Author Archives: Man Bicep
The Five Pillars of Health
Being healthy is about more than working out or eating well – it is about balancing what I call “The Five Pillars of Health.”
These five pillars are:
- Diet
- Activity
- Sleep
- Vitamin D/Sunlight
- Stress
When you do your best to get the most out of all five pillars, you will be healthy. Ignore one and all of your hard work with the others may go to waste.
Being healthy is all about BALANCE.
Let’s take a look at all five pillars and how they each contribute to us being healthy.
The Double-Edged Sword of Learning
I’m definitely of the opinion that you should always continue learning – that you should always be seeking out new knowledge and growing.
However, constantly learning can be a double-edged sword if you don’t apply a filter.
The problem with constantly learning is that you are going to encounter lots of opinions that differ and even contradict what you are currently doing.
And while it is good to adjust your program as you learn and grow, there are also going to be times when you need to IGNORE the new information.
There are lots of different things that work and you can’t do them all…especially not all at once.
So while you want to try to incorporate the new things you learn, you must do it in a way that actually allows you to BENEFIT from all of your new knowledge.
That means not always chasing shiny new things and constantly doing the latest and greatest.
It means experimenting (aka actually giving something time to see if it works) with something new and seeing if it works and then deciding to keep it or not.
The more you learn, the more you will understand that you have to FILTER what you learn and pick and choose what to believe and apply.
While there are lots of things that work, you have to find what works for you.
All the learning in the world won’t help you get results if you don’t apply it appropriately.
While you want to continue to seek out and read new information, you need to process it for yourself.
Bodyweight Training – Some Must-Reads
I’ve become slightly obsessed with bodyweight training. I think it is something that anyone at any level can do while still being super challenging even for the advanced lifter.
A few weeks ago I took a workshop with Max Shank that went over Front Levers, the Planche, the Human Flag, Handstands, Back Bends and even more.
It was wonderful!
There are so many ways to regress and progress bodyweight moves to make them work for everyone.
Which is why I was super excited when I saw this Bodyweight Training Book and Video bundle on Mark Sisson’s (The Primal Blueprint) twitter the other day.
Bodyweight training books and videos!!!!
Three Warrior III Variations to Work Your Butt and Balance
I love using yoga pose variations in my recovery workouts and even in some of my strength training routines to develop stability.
All too often we skip from basic balancing moves that develop stability to big heavy lifts that develop strength, forgetting that without stability we won’t truly be strong.
That is why, every few weeks or so I dial it back and work on building my stability (or depending on my routine, it may even be added in when I’m lifting heavy!).
To dial back my deadlift, I like to use the Warrior III yoga pose to develop stability and work on my balance. (It is actually one of many yoga poses I love to use.)
The Warrior III pose is a great way to work on balance, core strength and activate the glutes. It also can help improve your mobility and the flexibility of your hamstrings and hips.
However, I don’t just hold the Warrior III pose.
Here are the 3 Warrior III variations I love to use to develop stability and balance all while activating my glutes and improving my mobility.
Warrior III Variations:
For more information….
Hope everyone had a great week.
I asked these question of a few of my clients the other day and I would like you all to consider them too:
Are you celebrating little victories? What is one thing you are proud of from this week?
(Comment below and help inspire others to celebrate their little victories!)
Learning New Moves – Breaking It All Down
The other week on Redefining Strength I talked about how the incline push up is a better regression to progress yourself toward the full push up from the ground than the modified knee push up.
The reason the incline push up is better is because it teaches you the correct form for a full push up and makes your body work in the exact same way.
While knee push ups may make your upper body stronger, they don’t force your whole body to work together and move together in the same way it will have to during full push ups.
HOWEVER, maybe if you do a variety of planks while strengthening your upper body, you will get there. But you need to regress the move and target the weak points.
When you regress and break down moves so that you can do something more advanced, you need to work your body in a way that will actually make you stronger for the advanced move.
Sometimes when we regress moves, we don’t actually work toward the move we want – sometimes we just make ourselves stronger at the regression.
Personal Training – Accountability, Results, But Most Importantly LEARNING
I actually got asked the other day by a client, “Aren’t you scared your clients are going to leave you because they’ve learned how to train themselves?”
I gave the client a look and said, “Well are you going to?”
His answer was, “No.”
But my client did raise a great question, “What are you supposed to get out of personal training?”
A great workout program?
DEFINITELY!
Accountability and support?
YUP!
Results?
HECK YES!
But most importantly, you should LEARN.
You shouldn’t become more dependent training with a personal trainer – you should become more INDEPENDENT.
We are here to help. To motivate. To guide. TO TEACH.
I don’t want my clients coming back to me because they don’t know anything, because they are scared to workout on their own.
I want to empower my clients. I want them to be able to help me teach and guide the next wave of people coming into the gym.
Your personal trainer should be a teacher. They should empower you both inside and outside of the gym.
They should help you realize your own strength.
They aren’t making you successful – THEY ARE HELPING YOU MAKE YOURSELF SUCCESSFUL.
So why am I telling you this?
Because I want to encourage you to feel empowered and to ask WHY – to question and to LEARN.
Don’t feel like you have to just accept everything we say.
Ask questions!
Learning and understand why our program is the way it is can help you stay dedicated even when your results slow for a bit or life gets difficult.
Learning will make you more independent. It will make you stronger and more confident.
And if your coach doesn’t empower you to learn…If your coach doesn’t like when you question them….
Maybe they aren’t the right coach for you.
And for all you coaches out there, remember you aren’t just churning out workouts – You are empowering people.
You are TEACHING people and helping them GROW!
P.S. There are a few of you right now that I’m so proud to work with. You have learned and grown so much and inspired me in return. I’ve been so honored to be a part of your journey! XOXO
NOTE: And if you are interested in learning more about push ups and developing core strength – Check out my latest email! (Want to receive these emails, subscribe here!)
Finding Balance – Weekends and Binging
When we are around on the weekend, we tend to want to party and relax.
And food is easily right at hand.
Which is why so many of us tend to go crazy on the weekends and overeat.
The food is right there. And we associate “relaxing” and “partying” with food.
While I definitely agree with cheat days, going completely crazy over the weekend may just be holding you back from achieving your goals as quickly as you would like.
If we want to be successful, we need to be CONSISTENT.
Two days of complete binging is far from consistent. Two days of complete binging may cause you to lose gains you made during the week.
It will make you feel like you aren’t making any progress with your diet during the week. Or it may cause your progress to be way slower than it would be otherwise.
It may even cause you to give up on a week day program that truly is working!
Why put in hours of hard work during the week only to erase all your progress over the weekend?
Who would want to sabotage their own progress? To slow down their own results?
NO ONE!
Yet every weekend so many of us do.
We let “we are relaxing” or “partying” to become a complete and utter binge.
We make excuses about how we “deserve” the bad food for all of our hard work.
We completely forget about our goals for the satisfaction in the here and now.
And while we need to balance every day life, fun and our long-term goals that doesn’t mean we have to completely let go every weekend OR completely adhere to our perfectly clean and healthy eating habits.
Instead we need to find a BALANCE.
We have to balance our desire to “party” to “relax” and eat on the weekends with our need to stay consistent enough and remember our goals.
We need to balance our short-term desires with our long-term goals.
What matters most to you?
Remember that and find your balance this weekend!
Stay consistent…Not perfect…Just consistent!
Get The Support You Deserve – Get Rid Of The Crabs
This past weekend I attend this Fit Business Conference thanks to Dennis.
Bedros, the organizer of the event, started the event off with probably the best stories of the weekend…
A story about CRABS.
In his story he spoke of talking to a crab fisherman who had a bucket of crabs.
In the bucket were crabs piled on top of one another…And one single crab crawling to get out of the bucket.
As the crab grasped the rim in an attempt to make a getaway, Bedros said to the fisherman that it looked like one was going to make an escape.
The fisherman told him to just wait and see what happened.
Because, just as the crab looked like it was going to escape, the other crabs grabbed it and pulled it back down into the bucket.
Take this month and…DO MORE PUSH UPS
There are a few exercises that everyone seem to want to get better at…
And push ups is one of them.
Man Bicep 