The goal of 99% of all clients and personal trainers is getting lean and mean and to trim down to be slim and fit. Big bulging muscles, six pack abs and wide shoulders. The focus is on gym exercise sessions, maybe some cardio workouts and a portion controlled chicken breast, rice and broccoli diet, with supplements like whey pro, fish oil, some vitamins, maybe creatine and arginine.
I always felt that this kind of approach can work only for a short term. Maybe for a 5 to 10 years period max for the real committed, but in most cases we talk about 6 to 18months top ! These regular coaches learnt only about the basics of anatomy, physiology and training and the very root of nutrition. This is not bad at all, they already know 10 folds more than any average Joe ! I am not putting down these body building, spinning, fitness guru coaches at all !
If you worked in a fitness center, you know that there are crash solutions, client retention programs and even periodically payed call-back agent companies involved. The big deals of getting people subscribed for 1 year or even more are just ridiculous. When I was getting into weight lifting to improve my body composition, first time in 1998, there were only 2 solutions. Pay as you go, or get a membership, but you pay monthly, when you arrive to your session. No credit cards involved ! The only place you could buy fitness products, like the good old California Whey or the very basic BioTech products were gyms. So despitethe sometimes totally empty centres, still they were going quiet well. Business took over ! Business and cash rules all !
I just say, that in this post 2000 era, Fitness and Diet actually takes only about 5% of the big picture. I always tried to offer more, but very rarely was accepted. As we advance forward towards this day, I get more and more clients getting into real health and got interested in the complexity of it. I am into advising and getting into serious health building programs. I helped out so many, but so so many people in the last decade, nearly 2 decades soon, that I cannot even count. I never ask really for money. I had some serious clients paying shit loads, I had some coming back to talk week after week for years and paying nothing. I am here to help and to give results, not for the money ! I just give less and less of a damn about cash anymore ! Passion takes over !
Results ? Result is often measured in cm-s or kg-s lost. Honestly results should be measured in productivity.
Some mental training, quality nutrition and hydration habits, regular moderate sport will do all this for you ! You can add breathing, electro muscle stimulation and intravenous glutathione, resveratrol, B12 and NAD drips, but the basics can be never skipped. Sleep, Water, Food, Lift and Jog.
Results ? Result is often measured in cm-s or kg-s lost. Honestly results should be measured in productivity.
- Can you go up on the stairs faster without getting winded to deliver a work task ?
- Are you able to work for 10hours in a row, without getting in any calories, but still staying healthy and being 100% mentally present ?
- Can you sleep uninterrupted every single night ?
- Can you control yourself, in case of emotions ? Emotions towards colleagues, food, family and friends ?
- Can you do more than before without expanding more energy ?
- Do you play with your children and provide emotional poise to your wife ?
Some mental training, quality nutrition and hydration habits, regular moderate sport will do all this for you ! You can add breathing, electro muscle stimulation and intravenous glutathione, resveratrol, B12 and NAD drips, but the basics can be never skipped. Sleep, Water, Food, Lift and Jog.
Health is a big complex Jenga Tower
6 packs abs will not protect you against cancer, vaccination won't work against any viral outbreak, stomach reduction will not end obesity and an exercise/lifestyle bracelet will not let you loose weight.
Fitness and a lean body is actually just a positive side effect of a good health foundation.
We do not live out in nature anymore. We do not breathe proper air anymore. We do not drink spring water every day, eat fresh organic wild food or swim in the sea or wild water daily. We do not stay under the sun long enough or we do stay too long. We don't talk anymore, we don't discuss anymore, we don't really love anymore. It is like the human life became blank for most people ! They just got into a routine of life and continue till it ends ! If you ask them at the age of 30 something, they will say, I wish I have done that ! The thing is, you'll get the same answer at the age of 60 or 90 ! 30 years passed by, 60 years passed by, nothing happened.
Guess what, motivation, action, reaction, positive thinking, challenge wishing and result oriented presence are all facets of good health !
When you are tired all the time, feeling burnt out, when your joints hurt or your heart is pumping when going up the stairs, when your children ask to play and you refuse or you cannot get into an appointment cause you are not fit enough to bypass the trafic jam by running a short 3km under the sun, or just cannot advance building your own house, cause your back hurts. For most people, this is life. They say, life happens, coincidences happen, we do mistakes, we are humans. Bullshit ! You did mistakes till the age of 10. Passing a decade of life taught you already about everything. Afterwards, all the problems you create, will be caused by bypassing the basics and the foundation. Very often this won't be entirely your fault, but your fault not correcting it and not asking questions. Employers will be asking more than you were prepared for, from the first day, parenting will be more difficult than you thought and training will also have setbacks in the form of injuries or other facets.
You were squatting flawlessly till the age of 10, but when a weight lifting coach will start asking you to work beyond your regular range of motion, with a heavier weight, faster and explosively, you injure yourself or create scar-tissues for later disaster. You and your parents should have gotten more likely into a proper sport education program, with all the foundations.
When putting on pampers on your baby and 2 hours later, you'll see that the baby is crying, cause of huge red lines and cuts on his groin, well, 2 or 3 articles about child care would have prevented this.
Touching your newly learnt business software and messing up some client data should have been prevented by the software manual or by asking your colleagues.
Lack of concentration, too much overconfidence, rushing and getting into sketchy situations are all facets of health too !
What do I think about the basics of health :
- A sound nutrition plan to provide you with the necessary micro and macronutrients. I don't care if you are vegan or paleo, both can work. I want you to be lean, never sick ever and sharp all the time. High Physical and Mental presence or sleep ! No other options. No watching football match with a beer. I saw last night France - Portugal, I was stretching and was watching with eye of a coach. What could be corrected. Football is all about joint stability, recovery, mobility, acceleration and sudden directional changes. A player fitter than all the others can outrun the smartest tactics ! 100% !
- A sound hydration plan. When doing forced intermittent fasting, or not getting in all the necessary nutrients even for a month, health can be still maintained. Look at people doing months of fasting with a lot of water and vitamins. They regain health and loose weight. Some people survive on chips and snickers for decades. It is not a good thing at all, but if for a month the only thing you get is a giant proper high fat coffee, a tea and a store bought salad with a can of sardines at the evening, your health might not decline at all, if all the other facets are there. This being said, you mess up one single day of hydration, you might need 3 days to get back to normal. Drying out your body will effect all bodily functions. I mean all ! Thinking, emotions, sport performance, work ethic, attitude to work and colleagues, dental health and all, I mean all ! Drink enough quality water, but first of all drink enough water ! If I had only a pond to drink from, I would make sure to filter it as much as possible and drink it ! I don't care ! Drink water and enough water. Clients often say, I tried drinking 3L of water a day for a couple of days, but I was pissing every 5 to 10 minutes. Try it for a couple of months, till your body properly adjust, then complain ! Also if you are 45kg, anorexic, bulimic whatever, the 3L of water would be too much. You must test yourself and avoid all professionals. They will say 1.5L for women and 2 to 2.5L for man ! BS ! Wintertime, when I plan a recovery day and stay in bed reading and chilling to music, I might drink only 2L as an 80kg athlete, but summertime training hard, I would get in 5L or even more fluids for 8months in a row ! Drink ENOUGH !
- Sleep i as important. Get enough of it ! It really depends on what your goal is in life. I find that for mental health and mental performance, I can thrive on lot less sleep. Maybe 6 to 7 hours. But when mental and sport performance is mixed. 7 to 10hours is definitely necessary. But sleep length is only just a 5% part of the sleep picture. The depth of sleep is influenced by so many things. Darkness of your room. Nutrition and hydration status and periodisation of it. Anti sleep nutrients. Sound exposure, like the nose of an air-conditioning system or a dog barking on a neighbours terrace . Too hot or too cold. A bad mattress or a bad metal bedframe. Too many electric wires in the walls of your room, the wifi router left turned on, phone in your room. Toxic mold behind the walls. Bedbugs or insects. Maybe chemical exposure, like bedsheets are washed with some strong detergent, or the smell of the non-essential toilet spray is coming out from the WC. You might had your evening shower in warm water with a shower gel, added a facial cream, a hand cream and a calf cream and washed your teeth with a regular chemically loaded toothpaste followed by a Listerine rinse. Your body reacts to all the crap you expose it to ! Sleep enough and don't add anything to it ! A meal 3 to 4 hours out, an evening tea from cannabis leaves and camomile, an ice cold shower and a stomach massage with alternate nose breathing and sighing to calm you down and off you go. You fall as sleep like a baby, every single night.
These were the 3 very basic facets of life, but you can add more to it (unexplained):
- Enough sunshine
- Quality air all the time
- Some breathing exercises every day and proper belly breathing all day
- Emotional poise and long talks with your spouse ! If a relationship doesn't work, get out from it ! I don't say being an asshole and leave four children behind with no help ever at all ! I say that even if you had kids and a wife, if they hold you back from your own personal and your family's development, then you should look for solutions !
- Full body mobility, no sitting and active lifestyle with ton of full range of motion movements
- Exercise of the minimal effective dose: lift and jog with some upside down moves
- Foods from live, raw, ripe, local, seasonal organic sources and a lot of greens !
- A complete chemical free lifestyle
- Minimal electric, radioactive, radiation, exposure
- Minimal chlorine exposure
- Minimal unnecessary noise exposure. Heavy metal feels good for one song, but listening to it all day will mess you up !
- No drog use or abuse, ever. No antibiotics, no anti-pain ar any medication. Ever !
- No blood sugar stimulating foods. No simple sugars or starch over load. You want sugar ? Eat a freckin' fruit !
- No processed fats. No canola, no corn, no soybean oil ! Want processed fat ? Freshly squeezed green olive oil, cold pressed coconut oil or butter sometimes. Quality first. No rancid seeds or nuts !
- No TV, No News, No BS, No Films or series. This means if you watched Game of Thrones one episode per week, it is not a big deal. However people spend 2 to 4 hours each night front of the TV !
- Listen to educative podcasts, audiobooks. Create a blog, be creative. Watch human performance and documentaries when totally need to be switched off. Even if you were half turned off, some information will stick. Olympic games, sport events are motivating and can learn a lot from it ! I hate football, absolutely ! But when you see the whole system, you can see beyond spitting, acting, swearing and skunk supporters. Sudden directional changes, joint stability, cardio-vascular properties, a system of osteopaths, kinesio an massage therapist, ice baths and sauna sessions, recovery solutions...
I could continue this list forever, on why people do not get to the next step ! Very often, you must wait, sure ! But waiting with your hands in your pocket is not the same than waiting with the most education being done in all your free-time. Life is an adventure and a challenge ! Take it as it comes, ride on the wave. You cannot break life, you cannot hack it, you cannot change so many things, just have to accept it. However, the facets what are in your hand, grab the hell them and squeeze it till it is bone dry.
So just to finish this article. I don't really do PT sessions anymore, cause it irritates me. Fat chicks want to loose weight, but use hormone stimulating parfums and 1kg of make up, eating crap food all the time and think of a pill and some spinning class as a miracle for life, are just not my thing. Cyclist wanting to be better, but not willing to do a free 5min bloodtest and change pedalling technique, while decreasing sugar intake and increasing sleep, are out of the question for me.
Do you know when people want to get into all aspects of health and life ? When something bad happens, something really bad. Serious chest pain going up on stairs, multiple times, cancer, eroding joints, mental decline, collapsing family, regular children's diseases, pre-diabetism ... Mostly when it is considered by doctor's : too late. They often come, when I don't have time, when I cannot advise !
Do you know when people want to get into all aspects of health and life ? When something bad happens, something really bad. Serious chest pain going up on stairs, multiple times, cancer, eroding joints, mental decline, collapsing family, regular children's diseases, pre-diabetism ... Mostly when it is considered by doctor's : too late. They often come, when I don't have time, when I cannot advise !
Start asking questions, now ! Start moving now ! Start educating yourself now ! Education if for your life, not for a diploma ! Grow up as a human, play as a child, live fully !
(I had a rich client with many problems. I did some exercises with him, with a 3kg medicine ball. He said to me, it is too heavy and my shoulder hurts from it. I told him, no problem, we work on your technique and we get back to it later. 2 weeks later I had again the ball with me and he was refusing even to try the exercise, because of the fear of small fatigue related muscle discomfort. Of course he had his low quality black coffee and croissant with cheap butter before the training session and his last night cigar. Age is not an excuse for being stupid , nor it is for laziness! Have you ever seen an old buffalo giving up on his life, just because he is old ? Predators choose prays by strength and weaknesses, not by age ! Same with life !
My favorite client, was an old fella out in my last life location. He just wanted to know everything and do everything. We needed about 5months to learn the basics and then he started improving a lot. Yeah alone, he did nothing really as long as exercise goes, but outside of this, he was just doing all. Good food, light mobility, standing and walking a lot, do some cycling with grand-kids. Once you know how a proper spinal position is for basic weight training, your feet position and how to create proper intra-abdominal pressure and to breathe, you can progress into a level of fast development. I don't train him anymore, but he is getting still better, cause my education given to him was the key to his forward thinking health conscious performance driven lifestyle. At the age of 67 he is still a head of a big enterprise and holding on despite to collapsing market. )
(I had a rich client with many problems. I did some exercises with him, with a 3kg medicine ball. He said to me, it is too heavy and my shoulder hurts from it. I told him, no problem, we work on your technique and we get back to it later. 2 weeks later I had again the ball with me and he was refusing even to try the exercise, because of the fear of small fatigue related muscle discomfort. Of course he had his low quality black coffee and croissant with cheap butter before the training session and his last night cigar. Age is not an excuse for being stupid , nor it is for laziness! Have you ever seen an old buffalo giving up on his life, just because he is old ? Predators choose prays by strength and weaknesses, not by age ! Same with life !
My favorite client, was an old fella out in my last life location. He just wanted to know everything and do everything. We needed about 5months to learn the basics and then he started improving a lot. Yeah alone, he did nothing really as long as exercise goes, but outside of this, he was just doing all. Good food, light mobility, standing and walking a lot, do some cycling with grand-kids. Once you know how a proper spinal position is for basic weight training, your feet position and how to create proper intra-abdominal pressure and to breathe, you can progress into a level of fast development. I don't train him anymore, but he is getting still better, cause my education given to him was the key to his forward thinking health conscious performance driven lifestyle. At the age of 67 he is still a head of a big enterprise and holding on despite to collapsing market. )