It's Not About What It's About How

We tend to look for a specific formula when trying to gain success in something in life as humans. We look at successful people and we want to mimic what they did to attain what they have. I remember thinking when I was younger that if I could just be like Tony Robbins I would get all the stuff that he has. I was wrong.

I also remember thinking that if I did Karate like Bruce Lee did, my life would end up like his with fame and fortune. No fame and fortune yet. I remember thinking about all these things and wondering how come some people could manage to make it and others not. And then one day it dawned it on me. Instead of looking at the results they have achieved, I started to look at how they were thinking and what they were doing to achieve those results.

It is true that there are many sports in the world right? Yet in every sport we find individuals who really excel to a point of super stardom. Why is that? And if they can do it, why can't we? The first thing we need to remember is that all of us are individuals and what works for one person might not necessarily work for someone else because individual skills vary due to our genetic disposition. But we all can be superstars at something, remember that.

The answer that dawned on me all those years ago was that it doesn't matter what I do but rather how I do it. That's they key to success in anything in life not just sports or physical training. In order to keep this site true to the theme of teaching let's use some examples that are conducive to physical training.

You could lift a weight 50 different ways and get minimal results. You could have access to a gym with over 1000 different machines and still see no results. It's how you train that is important. It's what you do to activate muscle growth that is important otherwise what's the point of going to the gym then right?

This is what made all the difference for my wife and I in our training programmes. We used to do so many exercises, I really mean many when I say that. This kind of curl for that kind of muscle and this lift for that muscle and it was all because we had no understanding of how our bodies actually build muscle. Now we do and we share that with you so that you don't have to make the same mistakes we did and waste months and years figuring it out. That does not mean that you should not test things out for yourself. The spice of life is in trying things out for ourselves.

Familiarise yourself with the training principles and give them a try. If everything you have tried up to now has not worked then you have nothing to lose but absolutely everything to gain. Remember that training has nothing to do with equipment. It has everything to do with knowing HOW to get the desired result you want from what you have available to you.

If you haven't been active in a while then that's great because these programmes are designed for those who have no experience or who have not been active in a very long time. I know because I was someone who wasn't active for a very long time and I felt the uneasiness of not being able to run down the street or play a game of soccer with mates because I was so unfit. It's never too late to get back into it. Start here.

I'm Involved In Sports Why Do I Need Weights

This is a really curious question and one I found myself facing a couple of years ago when I was a sportsman playing basketball. I had the fitness, the skill and a body I was proud of and that friends and co-coaches commented on. I had no need of weight lifting or any sort if I had it that good right? Not entirely.

Before I get into a semi detailed lecture (just kidding) let's chat quickly about sports specific fitness and what we aim to do here which is build muscle for long term health. Being proficient in a specific sport, whether it be tennis, hockey, rugby, soccer or whatever sport you love required muscle training of an entirely different nature. Learning to swing a racket and getting your muscles trained to execute the specfic movement required is very different from say, single arm dumbbell curls right?

Remember way back in the first few articles of this blog I spoke about homeostasis and the body's inherent natural ability to find a way to make things less complicated and easier to manage? This is what happens when we become proficient in something and there is no external stress to continue pushing us. We get used to the exercise and eventually find ourselves working out for longer just to maintain a previous state of fitness that is no longer acceptable or causing us to win anymore.

Introduce weights to your routine to train the muscles involved in your sport and all of a sudden you now have an external stress that will continue to keep your body growing and getting stronger. Why is that a good thing? Two very skilled golf players hit their golf balls from the same starting point. One guy however hits significantly farther than the other guy. One of the two guys is stronger. One of the two guys lift weights.

Another fine thing to remember for our sports people out there is that when a sportsperson gets injured and can no longer do the actions their sport requires due to injury, those muscles atrophy because they're not being used. Therapy will then put the person on a weight lifting programme to nurse the muscles back to health and beyond.

So to all my sports starts out there: up your game, get in the gym and train smart.