What is your Motivation?
There are times when people ask me about motivation and what drives me on to achieve the things I want to do. The thing is, I could tell you, but it would probably not resonate with you. Everyone is different and what motivates me won’t necessarily motivate you, even if our goals are similar. So you have to ask yourself…..”what are my goals?, what do I want to achieve? and how can I realise them?”
However, many people have dreams but few realise them and there are a variety of reasons and I find a lot of them are to do with fear.
Fear
Fear of failure, fear of losing friends, fear of success (after all success might be an unknown to you and mean the people you know and care about may resent the fact) and even fear of fear! Fear is a big driver on holding people back and even though this is about motivation, fear can stifle you dreams if you let it.
But wait, many people don’t realise than fear is just an emotion, a feeling, just as happiness is and sadness and anger. My point is is that fear cannot hurt you! in fact motivation is a big factor in overcoming your fear! the bigger the motivation the bigger the chance that despite feeling fear, you will do it anyway.
Motivation
Another reason for a lack of motivation is the result of your individual programming and who you associate with! Surrounding yourself with the right people has a massive influence on success. If you want to do something and everyone around you is telling you that you can’t, what do you think you will want to do? On the flip side, if everyone around you is full of encouragement, where do you think that could lead??
Two Motivation Types?
The other point on motivation is that there are two types. Internal and external.
External motivation is provided by other people giving inspirational speeches or talks, or a training partner or coach encouraging you to push hard to achieve your desired results. This is great to give you a kick start, but I am sure you have experienced that once you finish training or come away from a motivational talk, your motivation and desire can fade. Now I am not saying that it is pointless, it is far from it but after a while your inner voice will then fall back into how it is programmed and will start finding every reason why not to do something and encourage you to do what you have always done.
This is why you have to reinforce your desires through Internal Motivation!
I have mentioned on here before about your inner voice, your subconscious, which takes in every bit of information from around you, what you say and how you say it , what you listen to and see on the tv, what other people are saying and even what you are reading. It is like food for the brain and like food you can consume good stuff that keeps you healthy and Junk that makes you feel crap.
Because of that it is very easily to fall into a habit of capitulation that your inner voice will reinforce, just as you have programmed it to do.
Change your habits
The good news is that you can change the way you think to help sustain your motivation and to get exactly where you want to go. Change they way you speak, use more positive words, “keep going” is way more positive than “don’t stop”. Even though they are taken as meaning the same thing, one is a negative sentence and one is positive and your brain will read it as such.
Use positive affirmations about yourself, tell yourself how great you feel, how great you are. You may not beleive it, but your inner voice doesn’t judge and just accepts it! Pretty soon you will be able to change you old habits to new good habits that with push your motivation through the roof!
Make sure you are hanging around and talking to more like minded people more often, than comes under external motivation, but both internal and external go hand in hand to get you where you want to be.
Visualisation
One final technique is through the use of visualisation. Thinking about what you want achieve isn’t enough, but by using visualisation you think about it, but to the point that you see every detail of where you want to be, how it sounds, smells, looks like and how it feels. The more information you can use the more believable it is, especially to your brain.
Motivation is a great thing, DO NOT let yourself keep your dreams as dreams, REALISE THEM. Make it happen, find like minded people, Bin the media (TV and newspapers), read inspiring books by inspiring people, think positively and talk to yourself in positive way regardless whether you believe it and just see what happens!
I have added some links to some books I recommend on motivation from amazon…..
Take your life and move it forwards.
Take care
Dean
Dirty Dozen from Synergy Athletics
In my garage gym tonight, it is getting to a point now that I have enough equipment in there so that I can avoid going to a commercial gym and just get on with what I want without interruption. Had some AC/DC cranked up loud and away I went. I needed to tonight as it was bloody freezing in there, -5 degrees C outside so I thought I’d better get my arse into gear to keep warm!
Today I decided to use a training session devised by somebody else. it is always good to learn from others, whether it is another idea of how to apply what you know or something completely different.
My friend from across the pond, Joe Hashey from Synergy Athletics knows a thing or two about designing programs and being a bit off the wall in his training methods, so when I saw his idea for the dirty dozen training protocol as I pondered on a training session a few weeks back I thought that I had to give it a go.
Now the premise is simple, pick 12 exercises and perform 12 reps of each exercise, sounds easy right? well you would be wrong, the first time I tried this it kicked my ass, I was completely gassed. Lucky for me my general physical preparedness (GPP) is at a level where I can recover quickly between rounds. After 3 though I had had enough.
The program is designed to alternate between strength and conditioning exercises. Of course it isn’t an out and out max strength program and lends itself more to conditioning and strength endurance, but it makes for one hell of a training session. As Joe says, “it is more a method of training and is designed to be short, flexible with the equipment available and what you want to get out of it”.
Which Level?
Your fitness level will define the amount of rest you take. By splitting it up into 3 levels of difficulty it allows you to have your rest defined in advance so you know when to grasp some extra air.
Beginner
1) Strength
2) Conditioning
REST 20 seconds and repeat 6 more times
Intermediate
1) Strength
2) Conditioning
3) Strength
4) Conditioning
REST 20 seconds and repeat 3 more times
Advanced
1) Strength
2) Conditioning
3) Strength
4) Conditioning
5) Strength
6) Conditioning
REST 20 seconds and repeat 2 more times
At the end of the 12 exercises, Rest for 90 seconds and repeat for 2-5 rounds depending on your fitness level. Make sure you push hard!!
My Sub Zero Dirty Dozen
With it being -5 degrees C in the garage gym tonight there was no excuse to go slow, I have to keep moving to keep warm!
I fired in an intermediate session with the following exercises, I have got a shiny new weight vest and decided this was the day I was gonna christen it. All the exercises were done wearing the vest:
- Alternating Dumbbell Shoulder Press
- Squat
- Dumbell inverted strap row
- Lunge jumps
REST 20 seconds
- Pushups
- Burpees
- Alternating Dumbbell Rows
- Squat jumps
REST 20 Seconds
- Dumbbell squat thrust to RDL
- Med Ball Slam
- Dumbbell Curls
- Full Jack knife (V sits ) sit ups
REST 90 seconds and repeat for 4 rounds
Man that weight vest made a BIG difference, totally blasted me away, but was an awesome work out. Remember you can make this method up with any 12 exercises that you want. I got the session on my flip cam but made a hash of it with it being in a confined space and static on a tripod. I might throw it up on you tube later, it probably makes for a better clip since my head is missing through out 
Thanks again to Joe hashey at Synergy Athletics for allowing me to share this with you here.
Be strong, stay healthy
Dean
Conditioning Accumulator
Hey there everyone, hope you are all having a great day!
Just had a great conditioning session and I thought I would share it with you.
I always like to challenge myself with new routines to keep things fresh, Sometimes you have just got to think out side the box and change things up every now and then. The principle for this conditioning session being an interval accumulator.
What the hell are you on about I hear you cry? well it is simple. Pick an exercise that you want to focus on (in this case I used the heavy bag, but it could just as well be any exercise), but to break it up add or “accumulate” more exercises in between. So after every round keep adding another exercise to it to make it harder and to push you that bit further. It is too easy to pick easy exercises and not push yourself. Remember the harder you go the more rewards you will reap.
This is the conditioning circuit I did, The heavy bag conditioning accumulator. Not everyone has access to a heavy bag, so it could easily have been push ups or squats or burpees. But please remember that it is this exercise that you will do the most of. For me I wanted the session to move fast with big body movements and get plenty bag work in.
Lets get on with it, here it is…..
Heavy Bag Accumulator:
30 seconds per exercise with 10 seconds between exercises (this is really to just get into position so it doesn’t cut into your interval time for the next exercise).
Start with Heavy bag, you could keep the bag work the same or mix it up to keep it interesting. I like to add speed work and power punching, basic movements but are still gruelling and then do an “all in” round where anything goes. Then add an exercise after it and so on.
i.e.
- Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, (Rest 30 secs)
- Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, Bag, Rope, (Rest 30 secs)
- Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, Bag, Rope, Bag, Squat, (Rest 30 secs)
- Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, Bag, Rope, Bag, Squat, Bag, Med Ball Burpee, (Rest 30 secs)
- Bag, Rope, Bag, lateral burpee, Bag, Rope, Bag, Squat, Bag, Med Ball Burpee, Bag, MB Squat jumps, (Rest 30 secs)
As you can see the intensity of the session increases as you go on and it requires you to push through your fatigue to keep on track.
The whole thing can be completed it 20-25 minutes, so there are NO excuses for lack of time!
Stay strong
Dean
20 Rep Shuffle
All you need
Hey there, just wanted to post up my training session from today.
You don’t need much equipment to put yourself through a gruelling training session. As you can see from the picture, a box, med ball, a pair of dumbbells and something to jump over is all I used, hell you could get away without any at all, your bodyweight would take care of the rest.
Today was a conditioning day and so used a modified version of the conditioning circuit I gave my class last night, they rocked it and I missed out, so not to be out done I swapped it about and changed the rules using repetitions instead of being against the clock.
The difference between reps and time is that depending on time limits, reps can be harder, no clock saving you, you just gotta rep it out!
I picked 10 stations, 20 reps per station and no rest until the circuit is done. By completing 5 circuits it gives you 100 reps per exercise!
- Box jump – Standing jump on and off a box, bench etc
- Dips – Off the box or bench
- Frog Jumps – Squatting down palms on the floor and jumping up
- Dumbbell punches- Light dumbbells, arms moving in and out in front of you
- Prisoner Squats – Hands behind your head, squatting down and up
- Med Ball Slams – Pick a med ball above your head and slam to the ground fast!
- Dumbbell Lunges – As you lunge down, press dumbbells into the air
- Lateral Burpees – Perform burpee, jump sideways over an object and repeat
- Pushups – Different variations (Wide, Normal, Narrow, Pike, Divebomber)
- Skipping rope – High knees, keeping a fast cadence
So 20 reps per station, with the exception of 2, You ain’t gonna get much from 20 dumbbell punches and 20 rope turns, so I upped them to 100 each.
Train Hard, keep lean!
The beauty of the 20 rep shuffle is that it is versatile, exercises can be changed, number of reps or number of circuits. But remember… IT IS MEANT TO BE HARD….. No shirking off!
This is a great way to burn fat, save lean muscle and build explosive power and build a high level of stamina, muscular endurance all in one simple workout.
I would love you to drop me a comment about this workout or anything else you want to know
So there you have it the 20 rep shuffle…….With a twist
Stay strong, stay fit and I will speak to you soon.
Dean
Spice up your Training Tabata Style!
Med Ball Slam
There may be some of you thinking, so what is this tabata thing all about? well I ain’t gonna bore you with the science behind it other than it’s named after someone and it is a great conditioning protocol. Thats all you need to know!
Tabata Style!
So how do you train tabata style? the answer is any which way as long as it involves 20 seconds of fast paced exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest, with each exercise having 8 rounds. It can make for a tough 4 minutes if you are flat out. It can be bodyweight, with weight, a mixture, anything that you can go at a fast pace.
Short on Time?
These drills are perfect when you are short on time. They are anaerobic and crank your metabolism right up, with it sitting raised for up to 24 hours after the event. Thats right, higher metabolism = more calories burned even resting afterwards!
Of course that means exactly squat if you then go and eat crappy foods. It may sound boring but the nutrition part goes hand in hand if you want to shave some lard off!
Anyway, it just so happens that today I was short on time so after a warm up on my heavy bag, I tagged 4 exercises together to really crank up a tabata style workout!
doesn’t have to 4, hell it could be 3 or 5, point is though is that you have to be able to maintain this fast pace to its end
Example Workout
I cranked out this workout earlier, using a combination of bodyweight exercises and a medicine ball for good measure!
Here goes:
- Flex strap rows – inverted bodyweight rowing with straps.
- Med ball Slams.
- squats and alternating with lunges with the med ball.
- Pushups (variations).
I added a core finisher at the end of ab wheel rollout’s and hanging leg raises, it is up to you whether you want to tag anything on the end!
it may sound easy, but keeping a fast pace and doing these exercises for 8 rounds each can result in 16 minutes of hell. If it is easy, make it harder, the challenge it to yourself, not to me.
What are your favourite exercises you could plug into tabata training?, fire the comments in and lets find out!
stay fit and train hard
Dean Coulson
