Please understand, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be better. If wanting to be better means you work bloody hard to get better than that’s great. The issue is in thinking that once you achieve that embodiment of “better”; the car, the house, the trophy wife/husband, that you will somehow be different. You won’t. Not if you are incapable of embracing the now. Beautiful sunrise this morning. Making those pancakes for the kids and enjoying sitting with them whilst they eat on a Sunday morning was such a pleasure. Crushing that workout and sitting there in a pool of your own sweat, contemplating just how lucky you are to have that home gym and be physically able to squat, bench press and deadlift in the morning. The mistake is thinking once I can deadlift 250kg somehow things will be better. What you have right now is the best it is going to be. Even if you add a bunch of zeros after your bank balance or you get that six pack you have been after the biggest mistake you can make is to not enjoy the process, the moment, whatever is in front of you right now.
It creeps up on you in such subtle ways. You tell yourself that you are just been ambitious and that these are the longings of someone who “deserves it”. Countless hours are burnt on social media looking at the houses, cars, physiques and bank balances of these people you wish to be. Stop it. Why you ask. The simple answer is because you will never attain “it”. Why am I so certain? I’m certain because it is not the attainment of “it” that will satisfy you. Getting the car, the physique, the bank balance, that particular job is just the next rung on a ladder that never ends. You will be climbing that ladder your entire life and before you know it you’ll be facing your own mortality and then wondering why you didn’t take a moment to actually enjoy what you had attained.
Please understand, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be better. If wanting to be better means you work bloody hard to get better than that’s great. The issue is in thinking that once you achieve that embodiment of “better”; the car, the house, the trophy wife/husband, that you will somehow be different. You won’t. Not if you are incapable of embracing the now. Beautiful sunrise this morning. Making those pancakes for the kids and enjoying sitting with them whilst they eat on a Sunday morning was such a pleasure. Crushing that workout and sitting there in a pool of your own sweat, contemplating just how lucky you are to have that home gym and be physically able to squat, bench press and deadlift in the morning. The mistake is thinking once I can deadlift 250kg somehow things will be better. What you have right now is the best it is going to be. Even if you add a bunch of zeros after your bank balance or you get that six pack you have been after the biggest mistake you can make is to not enjoy the process, the moment, whatever is in front of you right now.
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Below is a collection of helpful resources I thoroughly recommend:
Red Pen Reviews: For those of you who are into nutrition and in particular cutting through the quagmire of bullshit that is written out there then this website is for you. Conceived and developed by one of the leading nutrition researchers in the world, Stephan J Guynet, this website reviews the latest nutrition books that hit the shelves and gives them a rating for the following categories: Scientific accuracy, Reference accuracy and helpfulness. Collaborators for this site are all experts and provide a comprehensive review service on nutrition literature. I highly recommend taking a look at whether this site has reviewed the book you are about to buy before you spend your hard earned money. Examine: This is an incredibly comprehensive resource on supplements. Similar to Red Pen Reviews, this site has many expert collaborators who review all the scientific literature on supplements and then in incredible detail help the reader understand if the supplement they are interested in actually delivers what it says it will. They also provide a heap of articles to common supplement and nutrition questions you may receive as a Trainer or just in day to day life. I can't stress the depth and breadth of information that is found on this site. It is exceptional. You can also be a subscribing member and receive loads of detailed content and E books that are linked and updated as the newest research comes out. Before you spend money on the latest fad supplement, definitely check out what they say about it on this site. The famous Russian training text by Zatsiorsky and Kraemer wrote that the formula for transfer of training is; Transfer = Gain in performance / Gain in trained exercise. What this is telling us is that if your training is not transferring into an improved performance there is a lack of transfer. Therefore the question then needs to be asked "Does exercise X genuinely improve my performance in Y? or am I just getting better in exercise X only, with nothing transferring to exercise Y?". This is a critical question and one that really needs to be asked.
Take an employee in a company for example. Companies will often spend big budgets on "Learning and development" programs that are meant to improve the capabilities of their employees. Often the measure of the impact of this training for the employee will be in the form of qualitative measurements post the training with the newly trained individual completing a feedback form. Having the trained employee rate their capabilities and the value of the training though is a flawed metric. Think of it as the concept this article opened with which is Transfer. Unless we can measure that this training has transferred and the employee is now operating at a greater capacity in whatever domain the training was designed to improve, any other measure is basically an opinion. Opinions, as we know are not a reliable source. The training is really only successful if we can have some empirical evidence that the training has transferred to improved performance, leading to improved revenues for example. The same concept applies to your weight training. Now admittedly we are talking about competitive athletes here. For the regular going gym rat who just wants to put on some size and look good down at the beach a lot of what is been discussed here is redundant. If however you are a competitive athlete - Team sports, Powerlifting, Weightlifting, Strongman etc you are looking to improve your performance. Therefore you do not want to waste your finite energy systems and recovery ability on exercises that do not lead to an improved performance. How far you take this exercise is up to the individual. It would not be easy to interrogate every single movement in your training each week and clearly be able to correlate this with your chosen sports performance. You can however do this for your main lifts. Are you able to identify if you add 10kg to your squat for example, that it led to an improved vertical jump, or 20m sprint time? If you are keeping a log and show that when you improved that squat by 10kg your sprint time decreased by .25 seconds than you know that there has been god transfer from the squat to your sprint ability. You invest a lot of your time and effort into training. Do not let it go to waste by doing things which do not lead to an increase in performance. Be analytical in the way you approach your training and think carefully about your approach. Seek out ways to measure transfer and keep a keen eye on this when designing your training. If you can't be certain that it is beneficial to your chosen sport, the question needs to be asked; "why am I doing this?". Every single one of us has felt it; resistance. The type of resistance that just seems to hang over you like a storm cloud. The weight of it can often be just too much. You want to finish that project you started but resistance acts like an invisible handcuff, no matter what you do, you just can’t get it finished. You want those 6 pack abs. Just as you start to get closer, bang, resistance hits. You want to look amazing in that dress for that special occasion. For a week here or there you make progress but resistance keeps hammering you backwards.
What is this resistance? Steven Pressfield coined this term for that intangible, nagging challenge any of us have to accomplish something of significance. Resistance is that “handbrake” that stops you achieving exactly what you want. It is that annoying little guy on your shoulder who tells you to eat that Tim Tam a co worker just offered you. It is that “writers block” you get when you try and complete that important presentation you are pulling together for work. Pressfield put it best when he said Resistance – “Reduce it to a single cell and that cell will continue to attack”. What to do about it? Acknowledge it, understand it will always be there. The decision is yours. Let it beat you or you beat it. Be it fear of how hard it’ll be or just a general sense of apathy, if you want it bad enough you will beat Resistance and achieve what you really desire. The nemesis of resistance is consistency. This means train consistent, eat well consistently, read daily. The compounding effect of this consistency is the same as water creating a path through rock. It eventually wears it down. The rock tries to resist but because the water is consistent, it is unyielding, day in day out, it is inevitable that it will cut through the rock. Be like that with what is important to you and YOU WILL overcome resistance. Ref – Steven Pressfield – The War of Art Ray Dalio. Hedge Fund billionare reportedly worth more than >USD$18billion. Founder of Bridgewater Associates.1 Dalio has a number of publications, one which has been ranked in the top 13 business books of 20171 is his manifesto – Principles. Principles is part autobiography and part “text book” of his personal principles for life and business. At the time of writing this book has received >850 reviews on Amazon with 70% rating it as 5 star. 20% rate the book 3 stars or less2. I agree with the 20%. This book contains so many principles it is asinine to even think that someone could actually read these and put them all into use. There literally are 100’s of principles. As a result, these principles all become slogans, considerations and aphorisms. Principles should be tight, well-constructed and universally applicable. If they meet these criteria, they therefore cannot number in the 100’s. They should be limited in number but applicable to a wide variety of situations. This did get me thinking about what would be my principles if I were to commit them to writing. This is not a simple exercise in regards to prioritisation. In order to be applicable and tight it requires you to think very carefully about what is your quiddity. The following are the principles that I believe an Iron Exec should consider carefully; · Be objective: Do not react instantaneously to something you hear, see or read. This I admit is not easy. In this day and age of everyone been “outraged” at some form of perceived wrong doing it is almost a badge of honour to lose your shit over something you believe is of the highest moral injustice. Why not differentiate yourself by not doing this? This will not mean you are morally bankrupt or ethically challenged. What it will mean is you do not live a binary perception of the world, with things having to be good and evil, wrong or right. By remaining objective you see what is actually going on. Having the discipline not to be blinkered by an emotional hijacking allows you the opportunity to observe both sides of an argument, both sides of a business case, regardless of the situation, you can remain detached enough to appropriately see all sides and then be in a position to formulate an opinion or position that will be more in keeping with your true character. · Make physical exercise a daily habit: No one can argue that in the 21st century, for the vast majority of the worlds population we live a more sedentary life. There is no need for me to go into chapter and verse as to why this is bad for your health. This leaves you with two options. Get a job and lifestyle that requires you to be physically active every single day for the rest of your life (Think of such occupations as farming, furniture removal, labourer etc) or prioritise and make a habit of exercising every day. You don’t need to be an elite level athlete. What you do need to do though is exert yourself. Vary the intensity of course but nonetheless do something. One day it may be an hour walk. The next day may be some heavy deadlifting and benching. Just make it a habit. As an Iron Exec I would urge you to prioritise resistance training that is periodised between periods of heavy lifting (strength building) and other times of more volume and time under tension (hypertrophy training). Combined with weekly low intensity steady state cardio and at less frequent times high intensity interval training, this will forge a highly functioning human machine. · Trust – Treat people how you wish to be treated. Should people not trust you to deliver? Should people treat you like a child? Do you need to be micromanaged at work? Do you like when you do things for people and they don’t acknowledge your work? Why then should you do this to your colleagues or family members? Trust is actually not that difficult but for some it is incredibly tough to do. They just don’t like to feel as if they relinquished control in some way. Showing trust in people is usually repaid through that person doing right by you. If they don’t, you no longer trust them. Pretty simple concept. If trusting people seems challenging to you, why not start small, trust someone to complete a small task. When the task is completed to your liking show some more trust on something slightly larger or more important. You will be pleasantly surprised. · Be curious – Being curious requires a number of possible traits. A sensible dose of cynicism, a hunger to understand things at a deeper level and a thirst for wanting to understand the drivers and motivations of those around you. When you combine these traits you have recipe for positive curiosity. This will lead to insights. Insights, particularly in business, but also in maintaining relationships, are what will set you apart as been different. The ability to generate insights will mean in business you will make wise decisions. Insights into what makes people tick gives you a differentiated advantage. You will be able to influence, guide and support the people around you in a genuine but also incredibly touching way cause it will show that they are understood, listened too and that they mean enough to you for you to actually care. This is powerful. Curiosity needs to be part of everything you do as it will drive those insights you are constantly seeking. If you like what you read here and want to learn more about Iron Exec principles for Strength and Business, check my book out here mybook.to/IronExec 1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Dalio#Published_works 2.https://www.amazon.com/Principles-Life-Work-Ray-Dalio/dp/1501124021/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1551028505&sr=8-2&keywords=Dalio+PRinciples You have been training for weeks. Consistently completing all your sessions with high intensity and focus. However this week you’ve found it really tough. Your motivation is low and it’s been hard for you to really push hard in each workout. What’s happening?
The answer could be you’re not focussing enough attention to recovery. Fatigue from the workouts alone are not the whole picture. Perhaps you have been working overtime at work. Your dog is sick and you had to take it to the vet and recently you have not been sleeping well. All of this stress accumulates on top of your training to cause the symptoms outlined above. The answer to this is to make sure you are devoting the appropriate time to recovery and stress management. The following are evidence based recovery modalities, in order of importance you need to consider if you want to perform at your best. - Sleep: Adequate sleep is essential for everyone, particularly hard training athletes as yourself. Sure people can survive on 4 hours a night but these people are the exception and it is likely they could perform better with more. Similarly you may not need 12 hours but aiming for that solid 8 hour mark is a great start. Keep the room cool, use block out curtains to keep the room as dark as possible. Avoid your phone and computer in the bed and keep any other sources of light such as an alarm clock to as low a setting as possible. Consistent adequate sleep is the best restorative source of recovery. - Calories: Ensuring appropriate and good quality calories is crucial to recovery. In fact it’s been said “no such thing as overtraining, just under eating”. While a little simplistic the underlying message is an important one. Getting good quality calories from a wide variety of sources is great for recovery. Vegetables of every colour, lean meats, dairy and whole grain carbohydrate sources should be prioritised. Limit fried foods and highly processed foods as these are often high in calories but very low in fiber, vitamins and minerals. - Self applied modalities: Hot and Cold showers, Ice baths, foam rolling and stretching are all examples of self applied recovery techniques. There is a reason all professional athletes around the world use these techniques consistently. They aid recovery and enable the athlete to continue to perform at their peak. Start implementing these ideas into your daily routine consistently and monitor your performance. You will notice which of the above ideas adds the most value for your recovery and then you can prioritise those techniques into your everyday routine. Ref. Venter, R; Role of sleep In performance and recovery of Athletes: A Review Article, 2012 Beck, K; Role of nutrition in performance enhancement and postexercise recovery, 2015 Barnett A; Using recovery modalities between training sessions in elite Athletes, 2006 I get it. Taking supplements helps you to think you are doing something extra for your body and your lifting. That pre workout or creatine just makes your commitment to the cause seem that little bit stronger. Nothing wrong with that. Where things go wrong however when you buy and consume supplements that do nothing for you. This is where Branched Chain Amino Acids come in. They are worthless. In fact they could be making you worse.
Robert Wolfe in his article found in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition titled; Branched-chain amino acid and muscle protein synthesis in humans: myth or reality? wrote a frank appraisal of the worth of BCAA's and based on the title of this blog post you can guess what the findings were. Before we jump into exactly what those findings were lets understand what would motivate someone to try BCAA's in the first place. The common thinking or "bro" thinking is that taking Leucine (1 of the 3 "vital" BCAA's) is thought to trigger increases in muscle protein synthesis (MPS). It is important to note however that this thinking came from a bunch of rat studies. Therefore the thinking is that by taking BCAA's between meals you can consistently be stimulating MPS. More MPS = more muscle, right? In order for MPS to occur you need to understand the mechanism of muscle protein turnover. In order for MPS to occur you need all Essential Amino Acids (EAA) and the Branched Chain Amino Acids. Therefore, if you just consume the BCAA's typically found in BCAA supplements you still need the EAA's to create MPS. Guess where this comes if you only consume BCAA's with no other EAA's? That's right, muscle. The body is forced to turnover its muscle to create the EAA's to combine with the BCAA's to create new muscle. Simply put, you are becoming catabolic (muscle loss) in order to try and make something of the BCAA's. This is exactly what we are trying not to do. We want to build muscle. Not lose it to try and create more...… In conclusion Wolfe writes "We conclude that the claim that consumption of dietary BCAA's stimulates muscle protein synthesis or produces an anabolic response in human subjects is unwarranted." What you should be doing instead is eating whole protein sources and using a whey or casein protein. In fact a regular 30 gram serving of whey will provide you the same levels of leucine, valine and isoleucine (the 3 BCAA's found in supplements) with the added benefit of the EAA's, therefore stimulating MPS and building muscle rather than needing for muscle turnover (catabolism) to provide the necessary building blocks of muscle. Simple take home message, lift heavy, eat your steak and enjoy that whey protein shake after your lifting. Nothing fancier required! Ref: Wolfe, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (2017) 14:30 Lifting heavy is awesome. Even more awesome is seeing the amount you can lift increase. We all want to be able to press or squat an extra plate each side. In order to get there we slave away adding weight each week and straining under the additional load we eek out a few reps. For many this is the extent of their progression. Add weight, fight like hell and hope you can keep pushing each week to reach a new PR.
This might work occasionally but if your goal is to reach Iron Exec levels of strength you best use a range of ways to identify that you are progressing. The following are some effective ways you could incorporate alternative ways of knowing you are progressing: Time/Density: If it is taking you 40 minutes to complete your squat routine working up to your final max set is it possible next time you can complete it in 38 min? Are you able to still lift the same loading progressions but complete them in a shorter time? If you can then you are progressing. The density of the workout has gone up as you can now pack in more work in a shorter period of time. A good indication your strength is progressing Quality: Your max bench may be 140kg but the lift is hideous. Your butt is coming off the bench, it takes about 6 seconds to complete and your training partners hands were on the bar as he shouted "it's all you bro". What if you kept lifting and training properly and you can complete the 140kg bench with your butt down, a genuine pause on the chest and a confident clean lockout? You have progressed. Whilst the load is the same the quality is vastly different. Do not underestimate the "quality" of the lift as an extremely accurate indicator of your strength progressing. Recovery: Does your typical leg workout leave your lower back and legs completely trashed? Can you barely walk for 2 days after it? That might be fine. The thing is if you can keep at it and begin to complete the same level of work but feel net to know soreness the next day this can be an indication of strength progression also. The reason this indicator is important is that it has taught you that you can handle the volume you are currently doing. You then need to ask yourself; do I add more volume or load? My recommendation is not to add both. Control one variable and monitor your progress. Getting brutally strong and jacked is not an overnight thing. It takes years. We all want to add weight to the bar. The smart lifter however knows that this is not a linear progression where you can do this every time you step in the gym. Be wise. Adopt some of the above indicators into your training and think carefully about how these indicators can provide a clarity of direction for your next training block. A new year is upon us and once again there is a huge array of articles regarding New Years resolutions and why they do not work. We have all read them. Themes like; People bite off more than they can chew. They set unrealistic goals. SMART principles of goal development are not used. All of this is true. The point been missed however is that dreaming big is not a bad thing. In fact, dreaming big is actually an important thing to do if you are to be the type of success, I bet you want to be. There is no shortage of Elon Musk’s or Richard Branson’s of the world telling you to dream big and yet all these articles tell you to think “realistically” and “start small”.
I believe you should do both. Dreaming big develops ambition. Nothing wrong with ambition. In fact, it is ambition that drives you. It is the reason you live an Iron Exec lifestyle. Ambition is the reason you lift weights maniacally, why you track your protein intake and why you focus very carefully on the work that will drive a genuine difference and not just administrative work that never really creates anything meaningful. Do not be afraid to dream big. Perhaps you are carrying 30% bodyfat and want to get to a super lean 8-10%. This can be done and frankly should be done if you are in this position. The secret is in not just “dreaming the ambition” but building habits and goals that will take you first from 30% bodyfat to 28%. Perhaps the dream is 10% but the first goal is just to replace that cereal you have for breakfast with a protein shake and a piece of fruit. There was a famous judge out of the United States who in the previous century was overseeing a case of the State vs a film producer. The State wanted to censor this film claiming that it was “Hard Core Porn”. The Prosecution and the Defence were spending considerable time trying to define what constitutes “Hard Core Porn”. After hearing this go back and forth, Judge Stewart said “This will probably never be intelligently defined, but I know it when I see it and this movie is not it!”. How is that for pragmatism? The Iron Exec is pragmatic and takes a similar approach to Judge Stewart on the goal setting for the year. Do not get carried away with the goal being perfect. Do you have ambition? Do you have some simple habits you could build that could help you begin to chip away at the ambition? If you can answer yes to these two questions then you can just go right ahead and start to make that dream become a reality. Do not spend all your time trying to define "hard core porn" (Goals) versus actually working on achieving the goal. For those of you who may be interested, my Iron Exec resolutions for 2019 are: · Include in my lifting routine some more “Athletic” based movements that gets me moving more rather than lifting in a fixed position eg – bear crawls, combined movements such as Trap Bar walking paired with hurdle jumps. · Continue to work on my body composition and look to drop another 2% bodyfat by July 2019 by tracking protein intake and utilising appropriate periods of intermittent fasting (by appropriate I mean using this protocol on non lifting days). · In the second half of 2019 secure clarity on my next role within my organisation and ensure this works well for my family. Good luck to you in 2019, keep practicing gratitude and lift frequently! I've seen the argument put forward that "mastery" is an ancient ethos of which no one these days either cares about or is capable of. I agree on the one hand that mastery was likely more revered in the past in the middle ages or the ancient Roman or Greek era's or in Feudal Japan with the Samurai. There is plenty of evidence to show that the concept of mastery was seen as a noble and right cause. These days you are more likely to hear garbage about entrepreneurial agility and the ability to have amazing learning agility. With the advent of social media and the internet it is very easy to quickly set yourself up as an "expert" on an area of your choosing by turning yourself into some overnight, anonymous keyboard warrior who flicks between Wikipedia and letting all your "followers" know just how much you know!
For the Iron Exec's out there however, I would like to posit that mastery is essentially the only goal worth devoting your life to. Note, I am not suggesting what you should master. It doesn't matter if it is origami, powerlifting, parenting, public speaking or coaching. All are entirely plausible and deserving of mastery. What is however critical as modern members of a functioning society, where we have the luxury of seeking such mastery in diverse things, is that we do not waste the opportunity to actually reach the level of mastery in your chosen area/s. So what therefore is Mastery? One way to demonstrate that you have mastered something, and I want to be clear is not the only way to demonstrate mastery, is the ability to explain the area you have mastered as if you were speaking to a 10 year old, you could help them understand. What does this entail? Well it requires an innate and intimate knowledge of the area. Lets say you were a master Marketer. Your ability as a master Marketer would be displayed in your articulation of marketing and all it entails to a 10 year old. You would be able to discuss Market Orientation, SWOT analyses, developing Strategic Objectives, tactical planning and execution in such simple terms that a child could follow it. Mastery is also that intangible piece that everyone else can sense, feel and see. When you see someone with Mastery you know it immediately. Just like Walter Payton said "When you're good, you tell everyone. When your great, they tell you!" People with Mastery of a subject or activity very rarely will brag. Their actions, their behaviours, even their demeanour will ooze Mastery. Michael Jordan when he was in "His Zone" had Mastery of the game of Basketball. Kevin Hart doing stand up has Mastered entertaining and being humorous. Kirill Sarychev with a 335kg RAW bench press is a master of that lift. Julie Bishop, Australian politician has mastered the ability to be witty and concise at the same time, Cailer Woolam with a world record deadlift at 100kg of close to 420kg's has clearly mastered that lift. All of these people can rightfully claim to have mastery. You won't likely recognise all or even any of these names and this is an important point in and of itself. If you are looking to master something to win fame and fortune then you have missed the point. Mastery of your chosen area is for you. The fact it can bring joy to others, such as a spectator watching Jordan play basketball is great, but not one of these Master's did it for someone else's pleasure. They all developed Mastery because it spoke to them. They recognised perhaps they had a talent and then enjoyed that talent and wanted to see how far they could take it. It's also possible they didn't have a natural ability for their particular thing. They may have just really loved that thing and it made them feel alive. The point is it isn't about external recognition. The reason you should seek Mastery is ultimately because when you're gone, I'm sorry to say, it is highly unlikely you will be remembered. This is just another reason for why Mastery should not be to gain external validation or approval. The truth is, it is incumbent upon you to make the most of what you have and what you want to work on. Then put your heart and soul into that thing and never stop learning and striving to improve. When your last day does finally then come, you can at least face this day with your head held high that you did all that was within you to make the most of what you had. Go after that record squat, work like no one has ever seen before to to build that business or practise that magic trick until everyone believes it is real. Whatever it is, seeking Mastery is a genuine path to a life full of meaning and contentment. |
Into all things Strength and Conditioning. A bachelors degree in Leisure Studies and an M.B.A. Certified Elite Trainer with the ISSA - PT, Specialist in Strength and Conditioning & Sports Nutrition. Published author on Powerlifter Today and The Iron Exec. I compete in IPF sanctioned powerlifting competitions and am a former professional Rugby player. Archives
February 2023
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