|
Birds of a Feather, Flock Together |
|
|
|
|
10/4/07
Have you ever heard the saying "Birds of a Feather, Flock Together"? The same is true with people! Look at who your friends are, what your families exercise and diet habits are and I am willing to venture that your exercise and diet habits are much the same.
You really want to see a change in your body (you wouldn't be reading this blog unless you really wanted to) whether it is to drop body fat, add muscle or simply to become more healthy. To achieve this goal you need to find a way to influence your friends and family to change their bad habits as well. I am not saying that you need to preach to your friends about a healthy lifestyle. Instead try to get them involved in your exercise and fitness goals so that you all have one united goal of dropping body fat or adding muscle and you can use each other to keep the other honest.
If you are trying to lose weight, but your house still has candy bars, ice cream, beer and other high calorie foods and drinks that your spouse likes, then you will most likely not be successful in achieving your goals because the temptations will be too strong to resist. The same is true with your friends and coworkers. If you take your lunch break with a few friends from work and they are dying to go to Olive Garden (because they don't have similiar fitness goals) then you will go and while you may order a salad, you will also eat a few bread-sticks, try a bite of your friends spaghetti and down a coke or two. If however you had your friends working toward living a healthier lifestyle with you then ya'll might decide that instead of going to Olive Garden you will go to Jasons Deli (which in my opinion is much less tempting) and you will eat a better lunch, not to mentioin the fact that the portion sizes will be smaller and knowing that they are looking to you as an example you will order a water instead of that coke.
It may not seem like they are hindering you, but your friends and family have an enormous influence on whether you will achieve your goals or not. If you get them on the same page that you are on, then the sky is the limit.
Do you want your friends, coworkers and family to start exercising with you? Why not have them join our fitness boot camp with you? Just a thought!
Make it a great day San Antonio!
Nicholas Wood
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
(210)415-5934
|
|
|
10/3/07
The four components of fitness are:
1) Muscular Strength
2) Muscular Endurance
3) Aerobic Capacitiy
4) Flexibility
Of these four which one do you miss when working out? I am willing to bet that for 95% of you, it is the fourth component, Flexibility. All of these components are important, and just as you wouldn't completely skip over lifting weights to improve your musclular strength, you shouldn't skip over stretching to improve your flexibility. Stretching is important because it allows your body to move through its full range of motion with limited stress on the muscles and tendons around a joint. When I train clients at MPT we always start off with about 5 minutes of a dynamic warmup to prepare for the upcoming workout. This dynamic warmup is a way to stretch while warming up the body. We also finish all of our sessions with a static stretching period to help release some of the tension in the muscles from the workout and improve our range of motion.
Here are some basic instructions for how to stretch properly:
1) Don't stretch without warming the muscles up. Think of the muscles as a rubberband. If you try to stretch a rubberband as far as it can go as soon as you pick it up, then it will snap. However, if you pull the rubberband a short distance real fast a few dozen times and get the rubber warm then you can stretch the rubber band a long way without having it snap. The muscles are much the same way. You want to make sure you warm them up before you try to stretch them (thus the reason we do a dynamic warmup). A great way to do this, is to do a few walking lunges, a short 2-3min jog, etc.
2) You shouldn't feel pain when you stretch. Stretch to the point that you feel the muscles working, but don't push any further. If you push to the point of heavy pain you risk straining or even pulling the muscle, so just stretch until you feel the muscle working.
3) One of the biggest mistakes I see people making when they stretch is that they try to bounce (this is called ballistic stretching) and in my opinion this is simply not safe. When you bounce you put additional strain on the muscle that the muscle may not be able to handle, and again you risk a strain or tear in your muscle or tendons.
Aerobic exercise, weight lifting and proper eating are all very important components of living a healthy lifestyle. So is stretching, but it is often ignored. If you don't stretch frequently, try to spend 10-15minutes today doing various stretches. I guarantee you will enjoy it, and you will feel better throughout the day.
Make it a great day San Antonio!
Nicholas Wood
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
(210)415-5934
|
|
|
9/30/07
What a great weekend! My Fightin' Texas Aggies rebounded with a nice win over Baylor, the Cowboys romped the St. Louis Rams, and both t.u. and Oklahoma lost! For an Aggie, things don't get much better than this. Hopefully, all of you got to go out and enjoy the nice weather and maybe take in a football game or two.
Last night my girlfriend, Sarah, and I rented a movie called "The Pursuit of Happiness" that came out a year or so ago, featuring Will Smith and his son Jayden. The movie was about Chris Gardner, a man who was homeless, trying to take care of his young son, and doing an internship trying to become a stockbroker all at the same time. In the end Gardner excells in the internship and gets the offer for the job, and later became worth millions. What is amazing about this story is how Gardner became a millionaire. He was not a silver spoon, he didn't win the lottery, he worked his rear-end off to rise to the top. Throughout the movie there were times that you thought for sure he would have to give up, ask his ex-wife to care for their son, and continue to live poor, but he pushed through those tough times and made it to the top!
After watching the movie I started to think about my clients, and others who I have talked with about their fitness goals. When I think about these people, there are two categories that I can break them up into:
1) Those who hope.
2) Those who do.
Chris Gardner would have fallen into the second category. I want you to sit back right now and take a minute or two and think about your biggest dreams. Really think about what you want to achieve in regards to fitness. Maybe you need to lose 15 pounds to look perfect in that wedding dress, or maybe you need to drop a significant amount of body fat to be healthy, or maybe you are just tired of being a skinny rail and you are ready to add a little size onto your frame. Now think about what you have done to acheive these goals. How bad do you really want it? Are you willing to sacrifice the fatty foods you are eating to achieve those results. Are you willing to spend 10+ hours exercising every week to achieve those results? Are you willing to spend your hard earned money to acheive your dreams?
Before I begin working with them, I ask every potential client of mine these questions. I ask them these questions because I want to know if they are going to be a walking billboard for me or if they are going to be a walking failure! Some people come to me saying they hope to lose 10 pounds, but that they probably won't be able to because their whole family is fat and therefore their genetics won't let them look the way they want. As soon as I hear a story like that I politely tell that person that I am not the trainer for them. If they are HOPING to lose 10 pounds, but they don't think they can, then they are not the person for me. If they were to train with me, they would not like it because I would push them toward their goals and they are not willing to work hard enough to get there. They would be sore, they would be tired, and they would probably give up because after a week of physically exhausting exercise the scale will not have changed (or just enough to measure the drop in water weight), they will be mentally weak and they will give up. I want the person who comes to me and says, "Nick, I need to lose 10 pounds in 6 weeks and I will do whatever it takes to get there." These are the people I chose to work with because they are the clients who are going to make me look good while making themselves look good. They are going to follow my advice and they are going to acheive their dreams.
Which type of person are you? Do you hope for good things to happen to you? Or, like Chris Gardner, do you make positive things happen for you? If you are part of the second group, and you are looking for help in achieving your fitness goals, then give me a call and we will get you there.
Make it a great day San Antonio!
Nicholas Wood
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
(210)415-5934
|
|
|
9/27/07
If you are like me then you have a very hard time eating right all of the time. Sometimes it is difficult because of a time crunch to eat right, and sometimes it is hard to eat right because there are not a ton of fruits and vegetables that taste good. One of the things I have been trying and I have starting being successful with is trying different fruits and vegetables. The next time you go to the grocery store, instead of picking up your normal fruits and vegetables of oranges, apples, carrots and iceberg lettuce, I want you to go shopping. Try to pick up a variety of fresh foods that you have not tried before such as papaya or shiitake mushrooms. Just remember as you are shopping that you want a rainbow of colors to fill up your shopping cart. There are so many different types of food and we get in the routine of eating a very small percentage of them, so the next time you are at the store try to branch out. You may find that you actually like some fruits and vegetables and that eating healthy doesn't have to kill your taste buds.
Make it a great day San Antonio!
Nicholas Wood
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
(210)415-5934
|
|
|
9/25/07
Today, I want to take the opportunity to thank all of my clients for everything they have done for me. I am blessed to be able to own and run my own business. I get to wake up in the morning and go to work for myself, I get to make my own decisions and I get to work in a field that I have a passion for. The best part of this job however is the people I get to deal with.
The people I have encountered while running this business have been nothing short of amazing. I have clients from every demographic you can imagine and all of them have been a blast to work with. Not only do I get to live vicariously through my clients as they acheive their fitness goals, but I also get to learn from my clients. With all of the negative we hear on the t.v. and read in the newspaper it is easy to think that everyone outside our circle of friends are bad people. I have learned while running this business that this idea could not be further from the truth. My clients taught me that people are inherently friendly and they want nothing but the best for others. I have clients that are lawyers, business owners, teachers, managers, retirees, and more, but they all have one trait in common; That they are good people. I cannot thank all of you enough for the little things you teach me, for doing everything you have done to help me help my business grow, and for being so positive all the time.
Last night was the last session for one of my favorite clients in her 12 week fitness challenge (don't worry she is going to be joining our fitness boot camps now) and I can now say she has become one of my good friends. I met this person when I first opened my studio in May and she started working with me shortly thereafter. She has done so many great things for me, including sending me clients, being a client herself, joining me for lunches and others. The one thing she does that has had a bigger impact on me than anything however is sending me text messages. It may not seem like much, but it sure is nice at the end of a long 14 hour day to have a positive message waiting for me on my phone. Sometimes it is just a message saying "I hope you are having a great day", and sometimes she sends messages telling me that I did a great job training her and her training partner that day. This is one of the great things about my job.
Literally, as I sit here writing this I just had a client call to check on me (I was feeling a little under the weather yesterday). That is a great feeling! My clients really are awesome.
I am starting to ramble, so I will leave it at that, but I really do want to thank everyone of you for being who you are and for helping every day be a great day for me.
Make it a great day San Antonio!
Nicholas Wood
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
(210)415-5934
|
|
|
San Antonio Fitness Blog 
