The Secret

Guest Post by Mike Reynolds

“What’s your secret?”

That’s the question that I’m most commonly asked when people comment on my weight loss. After all, almost 70 pounds in 10 months is it’s own conversation starter, whether I like it or not. Hearing that question has gotten to the point of being a little annoying, and I just smile and wait because I know they’re going to answer their own question in just a couple more seconds……”Diet and exercise, right?”

At this point I usually just kind of say something like, “Yeah, pretty much” because I’ve learned that that’s exactly what they want to hear. They just want me to confirm their ever so simple, paid programming idea of making a lifestyle change. You see, the words “Diet” and “Exercise” are quick and easy to throw out in conversation. They can each mean a million different things so you don’t have to be specific to sound like you might know what you’re talking about. Unfortunately, for most people that ask me what my secret is, “Diet” and “Exercise” means ordering a Diet Coke with the Six Dollar Bacon Western Cheeseburger Combo Meal and having a social hour with buddies at the gym. (Don’t forget to pick up too heavy of a weight and suck the gut in when a cute girl walks by).

I don’t blame them. I used to ‘Diet’ and ‘Exercise’ that way. But I’ve also noticed that people who are fit don’t ask what my secret is….they must already know the answer. They just shoot me a nod and say something like, “Good Job, where do you work out?”

Now I know I’m probably being idealistic here because most of the people that ask the stupid ‘what’s my secret’ question, are just being polite and don’t really care to hear the answer. There’s also not enough time in a regular day-to-day conversation to lay out an honest answer for everyone that asks.

But indulge me for a few minutes. Let’s pretend those people really do want to hear what the secret is. Let’s pretend we have all the time in the world, and let’s pretend they’re reading this article right now. What’s my secret? Here’s my answer:

There is none, dumbass! That’s right, there is no secret. It takes commitment, motivation, hard work, education and hard work. Yeah, I said it twice. There’s no DVD, no book, no pill, no shake, and no machine that can change your life. It’s not a gift that anyone can give you and you can’t buy it online….but that’s also what makes it so valuable! Everything I mentioned above is really what’s needed to change your life and you can only find those things in one place…. inside yourself. Free of charge. They are all necessary and are all equally important. You can start looking for them right now and while you do that, I’m going to ramble on about what I think those virtues mean in terms of making a lifestyle change.

We’ll begin with Commitment. I won’t start with the over-used “Webster’s Dictionary defines….” line on you here. You know wtf it means: Doing what you say you are going to do. Keeping your word; honoring an agreement. There are tons of examples for making a commitment, too. A simple handshake deal, a business contract or a marriage… you get the idea.

But in this case, you’re making a commitment to yourself. It’s not as simple as just telling yourself you’re going to change your life. I’ve told myself that very thing a thousand times back in the day. I know there are things in life we can’t control that don’t always allow us to keep every promise we make. It sucks, but it’s a reality. That’s why the first step to making a commitment to yourself is to consciously take some time out of your life and do some soul searching to try and find the answer to two very simple questions:

1) Who are you now? 2) Who do you want to be? It can take some time, trust me….but you can’t move forward until you honestly ask and answer those two questions. If you truly search, you’ll find your answers and often when you least expect them. The thing that makes a commitment to yourself so special is that it’s completely unique. Nobody else can make the same commitment because everyone’s answers to who they are and who they want to be are different. Plus, it feels great just to know what direction you need to go. Call it the first goal of your new life…getting from the ‘now’ to the ‘want to be.’

Next, promise yourself you won’t let anybody or anything keep you from that goal. If you don’t reach your goal, know that the consequence is that you’re stuck at ‘who you are now.’ When an obstacle gets in your way (and they will) be prepared to go around it, over it, or under it. If it looks too big and intimidating, take a deep breath and re-focus, get a running start and go right through it! Once you’re on the other side, it’ll look small and insignificant and you’ll feel like King Kong well on your way to the ‘who you want to be.’  Lather, Rinse and Repeat for the rest of your life. That’s commitment.

Motivation: Webster’s Dictionary Defines Motivation as….I’m just kidding. To me, Motivation simply means,’ what drives you.’ What thing, person, or idea is the fuel that makes your engine run? For me, it’s my family. I’m motivated to grow old with my wife and watch our kids live and learn. I want to be able to guide my kids by being a positive example of a father. I want to be around to celebrate their victories, and to comfort and encourage them in their losses. I want to be the epitome of a strong, healthy, honorable man and protector. I want to be able to leave this earth long ahead of them, but at peace with the fact that I made positive contributions in the raising of two happy, confident, well-adjust adults. That’s what drives me. Your motivation, or fuel for your engine, might be similar or in a completely different ball park. That’s cool, because again…it’s your motivation that matters, not anyone else’s. Your motivation can come from more than one source and It can change along the way. I shared the high octane version of my ‘fuel.’ Sometimes, I can take my motivation in simpler doses like when I want to reach a certain goal weight in time for a family reunion just to impress my relatives that haven’t seen the new me. Or I can simply be motivated by the pump after a killer workout or the fact that I reached a new fitness goal. And sometimes, I get a burst of fuel when the right song lands on my ipod at just the right time. But the REAL motivation…the fuel I need to get to the gym on the days that I don’t want to go, the kind that I need to order the salmon in a steakhouse…..is my family. What’s yours? I can’t find if for you, but you better get crackin’ because you’re going to need it, Lots of It.

Hard Work. I shouldn’t have to define this one but since you’re asking, I’ll give you my definition in a fitness context. There’s a point in a workout when your muscles are failing and the pain has convinced your mind that you can’t go on. Well, that very point is where the warm-up ends and the real workout begins. It may only last a couple more seconds but that drive to push for one more rep, or run another block well after the point of sanity, is what burns fat, adds muscle and builds character. I don’t care what you’ve seen on an infomercial or what your genetically gifted buddy told you. Without hard work, you won’t see results. It is this concept specifically that screams, “THERE IS NO SECRET, DUMBASS! To me, hard work means giving absolutely everything you can in your workouts, every time you work out. It means pushing your body and mind to a place that they may have never been. It means pain; Lots of pain. Pain during and pain after. Suck it up and learn to love it for what it is: An indicator of your effort. Hard Work is the Engine that is fueled by Motivation. I figure if I can’t give max effort in just one measly hour out of the 24 I have available to me, I should probably stay with ‘where I am now.’ That’s not going to be you, right? You’ll make your commitment, which will help you discover your motivation which in turn will drive your hard work! Sweet!

Education: Now, I don’t have a bunch of letters after my name. If I did, they would be ‘B.S’., but they wouldn’t represent a degree. I have seven and half semesters of Community College. I like to think of myself as a simple man, but not a simpleton. I think that means I don’t know all, but I know all I need to know for now. There are certain things you need to know about nutrition and exercise to make a successful lifestyle change. If you want to be a sheep in the flock like most of America, the food and fitness marketing companies thank you for that. I found that I needed to read up on nutrition and exercise to make my own decisions about the directions I wanted to take. There’s a place called a ‘Library.’ You can check out books for FREE, do your own research and return them when you’re done. It’s pretty cool. You can read tons online or talk to people that really know the difference, but don’t take the word of the first person you ask. There is tons of good information out there about Nutrition and Exercise and there is even more crap that somebody is trying to sell you. Educate yourself on how the body processes food and how the macronutrients work through their metabolic path. It’ll make your journey so much easier and you’ll be able to tailor your ‘want to be’ to suit you, and not the deceptive marketing leeches trying to get your money. It would defeat the purpose of me telling you to educate yourself if I gave you all of the information I’ve learned during my quest, and you may disagree with me anyway, which is great ’cause then you’d be thinking for yourself. But what I will do is give you 5 basic concepts that I think are important and hopefully you can use them as building blocks for you to research on your own and make the best choices for yourself. They are:

1. All calories are not created equal.
2. Eat less more often.
3. Don’t fear the fat.
4. Your granola/energy/protein bar is a Snickers bar in disguise.
5. For 99% of us, water is the best sports drink available.

Well there you have it. That’s my long-winded answer to ‘What’s your secret.’ Writing this article made me realize that maybe I’m the dumbass and there IS a secret after all. But I don’t think that secret is something I can give you because it’s mine and it grew and evolved with me through my journey from ‘who I was’ to ‘who I want to be.’  Look inside yourself for your secret, it’s buried in there somewhere. Believe in yourself and find your own path. Good luck.

Tags: motivation

Why Has Nothing Changed? Improper Wrist and Forearm Strength Training

Guest Post and Free Sample Workouts by Jedd Johnson of the Diesel Crew

If you’re a baseball player, you know that hand strength and forearm strength are very important to your game.

This is something that my coaches told me all the years that I pitched.

So, when I was 12, my parents got me this weird looking wrist-strengthening thing that you put your hand inside of and then performed wrist flexion.  It kind of looked like this thing (see picture below), only it had a resistance dial that you could turn to make it tighter:

After like 3 weeks of that, even if I had the dial turned up to the toughest levels, I could do endless repetitions while watching TV and riding a unicycle.

Well, maybe I wasn’t that strong at 12, but the machine was essentially a pointless device.

When I got to high school I was shown other forms of wrist training.  Dudes at the gym introduced me to wrist curls. They felt cool and made the veins in my forearms pop out like crazy, so I did them religiously.

When I got to college, I was shown the wrist roller.  It was a PVC handle with a rope tied to it and at the end of the rope was a 2.5-lb weight.  It was so light it was a joke. I remembered feeling a pinching in my shoulder every time I did it, but I never said anything and just kept on doing it because everybody else was doing it too.

Contrary to what you might be thinking, the purpose of this article isn’t to tell you my life story about wrist training.  Actually, I want to change your life story going forward about the way you train your grip and forearms, so you can take your game up to a higher level.

You see, I haven’t played baseball for 10 years, but in the meantime I have become a strength and conditioning coach and it amazes me that to this day, kids that are 12 years old are still training with the similar wrist flexion devices I was.

Kids in high school are telling me that their grip work still involves mostly wrist curls and maybe some tennis ball squeezes, and I talked to a guy I know that goes to college and he says they don’t do ANYTHING for their grip there, let alone the pinch-your-rotator-cuff front wrist roller.

So, I ask, “Why Has NOTHING Changed in the Last TEN Years?

It’s time to change the way we think about Grip and Forearm Training.  A steady diet of wrist curls, wrist roller and squeezing a tennis ball is BUSCH LEAGUE at BEST – it sucks.

Think about it this way…

Those three movements work mostly wrist and finger flexion.  That is only one movement pattern of the wrist and forearm.

You see, the wrist and forearm work together to move in 6 main ways:

• Flexion:  Moving the palm toward the front of the forearm
• Extension:  Moving the back of the hand toward the back of the forearm
• Radial Deviation:  Moving the thumb-side of the hand toward the radius bone of the forearm
• Ulnar Deviation:  Moving the pinky-side of the hand toward the ulna bone of the forearm
• Pronation:  Turning the palm down toward the floor
• Supination:  Turning the palm up to the sky

In order to be fully strong, you must work the wrist and forearm in all of these plains.  Also to avoid injury, all these plains must be exercised, because if there is an imbalance, it can cause pain and injury as well as limit strength gains in the future.

The fingers and thumb are the exact same way.  Working only flexion all the time is a recipe for disaster in the form of discomfort, strength limitations, soft tissue injury, etc.

If you capitalize on these six movement patterns of the wrist and forearm, you will be stronger than all of the other players who are just doing wrist curls.  You will notice that not just the flexors of the forearm start to grow, but you will also see that the extensors in the back of the forearm as well as the other synergistic muscles will be popping out of your forearm too.

This increase in strength will allow you to hit the ball farther because your bat speed is going to go up and you’ll be able to drive through the ball with more power.

If you are a pitcher, you are going to feel more “snap” at the end of your delivery as well as more endurance during the course of the game, as well as less pain and better recovery post-game.

And for all the players on the team, you will feel more stamina in the lower arms both during games and over the course of the season, as well as being more resilient against lower arm injuries from intense play in the field and on the base paths.

So now the question is, How do I begin?

Fortunately, I have the perfect resource for you – Ultimate Forearm Training for Baseball. This manual is over 500 pages in total, and includes 300 pages of exercises.  It also shows you how to keep your lower arms in top shape using stretching and preventive protocols that most therapists don’t even know about.  It has 20+ fully designed workout templates, and 20 pieces of equipment you can use for grip training you can make yourself or buy at a hardware store.

This is the only resource of its kind.  It is your SECRET WEAPON for lower arm strength.  Make sure to pick it up now, before your opponents find out about it.

Find the product here Ultimate Forearm Training for Baseball

Editor’s note: Jedd was kind enough to include a COMPLIMENTARY sample forearm training program for my readers.  You can download it here: Ultimate Forearm Training for Baseball Sample Workout

This is a great start in how to incorporate forearm training to enhance your athletic skills, increase your performance and minimize injuries.  If you like it I encourage you to purchase his Ultimate Forearm Training for Baseball Manual.

I had the privilege of reading the manual before he put it on sale and I must say it is quite good.  Jedd leaves no stone unturned in the 500 page manual, complete with the “hows and whys” along with exercises, do it yourself equipment instructions and tons of programs.

I make absolutely NO money off of you purchasing his product but I fully endorse it.

-Doug

Tags: baseball, Grip Training

Obama-care or Trainer-Care: It’s all about access!

Guest post by Deb

On March 22, 2010 I watched the Obama’s Health Care Reform Bill get passed and wondered, “What does that mean for me?” Without getting on my political soapbox and screaming, “Who the hell has to pay for all this?” I can shout about “prevention” which is something they talked about during the February debates and something I think everyone should do so I don’t get stuck paying for their “I was too lazy” medical bills.

Last year I went to a Kaiser health pre-screening at work. I thought it would be fun and I was SURE I was in excellent health because I was running 6 miles, 4 times a week. I thought that if I looked healthy on the outside then I must be healthy on the inside and no one, not even my doctor, ever made me think otherwise. However, after receiving my results, it was clear I NEEDED to make some major CHANGES. My cholesterol and HDL’s were not optimal, my blood pressure was through the roof and I was walking the pre-diabetic line. I thought, “I’m screwed!!!” I’m only 32-years old! I want to have kids one day and not worry about diabetes, cancers and strokes, which I just found out runs on both sides of my family. So I decided to take charge of my life and created a “prevention plan” which started with hiring and consulting a trainer once a week for 60 minutes.

I NOW truly believe a well educated trainer, like Doug, is an untapped resource for how to live a long, healthy and happy life. I’m not saying his workout prescriptions or diet advice has been a walk in the park, but neither are insulin injections, strokes or death. Just think about how many times you see your doctor? For me, I would see my general practitioner once a year for less than 15 to 20 minutes, my OBGYN for 20 to 30 minutes and 10 minutes with the nurses. I think I have spent more time in the waiting/examining room than I have actually spent interacting with any of them. I’ve only been to a Physical Therapist twice in my life; once after I hurt myself on the soccer field and another time after I hurt my back in a car accident. If I added all these interactions together, I will have spent only a total of 2.5 hours with a medical professional this year.

Under Obama-care I will receive less than 1/3 of those hours with a health care provider and it’s not just because some physicians are choosing to leave their practices. According to Money Magazine, an additional “32 Million Americans” will now have insurance for doctor appointments. While I think this is great, can you imagine how difficult it will be to get an appointment and how rushed the doctors will be to get through their flooded waiting rooms? How many questions might go unanswered or symptoms unnoticed or unaddressed? But, I will have ACCESS to my trainer and due to the frequency in which I see Doug (now twice a week for 60 min.); we can discuss tweaks and changes in my diet, exercise and sleep. I can honestly say that Doug has made the biggest impact on my life more than any other member in the health care industry combined. I’m not saying replace a medical professional with a trainer; but definitely add one to your prevention plan if you haven’t already.

I think most people hire trainers because they are unhappy with their physical appearance. Not realizing that by exercising and eating right they are also reducing their risk for diseases and many other health hazards. Most importantly, taking care of one’s health reduces the risk of heart disease, cancer and strokes, which are the three leading causes of death in America. Just think about how many people and how much money we would save if everyone exercised regularly.

Plus, a well-educated trainer like Doug can have a profound effect on your diet and stress levels. After going over my diet, it didn’t take Doug very long to give me the cold hard facts about the damage I was doing to my body. He plainly stated, “No amount of exercise can undo a bad diet!” First, he had me tackle my addiction to sugar. He started by expressing the importance of vegetables, protein and fruit in that order and how it would help reduced my cravings, increase my energy and keep my blood-glucose at an optimal level. He sent me tons of articles about sugar and how it can ruin your metabolism and life expectancy. He also provided healthy snack options like frozen fruit, veggies with nut butter or hummus, raw nuts, Larabar’s and beef jerky. It took me about a month to wean myself off of sugar completely and then I went three more months before I could add it back into my diet in moderation. To tell you the truth, I don’t miss sugar as much as I thought I would.

As a reward Doug gave me “150 Healthiest Food on Earth” by Jonny Bowden. This book has literally changed my life and I lend it to everyone because I want everyone to know the TRUTH about food. Besides switching to organic produce and milk, free-range chicken and eggs, grass feed beef and wild fish, I use real butter, eat the yoke of eggs, and limit processed foods. Never will I buy “low fat” anything again and I’m no longer afraid of saturated fat! I also thought I was lactose intolerant, but the process in which some milk is pasteurized kills some of the enzymes necessary for digestion. So now I drink whole organic vitamin D milk with no problem. My whole life I thought I had a mild case of IBS. “Yes, I said it!” But besides milk being an issue so were certain types of meats and eggs. But after going o-natural I don’t have emergencies anymore! I honestly believe it is because my body could not process the excess hormones and pesticides that are being pumped into our food supply.

Doug also suggested reading the ingredients on food labels rather than trusting all the hype printed on the box. Not just the calories etc, but to look for word substations; like Hydrogenated anything really means Trans Fat, anything ending in “cose” (sucrose) really means sugar. Also if there are too many ingredients, it’s over processed and probably not good for you. He also taught me how to slow cook everything and replace vegetable oil with organic coconut and extra virgin olive oil. I never realized the damage I was doing and the discomfort I’ve felt was because of the type of food I was eating.

I’m proud to say that after 11 months, all my screening numbers are at their optimal levels, in some cases I’m off the charts, in a good way! Besides feeling great, I’ve lost 2.5% body fat and increased my muscle mass by adding strength training. I never changed the amount of time I devoted to working out; Doug just changed my training style. I have to admit; I was extremely concerned about my cholesterol levels because I started to consume so much more saturated fat (coconut oil, yokes) than ever before. However because I increased my HDL levels by 36%, my total cholesterol level at 202 (which sounds high on its own) puts my cholesterol ratio at 2.2, which is above optimal. Above all, my biggest concern being my blood-glucose level went from a pre-diabetic number of 142 to 71, which is ideal!

This definitely didn’t happen over night and it was really hard. THANKS to Doug I’m not only in the best shape of my life but I’m healthy inside and out! I still struggle with my diet everyday and I definitely have to remind myself how good I feel after a workout before I start every work out. But I believe if you show commitment and dedication, your trainer will reward you with a wealth of information and you will feel and look better than you have in your teens or your LIFE.

Its time people took control of their lives and stopped relying on drugs as a miracle cure. “It’s Time To Wake Up America!” Don’t be a burden on society if you don’t have to be. Take it from me, getting healthy is hard work. It’s an investment in yourself, but I think you’re worth it. I know I am!

Special thanks to Jonny Bowden! Your book has inspired me to make healthy choices everyday!

SPECIAL NOTE – HOW TO CHOOSE A TRAINER?

Not all trainers are created equal! In fact I was a long time member of a chain gym that offered 3 free training sessions when you sign up. I never took advantage of this offer because none of the trainers looked like they practiced what they preached. Your trainer has got to “talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk”! If you don’t think your trainer is the epitome of health or a BAD ASS, how are they going to help you become one!!!! I’ll get back to this topic later.

Tags: Nutrition, Strength Training