Aug 11
16
Top 10 Habits of Elite Athletes
Kevin Neeld, writing for Fox News Health, lists 10 habits of elite athletes which you can adopt in your life to get better results in your training program.
10. Envision Success
Most athletes recognize that a significant proportion of performance is mental. Yet it’s uncommon for most men to spend any time on mind training and preparation. Elite athletes frequently report visualizing their success before it happens.
9. Cool Down
Athletes perform cooldowns specific to their activity. An athlete with an outstanding, balanced range of motion who just completed a lifting session may not require a cooldown at all. In contrast, an older athlete who just completed an interval training session will benefit from some low-intensity movement and calf and hip flexor-specific stretches. Cooldowns help facilitate recovery by processing metabolic waste products, restoring shortened muscles to their resting length, and allowing the athlete to unwind mentally.
8. Consume Sports Drinks
Optimal performance hinges on optimal fuel and hydration. Athletes consume sports drinks with easily digested carbohydrates and electrolytes.
7. Identify With Successes
Nothing will cripple performance like damaged confidence. Every mistake holds a lesson, but dwelling on mistakes will inevitably lead to their repetition.
6. Post-Game Training
Many athletes train immediately after a game. This comes as a surprise to many men, but it’s important to remember that the goal of in-season training is primarily to maintain improvements made in the off-season.
5. Pre- And Post-training Nutrition
Providing proper fuel before and after both training and competition can have a significant impact on performance and recovery. Athletes make sure they get the nutrition they need to maximize their intensity, energy and recovery.
4. Get Quality Sleep
Sleep provides the environment and time the body needs to repair damaged muscles, restore optimal hormonal balance and facilitate mental recovery and overall freshness.
3. Follow An Individualized Training Program
Most high-level athletes benefit from training under the supervision of a strength and conditioning coach. While some of these professionals are better than others, athletes will get better results following a structured program than they will on their own. It’s human nature to focus on what you’re good at, which isn’t always what you need. By following a professionally designed training program with components of individualization, athletes are more likely to improve their weaknesses and overall performance and decrease their injury risk. Quality training often allows less-skilled athletes to compete at higher levels and can add years to a career.
2. Set Goals
Nothing ensures success like setting goals and constantly working toward them. Athletes do this on a regular basis. Goals can be performance or habit based. Performance goals could be something like, “I will complete 75% of my passes today.” While completing a pass is dependent upon a teammate catching it, habit goals are less dependent on external influences.
1. Work With Coaches
Athletes are fortunate to work with a variety of coaches invested in their success. In many cases, coaches are what make everything else on this list possible.
Source:
Fox News Health August 12, 2011
Rob’s Comments
While most of us are not going to compete at an elite level, we can all benefit from adopting many of these habits.
Habits 10, 7 and 2, all deal with the mental aspects of success.
Many of us sabotage our fitness either by not visualizing at all, or by visualizing our current habits. Instead, spend time visualizing your health, fitness and even your life as you really want it. Without limit. Do this regularly and you will start behaving more like the healthy and fit person you want to be. And your results will show!
Habit 2 on goal setting points out the difference between performance and habit based goals. Most people miss this important distinction when they start a fitness program. How often have you heard a friend join a gym or start a diet and say they want to lose 10 or 20 pounds?
Now how often do they succeed? Not very often, right?
The issue is they start the program with an outcome in mind (lose weight, fit into their skinny jeans), but without a goal to develop the habits or daily disciplines which, when consistently practiced, lead to that outcome.
When you decide to start a fitness program, set some habit goals along with your desired outcome. Examples of habit goals include attending boot camp 3 times each week or eating a healthy breakfast every day this week.
These habits accumulate and lead you to the outcome you want.
The take away from habit number 6, Post-Game Training, is that our bodies can’t handle constant training stress. While many of us don’t have game days or seasons, we still need to train intensely and couple that training with full recovery.
Which leads me to…
Habit number 4 Get Quality Sleep. This one is missing in the vast majority of people I work with. In fact most of us get far too little sleep and the sleep we do get is poor quality. Some tips to improve your sleep include make your room as dark as possible and sleep 8 to 9.5 hours a night.
Can’t imagine sleeping that many hours? OK then your test is you should wake feeling refreshed and without the need for an alarm clock.
A great book on the subject is Lights Out! Sleep, Sugar and Survival by T.S. Wiley and Bent Formby.
Habits 3 and 1 suggest you Follow an Individualized Training Program and Work With Coaches. All I can say here is if elite athletes need coaches, why don’t you?
There are options available to fit any personality and budget. One on one personal training, small group training and boot camps are the most popular.
To help you fit a coach into your budget, let me suggest you use a trainer strategically. I’m going to share a secret with you. The true value of a professional trainer lies in the program he or she designs for you. Once you are proficient in the movements, you may not need the trainer watching over you every time you are at the gym.
Instead maybe you need the trainer to set up your program for the month, get you started on it and then check in on you during the month. Then you repeat that cycle the next month. That way you may use 2 or 3 sessions with your coach per month while you are getting 12 or more workouts in your program.
Finally habit number 8 suggest you use sports drinks. Be careful with this one as most sports drinks are loaded with sugar and may actually hinder your results, especially if you are trying to lose fat.
Set a habit goal to adopt some of these habits of elite athletes and see your results improve.
Here’s a kettlebell and bodyweight workout you can do with minimal equipment, space and time.
It’s based on supersets, pairing a kettlebell exercise with a non-competing bodyweight exercise.
The workout uses 30 seconds for both the work time and rest time. As I mention in the video, one of the variables you can modify is the rest period. Rest period is often overlooked as a programming variable, but it can be a powerful tool to improve the results you’re getting from your workouts.
Here’s the workout:
3 rounds of
1A. Kettlebell Clean and Press – 30 seconds right and 30 seconds left
1B. Lunges – 30 seconds
Rest 30 seconds
2A. Single Arm kettlebell swings – 30 seconds right and 30 seconds left
2B. Sit thru – 30 seconds
Rest 30 seconds
3A. Figure 8 to a hold – 30 seconds
3B. Push-ups
Rest 30 seconds
4A. Burpee to goblet squat – 30 seconds
Rest 30 seconds
For the video, I skipped the rest periods, but they’re an important part of the burst-recovery-burst protocol so you want to keep them in when you try this workout.
Give this workout a try and let me know what you think.
Does getting fit with 3 30 minute workouts per week sound good to you?
Why not give our “30 Minute Express Boot Camp” a try.
Click the button below to get started with a 1 Week VIP Trial membership.
How To Get In Shape With 30 Minute Workouts
Many experts recommend that adults get a minimum of 2 and one half hours of moderate intensity physical activity each week. The key words here are “moderate intensity” because they suggest that the type of exercise called “cardio” is the best form.
This has been the recommendation for quite some time, yet the incidence of obesity, as well as lifestyle driven diseases such as Type II Diabetes continues to explode. Clearly something is not working.
We have practiced shorter high intensity interval style workouts in our Brandon boot camps for many years with great results. If you’re not getting the results you want from your fitness program, maybe it’s time to make the switch.
Many studies support the idea that shorter, high intensity workouts provide better results in a fraction of the time.
A recent study in the Journal of Physiology found that workouts consisting of about 20 minutes of high intensity interval training resulted in the same benefit as longer workouts that focused on endurance training.
This is good news for busy people. One of the biggest obstacles to beginning an exercise program is finding the time. This may become an excuse of the past, because more and more research is showing that you can cut your training time dramatically and reap more benefits.
How to do interval training
There are several types of interval training, but the kind we want to use alternates short periods of high intensity work (20-60 seconds) with periods of rest.
This type of training can be used to improve all aspects of your fitness and metabolic health as well as reduce your risk of chronic diseases.
And as a bonus, it improves your fat burning abilities.
Almost any type of training is suited to intervals. Everything from cardio machines, to lifting weights to bodyweight circuits can be used.
My personal favorite is bodyweight circuits. They can be done anywhere and can be adapted to any fitness level. There is also an endless variety of exercises, ranging from simple squats and push-ups you remember from gym class, to very advanced drills. Bodyweight circuits are our favorite in our boot camps.
Why do intervals work so well?
Intervals are a natural fit for our bodies. Our ancestors didn’t usually run mile after mile, but rather participated in bursts of high intensity activity followed by periods of rest.
When you exercise in short bursts, followed by periods of recovery, you are recreating this pattern, giving your body what it needs to function optimally. You will also maximize your fat loss, while dramatically improving your heart health and endurance.
Issues with traditional cardio
Modern cardio training has been the cornerstone of fitness industry recommendations for almost 40 years. During that time, it has not proven to be nearly effective enough. Here are some of the reasons why.
- Traditional cardio training takes far too much time to get the desired result. Several studies have compared interval training to traditional cardio training for health and fat loss. Intervals always come out on top.
- Cardio training burns fat as fuel during the workout. But that’s what we want right? Well no, because if your body gets the message that it needs fat to fuel your workouts, it will respond by keeping more on hand when you need it. Interval training, on the other hand, burns sugar for fuel, sending your body the message that it’s alright to release it’s fat stores.
- Traditional cardio is boring. Every day it’s the same thing. Intervals can be done in nearly infinite combinations of time protocols and exercise combinations.
Try This Interval Training Workout
Here’s a simple bodyweight interval workout you can do in under 20 minutes.
15/15 supersets
Do 15 seconds of work and 15 seconds of rest for 5 minutes of each of these supersets. Rest 1-2 minutes between each superset.
A) squat and push-up
B) mountain climber and lunge
C) skaters and plank
You start with 15 seconds of squats, followed by 15 seconds of rest. Then 15 seconds of push-ups and 15 seconds of rest. Continue alternating for 5 minutes, then rest and repeat for supersets B and C. The entire workout looks like this:
Superset A: 5 minutes
Rest 1-2 minutes
Superset B: 5 minutes
Rest 1-2 minutes
Superset C: 5 minutes
The whole workout takes 17-19 minutes, depending on your rest period. As you get used to the protocol, increase the work time for each superset to 6 minutes.
Here’s a video showing one round of each superset.
Make the Switch
Most Americans either get too little exercise or too much of the wrong type. This has resulted in two-thirds of the adult population being overweight. And millions more suffering with high cholesterol, high blood pressure and type II diabetes.
Elevated insulin levels are a primary driver of these conditions and exercise is one of the most effective tools to help you reduce your insulin levels.
Exercise will help you reduce the chance of getting many diseases and it’s far less expensive than any medical intervention.
And as a final benefit, you will look and feel great!
Free VIP Boot Camp Trial
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Jun 11
28
The Nutrition Continuum
I often talk of nutrition as a continuum with the SAD Diet on one end and “Perfect” nutrition on the other. We make the point that a lot of people tend toward the SAD end of the continuum and the epidemic status of dis-eases like obesity, diabetes and coronary diseases are the results.
It is becoming more and more evident that a lot of the diseases we associate with aging are not natural parts of the aging process at all, but are more likely side effects of the way we live.
Cultural and technological changes in the last 10,000 years have outpaced our genome’s ability to adapt. In short we have “caveman” bodies but live in a modern world.
The idea behind the continuum is that you probably won’t have perfect nutrition all the time. Rather you’ll tend to shift along the continuum to fit your lifestyle and desire/need to optimize your health. The continuum is simply a visual cue to help you see where you are and where you want to be.
While you’ll probably move around a bit, your goal should be to settle your nutrition as far to the right as possible over time.
How Do You Move Along The Continuum?
One of the challenges our clients sometimes face in improving their nutrition is feeling like they have to make immediate and drastic lifestyle changes. They feel as though they have to change everything all at once or they won’t get any results. When you realize the addictive nature of sugars and grains in our diets, it becomes clear that an all or nothing approach to changing your eating is sure to fail.
Instead you need a transition plan to help you move along the continuum. And the longer you’ve been eating the SAD diet, the more important it is to gradually transition toward more healthful eating habits.
One of the things we do with all our clients is to identify quick fixes that will move their eating in the right direction. For example, if you are a soda drinker and you drink 3 per day, cutting down to 2 per day, then one and finally zero will have a huge benefit for you. We would usually do this over a 2-3 week period, replacing the soda (or any other sweetened beverage) with water.
Kurt Harris, MD, on his site Archevore.com, has identified a 12 step approach to remove what he terms the “…Neolithic agents of disease…” from your nutrition. I encourage you to read the steps here. Print them out and work through them at your own pace.
You’ll notice that there is a lack of counting (calories, points, protein, carbohydrate and fat grams) in these recommendations. That’s because as you improve your eating, things like calories and macronutrient ratios tend to take care of themselves. Plus they can often be a distraction from doing the things you most need to do. Which is to eat better quality food instead of “food like” substances.
Start today! Take your time and transition as needed, but get started. Your better health, quality of life and longevity are waiting. If you need help, let us know.
Jun 11
21
4 Fat Loss Myths And Fixes
There are a lot of persistent myths about how to train and eat for fat loss. People stubbornly cling to them, training and eating the same way despite getting little or no results.
Let’s take a look at some of the most popular myths and give you some fixes for each one.
Fat Loss Myth #1: The best exercise to lose fat is low intensity cardio.
This myth is being chipped away little by little, but it doesn’t want to go away quietly. The truth is spending an hour on the treadmill or elliptical machine should be your last, not first choice for losing body fat.
And it’s not limited to the treadmill or elliptical. This is true of any low intensity cardio. Here’s why.
Your muscles have to continuously contract for 30, 45 or 60 minutes. They need energy for each of these contractions (repetitions). Well your body is stubborn. It doesn’t want to burn fat for energy so it gets the energy by eating your muscle. This slows your metabolism, makes you weaker and stops your fat loss efforts.
Research by Tremblay and many others shows high intensity interval training is far more effective than low intensity cardio because it makes your body burn fat and calories all day long, not just during your workout.
Fat Loss Fix: Replace your long cardio sessions with shorter, high intensity intervals.
Fat Loss Myth #2: Use high repetition, low weight resistance training to burn fat.
You know this “training” regimen. Find the lightest dumbbells in your gym and endlessly curl them. Then do 30 minutes of “abs.”
Training for fat loss is based on cranking up your metabolism. This is best done by recruiting as many muscle fibers as possible.
High rep resistance training uses only the smallest, weakest fibers, which has little impact on your metabolism. You have to target all your muscle fibers in your training or you’ll never get the results you’re looking for.
Fat Loss Fix: Do full body circuits with challenging loads. You should have at least a squat or lunge, an upper body pushing movement and an upper body pulling movement. Your rest periods should be short and you should strive to accelerate the load.
If you prefer body weight training, move as quickly as possible through your circuits.
Fat Loss Myth #3: Eat less and weigh less
Your body seeks nutrients, specifically protein, fat and carbohydrate. When you eat a diet comprised of a lot of calorie dense foods like bread, rice and pasta, your body doesn’t get the nutrients it needs. Your body interprets this as being still “hungry” so you keep eating.
Since your body is getting empty calories, not nutrients, from your food choices, it responds by eating your muscle. This slows your metabolism and ruins your fat loss efforts.
If you simply eat less, you may weigh less, but you’ll still be fat because you’ve lost your muscle.
Fat Loss Fix: Replace your empty calorie dense foods like bread, rice and pasta, with nutrient dense foods like vegetables, berries and protein.
Fat Loss Myth #4: You have to train every day to get results.
There is a persistent mindset that says if some is good, more is better. Here’s the problem: training every day doesn’t give your body the time it needs to recover. Recovery is when the magic happens and you get results.
When you don’t allow time for recovery, you quickly become “overtrained” (or under-recovered) which results in fat storage hormones flooding in, counteracting all your training efforts.
That’s why the people you see at your gym every day aren’t getting results.
Overtraining also destroys your motivation (because you aren’t getting results) and leaves you open to injury and illness.
Fat Loss Fix: Train no more than 4 days per week. Leave a day of recovery in between and get some sleep!
Posted in Training by .
Jun 11
7
The New “My Plate”
The food pyramid is gone. It has been replaced by “My Plate,” which is designed as a “visual cue to help consumers adopt healthier eating habits.”
The plate icon 
is much easier to understand than the pyramid. You can also use the new icon to build your meals. The new my plate also reduces the emphasis on grains from the old food pyramid.
To go along with the new icon, there is a new set of guidelines. Some of these new guidelines are:
Balancing Calories
● Enjoy your food, but eat less.
● Avoid oversized portions.
Foods to Increase
● Make half your plate fruits and vegetables.
● Make at least half your grains whole grains.
● Switch to fat-free or low-fat (1%) milk.
Foods to Reduce
● Compare sodium in foods like soup, bread, and frozen meals ― and choose the foods with lower numbers.
● Drink water instead of sugary drinks.
Generally this is pretty good information. But some of it, like “Enjoy your food, but eat less” is not very practical in building your meals.
It’s very similar to what we teach here at Brandon Fitness Camp. Choose lean protein, plenty of vegetables and some fruit.
Where we tend to differ is the new my plate promotes a fairly large portion of grains and dairy. At Brandon Fitness Camp, we typically recommend our members start out by minimizing these two groups for 30 days and see whether they move, feel and look better. After 30 days, you can decide whether you want to reintroduce the foods into your lifestyle.
Secondly, there is no talk of fat intake at all. This omission does nothing to dispel the myth that eating fat is what makes you fat. We recommend that you include healthy fats, like olive oil, coconut, avocado and some nuts into your diet. We also recommend you make sure you get enough Omega-3 fatty acids by including a supplement such as Prograde ® EFA Icon Krill Fish Oil.
Will this change have a major impact on the obesity level in these United States? It’s hard to tell. There are a lot of factors that affect our food choices. It’s certainly a step in the right direction.
If you want to read more about the new my plate, visit ChooseMyPlate.gov.
What do you think about the new my plate? Will it help you make better choices? Does it raise additional questions? How can we help you implement better nutrition in your life?
May 11
29
4 Quick Tips For Better Nutrition
Are there enough diets out there? You have your choice of books, magazines, websites, Weight Watchers, Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig and Doctor supervised weight loss programs just to name a few of your options.
If you don’t find the program you’re looking for, just wait a bit. Every year more diet books are published. More magazine articles are written and more websites come out.
With all this information, you would think everyone would be getting healthier.
But the statistics of people who are overweight or obese keep going up. Type 2 diabetes cases keep increasing. The fact is we aren’t getting healthier. More confused for sure. But not healthier.
Every year, I talk to people who are overwhelmed by the choices. They’re sick of getting little to no results and bouncing from diet to diet in search of the “right one.”
I believe what most people need in order to improve our health and appearance is not another diet plan, but knowledge about what healthful nutrition looks like and how to apply it each day.
Here are 4 tips to help you make better food choices and start getting results without confusion.
1. The majority of your foods (80-90%) should be single ingredient or raw fresh produce.
Meat and eggs are single ingredient. So are fruits and vegetables. So are good fats like olive oil, coconut and nuts.
That doesn’t mean your meals have to be single ingredient. You can and should combine ingredients to make tasty, quick and healthy meals.
But it does mean you should minimize processed foods. How do you know if a food is processed? If it has an ingredients list, it’s processed. If it comes in a can or package, it’s usually processed.
2. Minimize your intake of sugar
Especially fructose. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) has no health benefits at all.
And it’s in more foods than you think.
Here’s an example. I was looking at a can of diced tomatoes (yes an exception to the “if it’s in a can” rule) and discovered that, yes, they had put HFCS in it! So immediately I switched brands to one that has only “Diced tomatoes” in the “Diced Tomatoes.”
Minimize your sugar consumption and you will see results. You’ll look better, you’ll feel better and you’ll perform better. Isn’t that what you’re here for?
3. Limit Your Intake Of Grains
This is a huge topic, but for now be aware that there’s a good chance eating too many grains is causing you more harm than good.
I know, “But Rob, whole grains are supposed to be good for you.” Maybe so, but it’s very rare that you will actually find a food with true whole grains. And you may have a sensitivity to gluten (a protein in grains) which is slowing or stopping your results.
Tell you what, try this experiment. Eliminate grains (Barley, wheat and rye) for 30 days and see how it changes your appearance, performance and how you feel.
4. Stop Drinking Your Calories
Eliminate sweetened beverages (sodas and other soft drinks) and drink plenty of water instead.
A 12 ounce can of Coca-Cola for example, has 140 calories. All of it from sugar.
And I’m not picking on Coke. A 12 ounce Gatorade has 130 calories. Also all form sugar.
This is an easy change to make that will have a quick hit impact on your results. Drink water. Coffee and tea are OK too. Just stop sweetening them (remember tip number 2).
30 Days. That’s all it will take for you to try these tips and see if they work. You can do it. Will you accept the challenge?
You will if you truly want to look and feel better!
How are you implementing ideas? What other ideas do you find work for you? What are you struggling with?
