Train your mind... See the results on your body

132 hours of near continual physical labor...  running, swimming, paddling, push ups, sit ups, carrying boats on their heads, slogging through mud.  Mud covers their uniforms, hands, and faces.  The sand chafes their raw skin and the salt water makes wounds burn.  They are wet, cold, and sleep deprived.  It is hard to imagine anything more physically grueling, yet a Basic Underwater Demolitions and SEAL (BUD/S) instructor contends, “The belief that BUD/S is about physical strength is a common misconception. Actually, it’s 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. (Students) just decide that they are too cold, too sandy, too sore or too wet to go on. It’s their minds that give up on them, not their bodies.”  It’s up to each individual student to either turn the challenge into increased resolve, or decide on his own to quit. 

So far none of our Metabolic Warriors have approached us and asked us to train them to become a Navy SEAL, but many of the same factors that determine whether or not an individual completes SEAL training also apply to us when we either succeed or fail in reaching our fitness goals. 

One of our participants summed it up pretty easily when he said, "More than half the battle is won when I just get myself here for the training."  That is a conscious mental choice to override your body's desire to stay in bed or have another cup of coffee and read the paper, or whatever excuse your mind and body can come up with to skip your workout.   MAKE the time for your fitness training.  MAKE it a priority.  From the beginning it is a mental choice...  you either choose to do it, or you don't. 

We believe in you.  Believe in yourself.  Many of the limitations that we believe we have are just that; beliefs.  Take, for instance, the sub 4 minute mile barrier.  From 1943 to 1954 several runners came within 2 seconds of the sub 4 minute mile but it remained elusive.  Then, on May 6, 1954 Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile under 4 minutes. Interestingly, in the 2 years following that 16 more runners had accomplished that feat and the world record had dropped to 3:57.2, nearly 3 seconds under the "barrier". 

Did all of these runners suddenly adopt a different training program to break through a physical plateau?  No.  They had a mental barrier in their head.  They did not believe they could run sub 4.  Our bodies can achieve so much more than we think possible simply by training our brains and believing. 

Does that mean you throw caution to the wind and ignore warning signs in your body?  Of course not.  We have repeated over and over the difference between "good pain" and "bad pain".  We both have some limitations in our own bodies that we know we cannot safely push through and we will never ask you to do so.  BUT, we will always urge you to push a little harder when it is safe to do so.  Whatever your own personal challenge is when it comes to fitness, use your mental strength to take that challenge and turn it into the increased resolve you need to conquer it. 

"Your body will argue that there is no justifiable reason to continue. Your only recourse is to call on your spirit, which fortunately functions independently of logic." - Tim Noakes

Don't be a Fitness Fool



Housework counts as exercise.
Get in shape while you garden.
Park at the far end of the parking lot and take the stairs to get your cardio exercise.

Really?! 

By nature, most people want the easy fix or the magic pill.  The reality is that when it comes to being fit and healthy, there is no magic pill.  Numerous organizations and "experts on exercise" are urging people to get fit through everyday activities.  In our opinion that is just plain nonsense.  You've heard us urge you to be active, and we agree that making choices like taking the stairs versus the elevator do result in some benefit, but they DO NOT REPLACE regular exercise.

Take, for instance, the claim that housework is exercise.  For me, the only thing that housework exercises is my ability to overcome a mental block to doing something I despise.  Otherwise, even when I am moving continuously, my heart rate is not high enough to gain any cardiovascular benefits.  Also, most cleaning tasks involve questionable biomechanics and are not bilateral or symmetrical.  Do you change arms halfway through your vacuuming, or do you use the same arm for the whole job? 

If housework really were good exercise, then there should be some evidence that people who do housework for a living are less likely to develop heart disease, get cancer or diabetes, and suffer knee and back problems.  In fact, there is evidence to the contrary.  The British Women's Heart and Health Study reports that women who did gardening, heavy housework and slow walking (and no structured exercise like group fitness classes or weight workouts) were in poor physical condition and often overweight. But women who briskly walked two and a half hours a week were much fitter, slimmer and had slower resting heart rates.

Again, we do not discount the benefits of being active, but unless you are cleaning your toilet like this woman (not sure how clean her toilet is) you are not getting the benefits of a structured exercise program.  So we would rather be accused of interfering with your toilet habits (i.e. you can't stand up and sit down because your quads are hurting) and have your clean your toilet the regular way.  The bottom line is that it would be very challenging to do gardening, housework, or run errands in a manner that will elevate your heart rate and keep it elevated for 20 to 30 minutes.  In addition, everyday activities and chores typically do not provide any type of resistance exercise, and if they do, they are almost always asymmetrical. 

We look at structured exercise as the way to maintain a strong and healthy body so that you can accomplish those chores or "activities" that most of us don't enjoy safely and quickly.  Then you can move on to those activities that you do enjoy, such as gardening or golf, and feel stronger and perform better at them. 

Warrior Tales Part I

One of our favorite parts of our jobs as fitness trainers is seeing and hearing your success stories.  Next month will mark two years of conducting metabolic training and some of you have been with us for the entire two years!  During that time we have seen many small steps forward that have lead to huge gains in your health and fitness.  We start to see changes in you in as little as two weeks and when you are consistent with your training you begin to build a foundation that transforms your body and your overall health from the inside out. 

We are going to diverge a little bit from our typical informational blog posting this week and share some of the things our participants have shared with us.  We hope that they encourage and inspire you too.

One of our participants has a history of diabetes in his family.  He just recently went to his doctor for his annual check-up and blood work.  His health report from this year compared to last year is incredible.  We know we all (including ourselves) like to see the external changes and benefits that exercise can give us, but we truly believe that the changes on the inside are most important.  This individual's risk for developing diabetes decreased significantly in the past year.  In addition his HDL cholesterol reading of 43 from last year put him in the range of a barely acceptable HDL level.  This year his HDL had increased to 62.  HDL levels of 60 or greater are associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.  How do you raise your HDL levels?  The primary way is through exercise.  And as an added bonus, "outside" benefits this Warrior experienced over last year include a 10 pound weight loss and some amazing muscle definition.

Our next success story is a mental case...  but we mean that in the best possible way.  If you have been with us for even a short period of time you have heard us blog about, and talk about, the power of the mind.  Our bodies have the ability to do so much more than our brains initially believe they can.  If we train our brains to stay strong and push our bodies we can achieve more than we ever imagined possible. 

One of our participants is doing some additional training to develop more muscle definition.  In a recent workout she was attempting to do a seated military press with more weight than she had previously done.  She was using a barbell with weight plates on each end.  Weight plates typically go in increments of 5, 10, 25, 35, and 45 pounds.  She loaded the bar and couldn't move it.  She decided it was mental.  So she took off the large weight plate which can "look" really heavy and replaced it with smaller plates of an equal amount of weight.  The result?  Success!  This is a great example of the power that our mind has to determine whether we fail or succeed.  By training our brains to push and become stronger, we enable our bodies to achieve more than we thought possible. 

Each of you has your own success story, whether it is reduced risk of diseases that run in your family, an improved golf game, better sleep and more energy, better body composition with more lean muscle, reduced blood pressure, more flexibility to do the gardening you enjoy, etc.  We can list dozens more benefits and individual success stories.  Your efforts and your accomplishments are motivating to us as your trainers and they are motivating to your fellow Warriors so please continue to share them. 

Train to Gain Lean Muscle

Notice a difference between the body types of these two runners?  They are both world class runners who spend countless hours training.  So why the difference?  Is it simply genetic?  While we cannot deny that to a certain extent our bodies are defined by genetics, we can exert a significant amount of influence over our physiques. 

The runner in the photo on the right is Usain Bolt, world record holder in the 100 meter dash.  The runner in the photo below is Dathan Ritzenhein, a world class distance runner who held the American record in the 5000 meters and competes at an elite level in the marathon. 

Both men have made successful careers out of running by adhering to strict and rigorous running and training regimens.  So why such a difference in body composition?  Type of training is a significant factor.


We both LOVE running and we both run long distance, but we also acknowledge that piling up the miles and hours of cardio exercise comes with a trade off to "physique" training.  When we go "long distance" with cardio in terms of miles covered or time elapsed, our bodies need fuel. Our bodies use both fat and muscle for long distance fuel.  So some of that muscle that we work so hard to gain is actually being used as fuel when we are training long for a half or full marathon.  Is that bad?  It depends on your goals.

The point is that for most of us our time is limited so we want to ensure that we are training most efficiently to achieve our health and fitness goals.  For many people, their goal is to be healthy on the inside and to achieve a healthy weight with a lower body fat percentage.  And most people, when asked to choose which of the two runner's body types they would prefer to train to achieve, will choose the more muscular runner. 

The good news is that you can influence which physique you are going to work toward by the dietary and training choices you make.  Notice that we said "work toward".  A world class athlete is in a sense a genetic anomaly, but we truly can make a very noticeable difference in our body composition and appearance by our training approach.  A combination of training with intensity (such as metabolic training or high intensity interval training), resistance training with moderately heavy weights and clean nutrition is the fastest and shortest route to a lean and fit body.