Stop the Yo-Yo (3 Steps)

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Do you ever feel like your health, fitness, and wellness is a constant roller coaster ride of success and failure? Here are the three things you absolutely must have to enjoy a life of health and wellness:

1. A Crew

Think about any lifelong pursuit – family, career, travel, friendship, health – none of which exist in a vacuum. As social animals we thrive and grow in group settings. Nature shows us that isolation is counterproductive to a rich, fulfilling life.

Why, then, when it comes to our own health do we go to the gym alone, put in some earbuds, and go home to eat alone? There will inevitably be slip-ups – health is a lifelong pursuit. The difference is: when you slip up, will you have a crew to lift you up, joke about all the junk food you ate over the weekend, and get you back on the horse on Monday? Bottom line, you need a training partner(s).

2. A Plan

This September marked the 10 year anniversary of the first 4 week training program I ever put on paper. The goal? Do 10 Pull Ups and run a 6-minute mile by the end of the 4 weeks. I failed miserably. My mile was 8:11 and I think I got 4 Pull Ups. But I knew every day, no matter what, I had to get in a set amount of work. Motivation.

Too often I see people wander aimlessly through gyms with no end goal or game plan in mind. This is by no fault of their own of course; the fitness industry has, for decades, been much less concerned with results than setting a low enough price point in hopes that you forget you’re being charged and never come to the gym.

So assemble your crew, set goals, and develop a results-focused plan. There are plenty of qualified coaches out there to develop a plan for you or you can take my approach – trial and (a lot of) error.

3. A Mindset

Do you want to be healthy and fit for the next 30 days or the next 30 years? I assume you answered the latter. I can’t stress this enough: stop allowing short term, white knuckle, self-doubt peddling “experts” dictate your LIFELONG PURSUIT OF HEALTH.

It is very unpopular, as a coach in the fitness industry, for me to talk to clients about incremental, sustainable, lifelong change. Five percent at a time is not nearly as cool as “Drop 2 Sizes in 2 Weeks” and “3 Exercises for Bigger Biceps NOW,” but it’s honest.

The guy who sold you a fancy Ab Machine or published an article in Men’s Health takes no accountability for your next 30 years. As a coach, every rep I prescribe, every macro-/meso-/de-load cycle, and every day you come in the door is wrought with accountability for your next 30 years.

I promise things will not always be easy and you will slip up. It’s all good though. You know this going in and you have your people and your plan to get you back on track.

Change on the Blue Highways

bluemapWhen I was 18 years old I read the book Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon – a book that would greatly influence the next 10 years of my life. Blue Highways is an autobiographical book named for the cross-country journey by its author, limited to the small highways indicated by Rand McNally’s drawings of these tiny roadways in blue on the author’s atlas. Heat-Moon’s tale of his circumnavigation of the United States is wrought with rich stories of characters he encounters along his journey and a sense of delight in the journey, paying no mind to destination.

For me this spurred several years of trekking around the country and, ultimately, the world. There was never any destination or capitulation, just a simple: where to next?

So what the hell does this have to do with thrusters and wall balls? I was listening to a very successful personal trainer discuss her touch-points with clients the other day. She said that the most common frustration that her athletes have when they first start or after several months of training is that they’ve yet to see immediate results. The interviewer asked her to discuss how she approaches the question. Here’s a brief summary:

Client: “How long till I __________ (get a 6-pack/lose 20 pounds/squat 500/etc.)?”

Trainer: “How long did it take for your health to decline to the point where you decided it was time for drastic life change?”

Client: “I don’t know. 10 years.”

Trainer: “Good news. It won’t take that long.”

You see the body is an amazing machine. 20-year tobacco smokers begin to see improvements in cardio-respiratory function after just one month of cessation. We’ve had members (and coaches!) go from 10 years of sedentary life to a complete 180 in just a year! The body’s ability to adapt and respond to a healthy lifestyle is astounding.

While the body is uniquely suited to undo all the crap we throw at it, the brain remains in the driver’s seat. Your brain tells you that 10 years of abuse can be undone in 2 months. You brain beats you up when you slip and convinces you to white-knuckle your next yo-yo of diet and exercise.

How to you stay on your journey? Embrace it. Obsess over the process, not the destination. You see, lasting change is found on the Blue Highways; meandering, slow at times, and full of construction. The road may wind opposite your destination at times but you’re always steered in the right direction, trusting your atlas. There’s no silver bullet of fitness. No special diet, no magic ratio of cardio and weight training. It’s a day-by-day journey on meandering highways. And, unlike the author, you’ve got a class full of fellow travelers and a coach in the backseat.

Coach’s Corner — Diet

In this episode, I look at the top 3 diet mistakes made by CrossFitters looking to slim down or lose body fat. Good news, they’re easy to tweak!

Building “The Hill”

Can’t say it enough — Thank You!

We just passed the 2 year mark on the building of our space at CrossFit Memorial Hill. After coming across some old footage and a touch of nostalgia, I put this together. Enjoy and THANK YOU!

The Sophomore Slump

I’ve been sitting on this video for quite awhile, debating on whether or not I should put it out there. I realized, after several weeks, that I compiled this list of mistakes through personal experience and failures. These were all hard-learned lessons that could have been understood and predicted had someone given me tools to address my own fitness practice.

Two brief and important caveats to this video: 1. This is for athletes & members that have been in the game for awhile and feel themselves beginning to plateau. If you’re just beginning your fitness journey (By that I mean you have less than 18-24 months of consistent training under your belt), this would be a good one to bookmark. 2. This list was developed through looking back at my own training logs. I only whittled it down after dozens of conversations with other athletes echoing the same issues. So if you feel as though you’re the only one experiencing these things, know you’re in good company. Enjoy!

The Pull Up

Looking to get that first pull-up? Your challenge is to change the focus of your scaling options to maximize your reps and work toward that pull-up.

The Other 23: Work

We are super excited to announce the first episode of our new series, “The Other 23.” In this series we’ll be exploring simple ways to maximize the hour that you work so hard in the gym in your 23 hours outside the gym. We’ll be looking at mobility, diet, sleep, work, standing, and any other topic you’d like to see covered.

In this first episode, we look at your life at work, mainly as it relates to sitting.