Are You Doing What Really Matters?
As a coach there are no dumb questions. But there are a lot of irrelevant ones, and an epidemic of people worrying about stuff that doesn’t matter. When can I start drinking coffee in the morning? Do cold showers work? Can I start with a hot shower and end cold? Can I cold shower before I get morning sunlight? What if the sun doesn’t come up til 9am? Now, focusing on the minutiae can cause real...
Collecting the data
In the 80’s Van Halen was the biggest rock band in the world. Their live performances were legendary, as was their artist rider, a part of the performance contract that specifies everything the artist requires to perform that day. Van Halen’s long rider had "a large bowl of M&Ms, all brown ones removed.” Seriously. This was dismissed as typical rock star diva behaviour. But it turns out it...
A Flexible Process
The Big Rocks of a diet & exercise plan are surprisingly flexible. You don’t have to follow specific workout splits or work in certain rep ranges or include a bunch of "must—do” exercises. Calories don’t have to be the same every day and you can even work off a 7-day average. The weekly average approach also applies to daily step count, a simple indicator of how much you move but a BIG...
Minimizing Injury Risk
Priority #1 in my coaching is Minimize Injury Risk. And if you never train with a barbell you'll never suffer a weight training injury. Sure there are exceptions. But the larger point below stands. If you’ve injured yourself working out (especially an acute injury, like something going pop) the odds are it involved big barbell exercises like deadlifts, bench presses, overhead presses, barbell...
Want to get in great shape?
When you’re a kid, you can screw up just about anything and still look good. But once you’re North of 30, you have to do everything right. Or at least have no gaping holes in your lifestyle, stress, diet, or exercise. Cause it doesn't matter how many healthy habits are floating your boat—1 or 2 gaping holes will sink the ship. But imagine for a moment that someone could help you figure out the...
You Can’t Keep Adding
One of my favourite sayings concerning exercise programming is: YOU CAN'T KEEP ADDING. Meaning exercises, workouts, cardio & conditioning workouts, or even just stuff to do (or try to remember to do) -- there's a limit to how much you can add! Everything has a cost in terms of time, energy, and focus versus overwhelm. Another way of looking at it is everything you do or make time for writes...
The Dead Zone
Welcome to The Dead Zone. I've written this to clients so many times over the years I figured I'd make it into a post. You know the expression “it’s not how you eat between Xmas and New Years that matters, it’s how you eat between New Years and Xmas?” There's a lot of truth to it. One week isn’t a lot of time, no matter how badly you eat. Especially if there’s another 51 weeks to treat your body...