20 Random Thoughts About Fitness And Life

Here are 20 more random thoughts of mine about fitness and life. As always, I am NOT speaking in black and white…

1. If your goals are not authentically yours, in most cases, you will be hardpressed to achieve them, or at least will be very miserable in the process. Do what works for YOU, and do what makes YOU happy.

2. Push-ups that are done correctly really strengthen the serratus.

3. Mental fitness is even more important than physical fitness, and needs to be made a priority, and practiced extremely consistently.

4. Mental fitness also enhances physical fitness.

5. When it comes to sports, you should be fit to play. Don’t use your sport to get fit.

6. Do workouts that make you feel good about yourself and that build you up, both mentally and physically. Working out should make you feel empowered, stronger, confident, happier, and healthier (physically and mentally).

7. It doesn’t matter whether you are working with a coach 3 days per week, or for a single session. You need to be just as mentally present.

8. With planking, the goal should be to generate a significant amount of tension and to maintain proper body positioning. If you are doing this, you should not be able to hold for very long, nor do you need to.

9. Still talking planking, as I recently discussed, imagining that you are actively pulling your elbows down towards your feet makes a tremendous difference, and will likely cause you to experience an ‘’aha moment.’’

10. As a coach, you should absolutely do everything in your power to ensure that your clients understand WHAT you are doing, and WHY, so they can apply these principles when they are on their own. This will set them up to be successful. Knowledge is power.

11. When you are performing single leg glute bridge/hip thrust variations, it is important that you engage the muscles of your non-working side. Many people forget about the muscles of their posterior chain and core muscles on the non-working side. This will make it tougher to prevent the body from rotating or overextending on one side, and from moving as a synchronized unit.

12. Assessing your clients and/or performing functional movement screens is fine. However, if these assessments make your clients feel like they are broken, dysfunctional, and fragile, this absolutely defeats the purpose of why they are working with you. There are many methods that help coaches determine what each client needs to work on, and these methods do not involve shattering their confidence, or making them fearful of movement.

13. Many people do not possess the requisite level of lumbo-pelvic stability to perform heavy barbell hip thrusts safely or effectively. This exercise is advanced, and must be treated as such. Proper progression, and of course proper form, is extremely important.

14. A regressed variation of an exercise that is performed with proper form > a regular or progressed variation of the same exercise that is performed with bad form. For example, performing hands elevated push-ups with good form is far more effective than performing regular push-ups with bad form. Form matters.

15. Do you experience discomfort in your muscles, connective tissue, or joints during the lowering portion of pressing movements? Try ‘’rowing’’ the weights down, and you might notice a big improvement.

16. Get more done in less time, and address your weaknesses by pairing an ‘’active recovery’’ exercise with your main exercises.

17. Still talking active recovery exercises. These exercises should not compromise your ability to perform your main exercises.

18. Fear mongering of any kind is not helpful, and is completely unacceptable.

19. When some people perform dead bugs, hollow body holds, etc, they compensate with the muscles in their neck, or even their upper body. Either keep your head on the ground (elevate on a yoga block if this feels more comfortable), or elevate your head and upper back just an inch or so above the ground, keep your chin tucked, and neck in a neutral position. The second you stop compensating with your neck and/or upper body, you should feel the muscles in your anterior core significantly more, and this is a main goal of these exercises. The second I correct clients who are guilty of doing this, I often witness yet another ‘’aha’’ moment as they realize just how much tougher the exercise is when they are performing it correctly.

20. Unless grip strength is your #1 priority in your workout, perform your grip-related exercises after you have performed your main exercises that demand a lot of grip strength, as you do not want these ever-important muscles to be unnecessarily tired when you are performing your main exercises. You can also train your grip on separate days, or on days off.