Fitness anytime, anywhere

Do not let access to your gym dictate your workouts; with a little imagination you can achieve results anywhere.

If you are traveling or pressed for time try going for a run or a hike. This is a great way to burn some calories, get your heart up and soak in some vitamin D. If you need an extra challenge, kick up the pace for some intervals, run some stairs or choose the steeper trail. This will force your muscles to work harder and accelerate your gains.

You can also rely on an old standby for resistance when you're in a pinch; your own weight. Body weight circuits can be very challenging and effective for maintaining your strength with limited time. Try doing circuits for as many reps as you can in 4 rounds, or 20 seconds per workout:
squat jumps
pushups
alternate lunge jumps
plank to pushup
alternating lateral lunge
mountain climbers

You will be surprised how challenging that workout is and how effective it can be for challenging your body.

Now, get out there and have fun!

Coaching

When I think of myself as a coach and what I hope to achieve, it involves the development of my clients. I find out what our starting point is and then we set goals of what we hope to achieve. Then I lay out a framework that will allow us to meet those goals.

I use the same concept for teams and individuals. I create a plan that will maximize our ability to reach our goals. Along the way we reassess our position to see how well our plan is working to meet our objectives and make any necessary changes.

In order for myself and my clients to be successful we have to continually improve. We need to be stronger, more efficient and better week in and week out. Ideally, this improvement is linear over time, but there are times when things are easy and times when it is hard. Pushing through the hard times encourages mental toughness and inner strength and serves as a learning experience that will improve our overall understanding.

I work to educate clients about the choices they make and how those choices affect the realization of their goals and how to understand the impact of their decisions. I do not believe in dieting, or exercise days, but in a lifestyle. By creating and adopting a lifestyle it is easier to maintain focus and realize full potential.

It is vitally important to develop others, to allow them to grow and learn new skills. These new skills will improve self esteem and self confidence in every realm of their life. There will be mistakes along the way, but by learning from mistakes we can ensure that our development continues along the right path.

As a coach I get great satisfaction when people I work with improve their life and reach new peaks. Encouraging and fostering the development of clients will lead to their long term success in health and life.

Go play

It is becoming rare these days to see kids playing outside. I don't mean the organized play through a sport, but the grab some friends and a ball kind of play.

I do not see them riding bikes, throwing a football, playing catch or anything. I may see some younger kids on a playground or shooting some hoops, but even this is less frequent than I would like to see. Whatever happened to going outside to play? What has replaced it? Are people starting to work from a younger age and just don't have the time? Are they inside playing video games? I don't know what has replaced playing, but I do know it is a shame. Not only is going outside a great way to exercise, get some vitamin D and develop some skills, but it is a great way to socialize with others.

I can only hope that play is not lost and has not been replaced by organized activities. There is absolutely nothing wrong with leagues and competition, but there still needs to be time to let kids, and adults, just have some fun.

Go play. Go grab a ball, a stick, a glove, whatever, and a few others to do something with. Go play. Get outside, enjoy the weather, burn off some steam and excess energy and most importantly, have fun!

Overload and recovery

The goal of any workout is to push your current boundaries by applying a stress. This is termed overload and refers to the neuromuscular coordination, recruitment of muscle fibers, cardio respiratory system and proprioceptive system that is stressed during a particular workout.

When you push above your current level there is muscular breakdown. This is the soreness you feel after a hard workout. This soreness is the breakdown of the muscle fiber. As it regenerates it rebuilds itself through the recovery phase.

It is essential to give your body a chance to repair after a workout. This includes active rest, sleep, nutrition and listening to your body. In order to make consistent gains you need the stress applied through overload, but you also need the downtime and rest in order to give your body time to repair. 

A single workout is not going to achieve all your goals, but it is a step in the process and by having adequate recovery after the workout you can ensure that you are going in the right direction.