Lifestyle Audit

Look around at the people you work and socialise with they have a wealth of knowledge on a wide and varied topic, however, they work and live in an environment where what is going on in your life is the norm and you are or have been rewarded for this. You are responsible for where you are today, yes you are a high achiever and you have been successful so now is the time to take stock and get life back on your terms.
So, let’s begin….
Step One
You must be totally honest with yourself, now that means we must take the time to look in the mirror and answer a few questions like.
What are my current:
· Priorities is it Work, Family or You, we need to be crystal clear on what is the most important thing to you,
· Energy levels, are you using coffee or energy drinks to get you through the day, feeling tired mid-afternoon.
· Stress levels, getting angry, frustrated, feel like you must do everything which leaves you wondering whether you oversee a kindergarten.
· Health concerns, do you constantly get migraines or headaches, have you put on a few extra Kilos, not feeling as fit or strong as you once did.
· Sleeping patterns, do you require a few glasses of wine to help you unwind, are you waking up feeling tired and like you haven’t slept.
These are just a few questions that you need to honestly answer, they let you discover where your lifestyle is currently at.

Step Two
Make a list of everything that you currently do in a week.
Once you have your list, highlight everything that you must and only you can do (now if your children are at an age where they can take the rubbish out do not highlight it), remember it is the jobs you must do, not the ones you believe that no one can do as well as you.
The highlight tasks are the non-negotiables, they are your jobs to do.
Now looking at your list, the tasks that are not highlighted whose jobs, are they?
Are you doing them because if someone else does, it might not be up to your standard or is it easier to just to do it. These tasks may only take a short amount of time until you add them all up and then you find the reason why you have no time or energy for you.
With the non-highlighted task, ask yourself, whose jobs, are they? If they are someone else’s job put their name beside it, if no ones, decide now whether it is a job you must do, or can you delegate it. Once you have completed your list you will have freed up some time for yourself, now be on guard to protect this time.
Step Three
Compare the answer in step one to step 2, you will have discovered
· What you are prioritising
· Where you are spending energy
· Where you are losing time
· What your lifestyle is like
Now revaluate,
· What are your priorities
o Family?
o Work?
o Health?
o Lifestyle?

Everything we do has one common factor and that is you, so it makes sense to prioritise you first, it will have a flow on effect to everything else we do.
You are responsible for where you are today, yes you are a high achiever and you have been successful, now what will that feel like when you have:
· More energy
· Increase in strength
· Improved mobility
· Improved sleep
· Reduced stress
So, I hope this helps you and if you would like to be coached in a way that improves and enhances your life please give Michael 0437 838 455 or Corey 0418 637 907 a call or hit us up on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/muscleactivationstrengthstudio/.

3 focuses for in season sport

As we approach the beginning on seasons for sports such as football and netball a lot of players are rolling into the seasons in peak fitness. So with practice matches starting and the regular season not far away, I want to give you three things to focus on to keep you in tip top shape throughout the whole season:

1. Continue hitting the Gym

Strength training is usually the first thing we see fall by the wayside as soon as the season begins. Unfortunately this is the wrong way to go about it. Instead what you want to do is dial back the volume and really focus on strength and intensity work to be able to maintain strength levels throughout the season as we want to be as strong at the end of the season as we are at the start. Also incorporating mobility drills to assist with recovery is a key to keeping the body mobile and reduce the risk of injury.

2. Make Recovery a focus

This is key for during season as games place a huge load and toll on the body and if you do not recover properly, you will be well on your way to an injury. Now recovery does not have to be anything spectacular, remember the basics work. Think going for light walks multiple times throughout the week, getting plenty of good quality sleep and meditation are very efficient ways to allow the body to rest and recover between games.

3. Enjoy Good Quality, Nutritious food

Your Nutrition is crucial for recovery. The quality of the food you eat will directly impact how well you recover and be prepared for the game next week. If your food is poor then your body will not recover properly and you are at risk of poor performance, injury etc. Get good quality food however and you will find you recover quicker and you will also give yourself the best chance to have consistent performances.

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What is keeping you stuck?

If you understand what is required for living a healthy life. Then you know:

• The food you need to consume
• The need to reduce alcohol intake
• The benefits of exercise
• The amount of sleep you require

So, if you know this how come you still:

• Eat to much or consume unhealthy food
• Drink too much alcohol
• Lead a sedentary life or over exercising
• Going to bed late and struggling to get up in the morning
The Question you need to ask yourself is what benefit am I gaining from living unhealthy live?

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Benefit? But aren’t all those things listed negative?
Yes, they are, however each one of those habits will provide some form of instant gratification, leaving you with a sense of fulfillment.
So, if you have the understanding of what you should be doing, what keeps you stuck in these habit loops?
This is where you need to identify why you sabotage yourself, because if you understand why, you can then take steps to remove those blocks and start to instil better habits such as the ones we talk about at the top of the page, leaving you feeling positive and empowered.

Crushing your 2019 resolution or fading?

We are now a month into 2019 and we generally see one of two things when it comes to our new years resolutions:

  1. People are thriving and are making some amazing progress, getting the results they are after and are really enjoying the process.

or

2.  People start to really struggle, their old habits begin to kick in and the limiting self talk starts all over again and they start to head down the route of giving up for another year.

I get it, it can be hard to make changes to really live the lifestyle that makes us look amazing and really feel our best as there is always part of us in which we want to stay exactly where we are right now as it is comfortable and easy, But we don’t get what we really want by taking the easy route.

Having a chat with our mentor this morning, Mark Buckley, he made an awesome point which really suits those situations where we begin to make excuses for why we should fall back into old habits, he said:

“When we set a goal, we make a promise to ourselves to do what needs to be done in order to reach that goal every day. So when doubts begin to arise you need to make a choice, do you want to do what you are not in the mood to do but will help you reach that end point that you want or do you want to be a liar to yourself and take the easy way out?”

I love this because it really puts the focus back on whether we really want it or not. So when you start to make those excuses or start to look at the easy way out, just ask yourself these 2 questions and see how much easier it’ll be to stay on tr

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ack and really crush those goals.

 

The Best Plan, is the one that is Individualised.

The Next best diet, the quickest way to exercise to lose the most fat and the only health plan you’ll ever need.

Methods are not what we need, we have plenty of them and most of them have been shown to work for certain individuals.

Certain Individuals.

Everyone is different and no 2 people are the same. So when it comes to becoming healthy and fit, we need to take the same approach. There is no one size fits all approach, it would be simple if there was but unfortunately there isn’t so always question when a new fad diet comes out claiming to be the only diet you need.

Instead, Look at it and decide f you would enjoy and if it would serve you for the purpose you desire of it. If it fits with you, then beautiful, give it a go. If not, try something else because there will always be something out there that’ll work just as well for you.

 

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Need help deciding what’s Best for you? The get in Contact with us by filling out the form below.

Change is simple, but not easy.

It has come to our attention at MASS: that most people want to walk the walk and live a healthier life, they understand they will have more energy, they will be more productive at work and home, they will look and feel better about themselves, everyday life will become easier, however even though people know this there is still certain things that will hold them back.

1. Habits and previous conditioning
2. A fear to actually change and the pressure from family and friends not to change
3. Believing that going on another diet or 12-week challenge will work
4. Using being overweight as a deterrent
5. A belief that nothing will work for them
6. Time poor, believing they have no time to exercise or prepare food, easier and cheaper to eat takeaway.

So, if you find yourself talking the talk and are unable to live up to your expectation it could be as simple as discovering what the real outcome you are after is, then from here develop a plan to change what has been holding you back. To achieve and maintain the outcome you are after you must align yourself with the values and beliefs of that change.

For example, if we have a look at a smoker that is looking to quit, they must align themselves with the same environment and begin to change their beliefs to be more like what a non-smoker has.

This sounds really simple and can be applied to any sort of lifestyle change, however it is not as easy to actually put in place. This is where support and seeking help is great at helping you make these necessary changes to achieve a healthier lifestyle.

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What are you surrounded by?

It’s a question we should all ask ourselves, who and what am I surrounding myself with? Does my work environment align with what I believe? Is your home set up to support a healthy and happy lifestyle? Now I’m not saying quit your job or get rid of all your friends and do everything by yourself, all I want you to do is be more conscious of how your environment is having an impact on your health.

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Our environment will reflect on us hugely as all our habits come from our unconscious mind, which we spend approximately 95% of our time in.

I’ll use an example from my story, when I was living with my parents, the kitchen flowed into the dining room which flowed into the main living room and into another living room, basically an oval. Now at the time I was very self-conscious about how skinny I was and how I just wanted to put on weight. So what I would do was walk from the lounge, into the kitchen, get food then leave the kitchen through the dining room, I’d do a lap. Over time this became a habit, so much so that once I accepted me for who I am, I was still finding myself doing laps and eating when I didn’t even feel like, but why? It’s what I had trained myself to do unconsciously. So when did this break? Well firstly I became aware of what I was doing and actually got to a point where I wouldn’t eat every time I did a lap but I would still do the laps. Once I moved out however, it stopped, my environment had changed, I couldn’t do laps into the kitchen anymore and I found the amount of food I consumed actually lowered.

Basically the two take aways from this is that, you either need to change your environment if possible i.e. the food you have in the house, the people you spend the bulk of your time with or become more aware of the bad habits you have and give yourself a chance to make a choice to break them and replace them with new, more rewarding habits.

 

If you want to change your environment and improve your health and wellbeing, but don’t know where to start or are in need of support, fill in your details below and we will get in touch with you.

 

Exercise Versus Training

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Exercise
My understanding and belief of exercise is easy to do, first we set a goal which is not too specific like lose weight we may even set it at a certain weight say 70 kg, then we go for a walk, run, ride, or swim or partake in resistance training. Even if you are an amateur sports person who uses the off season to improve for the next season if you are just going to the gym and lifting weights with no specific area you wish to improve I belief you are just exercising. So how can you tell if you are just exercising, look at your program and ask yourself these questions:
1. Did you download it from internet site, if you did it is either a generic program or it was designed for someone else,
2. Did it come from a magazine, if so read 1
3. Are you copying a friend’s program or worse following the person who looks like they know what they are doing in the gym?
4. Are you constantly suffering from DOMS?
Now if you answered yes to any of the above there is a good chance you are exercising, maybe working even harder than what you need to, eating less or more than you need to and worse stressing your body to the point that you will end up burnt out or injured.
Training
So I understand Training requires more planning, you need a specific goal on what you are going to achieve and how it benefits you, so if you’re a football player a goal might be to improve explosive power, or if you are not a sports person it could be to improve strength ,mobility and body composition, however whatever your goal is, it must be important and mean something to you.
Once you have set your goal you need to plan on how you are going to reach it, you need to individualise a program designed to target your weakness(can’t get this from a magazine), now once you have identified your weak area it must be worked on first, when I talk about a weak area it doesn’t have to be a strength issue it could be anything from nutrition, sleep maybe even stress. By constantly targeting a weak area you will continually progress towards achieving your goal. By following this method, you will soon realise how important recovery really is.
So if you want to improve your sporting performance or your health and wellbeing stop exercising and start training. Even better find a coach who can discover your weakness before they become a real issue.

The 4 Key areas to Improving your Lifestyle and Health

Improving your health and wellbeing by making a lifestyle change can be quite difficult. The first step you need to take is to change your priorities. You need to prioritise self and then others, I know this sounds selfish, so let’s break it down.
Having a new client list their top three priorities, they will regularly list Family, Work, Finances, health and relationships (partner, friends) it is very admirable that people are constantly putting others first, however if we don’t put ourselves first how can we do the best by the people we say are the most important to us.
So where to begin

Well to improve our health and wellbeing you need to become conscious of the choices you make regarding exercise, nutrition, mindset and recovery.
Exercise should be enjoyable, I like lifting heavy things, you need to discover what you like to do. If you have tried in the past or you don’t know where to begin hire a personal trainer to get you started.
Nutrition first and foremost is used by the body for energy. Be aware there is a lot of information out there on what you should and shouldn’t eat, what is good and bad for you. My advice is quite simple eat real food that agrees with your body as often as you can.
Recovery is as important if not more so than exercise, now that is not an excuse for blowing off exercise and sitting on the coach. You need down time, this allows the body to heal from the stress you put it through every day. The best form of recovery is sleep, quality and quantity, so if you are serious about making a lifestyle change that is sustainable, start by making sure your sleep is on point.
Mental health is a real problem, you need to find people you can talk to and understand what you are going through. Don’t be afraid to seek professional help, until we have the right mindset, we are never going to feel successful.

Why Technique is so important

Last week, I posted a video on our Facebook page discussing how we undertake the Overhead Press (see it here >>> https://www.facebook.com/muscleactivationstrengthstudio/videos/2206561839378394/). Today i want to expand on why not only the technique for this lift is important, but also why it is so important to get them correct for all the big lifts and what some of the benefits are.

Firstly, lets discuss whether or not the big lifts are actually for you as an individual. This is what we call orthopaedic profiling. Orthopaedic profiling is where we assess whether or not you can actually get into the position for the lift. With the overhead press we need to have the right amount of movement in three key areas to equal 180 degrees of shoulder range of motion. These areas are the scapular, shoulder joint and the thoracic spine. If you do not have enough of range of motion in these three areas then an intervention in terms of mobilisation/strength and control work may be needed or the overhead press may be to risky for you to undertake.

This leads us to the biggest benefit of correct technique:

It reduces the risk of injury

Undertaking the correct lift technique will greatly reduce the risk of injury both under the bar and away from the gym. If we look at what can happen with incorrect technique, lets have a quick look at the bench press and one of the common errors we see, excess elbow drop. Having your elbow drop too far below the bench will lead to the humerus (upper arm) slide forward and beat up the anterior aspect of the shoulder area. continually repeated over time this can lead to numerous shoulder issues both inside the gym and outside. This can easily be avoided with the use of the correct technique which involves having an arch in the thoracic spine, shoulders pulled back, braced and pushing feet into the floor, limiting elbow drop and taking away the risk of smashing the anterior portion of the shoulder.

Second Benefit: It increases performance

Yes that’s right, just by using the correct technique you can lift more weight which will lead to a greater increase in strength, hypertrophy, performance etc. This is because bio mechanically we will be lifting in a more advantageous position. That is weight will be as close/over the mid line of the body. If we look at the back squat, the correct technique will have the weight consistently staying over the middle of the foot where we are strongest this will allow us to lift as much weight as we can possibly do for the allocated rep range. Inversely, if we don’t have the correct technique and the weight shifts farther from the midpoint, the more force we will have to produce to overcome the wight on the bar which will lead to a drop in weight lifted.

Technique is critical when you lift in the gym and can really lead us down 1 of two rabbit holes.. hole 1 can be greater performance and reduced risk of injury and the other is injury and reduced performance due to being in a disadvantaged position or suffering from constant injuries.

If you’re finding yourself struggling with constant injuries or just aren’t sure how to undertake the correct technique, ten get in contact with us by filling out the contact form below.