bumps now and then won't sidetrack you.

Good luck.

Today: 19 reps and almost finished 20.

Totals: 98 pullups, 200 pushups, 293 squats. Overall total: 591, just 9 short of a 600.

Needless to say, I'm a happy camper today. :) That's the best ever for me.

So I'm not putting these numbers up to impress anyone. Some of you studs and studettes can do this in your sleep. Instead, I want to make two points.

1. Having a fitness test every now and then let's you know where you are and where you need to go.

2. working escalating density style (EDT) is a great way to stay motivated.

Expounding on point two, what makes Cindy tick is that it's an EDT style workout: you want to do more volume by even the smallest amount each time you do the workout. And an increase of just 1 in any exercise shows that you're making progress.

Do you realize how inspiring that is?

Instead of dreading going to the gym, each workout becomes a part of an overall competition in which you're competing with yourself. Do one single more rep than last time on the test and you win. That's progress. No, I don't make every workout a competition as that would put way too much pressure on me and I'd burn out. This is where point one comes into play. I make the fitness test my competition with myself. I pick a single day (and not too often) and go for it. That's what I did today and it was great.

Have a great day. :)

The results?

My snatch has gotten a whole lot stronger and the hardstyle idea of building the swing before the snatch obviously makes sense. You can't hope to snatch weight you aren't comfortable swinging.

Additionally I've found that swinging the 12kg bell for 80-100 reps makes a great warmup if I'm short of time. I never thought of using swings as a warmup before the challenge but I can say now that they work.

So what's up for December? Not sure yet, but kicking around the idea of a burpee challenge. I did 50 today so....

I just ordered this DVD and the book from Bodytribe Fitness. Out of all the small gyms in the links to your lower right down there, the one that impresses me most is Bodytribe Fitness. It's just everything about them. I love the blend of weightlifting, kettlebells, Indian clubs, sandbags, flow yoga, etc. And their place is beautiful. NOT your typical gym, is it?

Fact is, neither I nor any other fitness professional can give someone the motivation to call or otherwise take that first step. It has to begin with the client.But the old cliche applies: the client has to WANT to change.

And it really, really saddens me to see the people that just will not do that until something catastrophic in terms of health has taken place.

But that's what has to happen for most people to get motivated. The idea of "an ounce of prevention..." simply doesn't exist in America or a lot of other places any more and it won't again for a very long time. With no crisis, there's apparently no motivation.

Thing is, many of these people wait until it's just too late. You can manage some health issues, you can make things slightly better. But at a certain point, it's really too late to change things around. Decisions have been made even if people don't want to face those facts and consequences will have to lived with.

I BEG you, don't wait until it's too late. Act now and take control of your health while you can still turn things around. 

One thing that has bothered me over the past month is whether or not to include the kettlebell snatch in my program. It's a tough lift and possibly too much for some fitness clients. For one thing, it's tough on your hands. You run the possibility of tearing the skin on your palm if your technique is off and you do too many at the beginning -- two things that are very hard to avoid when practice is exactly what you need.

So how to solve the problem?

I've looked at most everything on the snatch available and most of it is waaaay too extreme. Doing 200 snatches with the 24kg etc. is great and all but beginners need a mile long on-ramp before they are ready for anything like that. But descriptions of that on-ramp are few and far between. So I've been looking at building my own. 

What I came up with was intervals -- specifically a :15 work, :15 rest interval and switching hands every :30. This means :15 of work and :45 of rest for each hand -- plenty of time to let the hand recover. Plenty of time to know whether or not the hand is getting over-stressed.

None of the typical stuff was working for me. Long sets, even with multiple hand switches, was ripping the crap out of my hands. That's just a no-go. It was really hard to teach with ripped up hands. Not gonna happen. Besides, the protocol itself was going to rule out beginners. One minute of snatching is too much.

I've been working with this protocol for a few weeks and I love it. It got me from the 16 to the 20 and now the 24kg in a much shorter order than anything else I was trying. Yesterday I did the 24kg for 5:00 and the 20kg for 5:00 back to back. That was 50 snatches with the 24kg and 50 with the 20kg in 10:00. No hands tears whatsoever and that's unheard of for me on this volume at this weight.

So try it out and see what you think.

Snatches with the 32kg kettlebell. Excellent. Shows what consistent training with good coaches can do.

Last time I tried to press it was July and that was a no-go. Lifting it is on my agenda but haven't gotten around to it yet.

And LOL up it went. No problem. After I calmed down, I tried it again to see if I was seeing things but no, I pressed it again. So you know what I did then, right?

Had to see how many times I could press it. Answer: five. What about the left? Five. So want to guess what I did then?

Yep, got to see how many sets I could do. Answer: 3 sets of 5 left and 5 right. Well, almost. Set 3 stopped at 4 on the right and 3 on the left.

So I'm happy yet embarassed a little about this. For one, I should try this stuff out a little more often. I need to have more confidence in my training sometimes. This stuff really does work. Been too focused on trees instead of the forest lately.

Second, I'm not sure how I did this. I had hoped to train in a systematized fashion through sets and reps of the 20, 24, 28 and then the 32. I was going to have this great program that clients could follow, just like I did. Except now that's ruined because I didn't plan for this. Haha.

I've been reading a lot of stuff by Charles Staley and Dan John lately so that's likely the source of how I did this. The escalating density training (EDT) is no joke. You got to get some of that, if you haven't already. I did a cycle with the double 24kg of double presses and double rows for about a month. But the numbers were fairly stable the whole time. Then later I did another EDT cycle of pullups and dips that was really fun. Actually, I'm still doing that one. But it must be working in spades. I know my pullups are at an all-time high.

I'm also doing some other things that might be contributing too, but in any case, it's all working. Who can tell? I've added Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey over the last month and have been trying to follow Precision Nutrition lately. It's all good.

Anyway, I'm feeling really, really good today and hope to drag some of the things I'm learning along the way into classes. I love seeing clients get stronger while staying healthy and I always make myself the guinea pig.

So train hard and stay safe this weekend!

Never.

Most people's idea about exercise and energy is completely reversed. Here's the real deal: you work out first and THEN you get the energy.

Counterintuitive I know but there it is.

It works like this. If you don't exercise then your body seeks equilibrium. You aren't going to have a massive amount of energy one day to start a fitness program. Why would you? Where would it come from? Your body has gotten used to its current state. To get more energy, you have to break out of that equilibrium.

When you start exercising, your body becomes more efficient with energy. That means you will feel more energy as that efficiency increases.

You'll also find that movement stimulates your mind. We all have a human need to MOVE but many people don't fulfill it. Moving improves your mood and gets you on a positive feedback loop. You start feeling better. Combine this with diet and you start getting synergistic effects -- the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Then you start looking better and feeling better and...

So don't wait for an energy blast that will never come. If you want to feel more energetic in your life, start moving! 

Because...well...why not? Love how he describes the advantages of the kettlebell curl.

http://strengthandphysique.blogspot.com/ This is his blog. I have one of his books and it's great. Check him out.

Learn to eat right with the best nutrition program available: Precision Nutrition. Offered exclusively in Taiwan at Formosa Fitness, this program will teach you to eat right and reach your fitness goals. Precision Nutrition isn't just another diet book. It's an entire nutrition education system that uses manuals, video, and MP3s to give you what you need to succeed. Eating right is hard enough as it is. You need information you can take with you wherever you are.

Precision Nutrition provides that information.

Don't confuse this program with a diet. We aren't talking about just cutting out junk foods. Precision Nutrition teaches you to use your food to fuel body change. Make your food work FOR you instead of against you! By taking control of your diet, you turn the dinner table into an ally instead of an enemy. This gives you confidence because every meal is one step closer to success.

Just cutting out junk isn't the answer. If you don't replace those empty calories meals and snacks with healthy, tasty food, then you aren't likely to reach your goals. This is why simple deprivation doesn't work well. But cutting through the confusing mass of science and nutrition information takes too long. Trust the Precision Nutrition system to steer you down the right path!

Want more information? Click here for a free 42 page introduction to the system (PDF).

Call today to get started!

Comments greatly appreciated.

I've looked around for the program that I feel will be the most practical for clients and Precision Nutrition is it. Weight loss, weight gain, gout management, etc. are all covered under the progam. It's practical because it uses foods you can get most anywhere. It's very clear on the requirements, making is easier to follow than some other programs.

As far as I know, I'm the only one in Taiwan offering the program so I can provide a great service for clients. Nutrition is really the missing piece of the puzzle in modern fitness. What people do the other 23 and a half hours outside my studio is more important than what they do in it. Precision Nutrition will help people get that part of their lives in order.

If weight loss or gain is your goal, come talk to me about this great program today!

Why?

NO system that any human has developed is perfect. If there was a perfect piece of software, a perfect fitness routine, a perfect anything, then we'd all have it or be doing it. But they don't exist. Humans are imperfect and imperfectable beings. Everything has benefits and costs. It's simply a matter of weighing the costs vs. benefits.

By that measure, some systems are clearly better than others considering what we are aiming for. If you have a goal, find the path that will get you there safely and efficiently.

When those conditions are satisfied, I quit picking at it. If it's getting you what you want, they why keep looking around? Why keep being skeptical? Because it can't be proven mathmatically every time or isn't quantifiable 100%?

Who cares?

Sometimes we need to turn the nerd inside off and go to work. If it's working, leave it the alone. :)