Perform Better
I attended the Perform Better Seminar in San Francisco this past weekend and I had a chance to hear one of my mentors Todd Durkin speak. , Todd gave a talk on True Strength: What it takes to win at Business and Life. I thought it was interesting that he kept mentioning the word: Intention.
He talked about how he saw intentions/dreams come true that he had abandoned because after writing them down for nearly ten years, they hadn’t happened yet so he figured it must be time to move on. Once he stopped writing it down and released the dream/intention, then it happened. Always nice to hear those types of stories because the reason we don’t see things happen is because we’re so impatient and give up when things don’t happen yesterday.
Creating Intentional Health/Fitness programs
I’m a dreamer and I believe that there is so much power in setting intentions.
I always ask my clients where they want to be 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months from now. That is their roadmap and from there we can create an INTENTIONAL program that gets them to their destination.
An intentional program is different from a trainer who hands out nutrition plans/exercises. It’s about addressing the entire LIFESTYLE and not just compartmentalizing health/fitness into an unsustainable experiment for a few months. It is taking into account the WHOLE person and their lifestyle and creating a sustainable program with specific intentions.
If you’ve got a knee injury and want to get healthier, then I’m not going to make you squat 3x per week. I would create a specific plan that works with YOUR injury. If you’re a busy Mommy with a career, then I would not advise you to put together a time consuming exercise program where you’re there for 3 hours and complicated meal plans that cause you to miss out on family time. It’s about what works for you.
I really appreciated the talk by one of the presenters at Perform Better, Charlie Weingroff ,who is a strength and conditioning expert as well as a physical therapist. His philosophy was: If it hurts for the client, then they don’t need to do it. He also spoke about developing a training philosophy and as he said, if you’re training people for general fitness purposes then it’s completely different from training a football player, bodybuilder or powerlifter. Those disciplines have specific intentions that aren’t necessarily appropriate for people who want to improve their fitness level.
The Fitness Industry and unrealistic intentions
How many ads do we see for weight loss that have people with single digit body fat that people use that as their intention for getting into shape?
This is so misleading because people don’t realize that the single digit body fat model got that lean for the shoot and low body fat is not sustainable for most people. People also fail to realize that in order to get that lean you have to be very strict with your diet and that doesn’t always feel awesome.
When you set unrealistic intentions or those not in congruence with your life, you will not be successful and you will feel as if you’ve failed yet again.
What I am trying to get people away from is to stop setting intentions based on unrealistic standards.
The Power of Intentions
Intentions help you to wake up and get it done. You’re not just living from day to day. You have specific targets and actions that you’re working toward so that you can see your intentions come to fruition. I firmly believe that in order to LIVE BETTER we must live a healthier life intentionally. It doesn’t just happen. You MUST be deliberate about it.
Intentions are powerful because they force us to engage in action steps to making it happen. When it comes to health/fitness lifestyle, I think everyone should have at least THREE intentions when it comes to health/fitness
My Health/Fitness Intention for 2016
I set an intention this year to not focus on looking the part but on being my best physically: Nutrition, conditioning, strength, endurance, and flexibility. I want to be able to keep up in kick butt classes like Todd gave us on Saturday.
This involves being intentional about nutrition and making sure to pick fresh foods, the highest quality supplements, and not eating chemical laced crap.
I am deliberate about my training as well. I’m not simply doing bodybuilding split training because I think it is one dimensional. I am deliberately mixing it up with conditioning, flexibility, etc so I hit ALL aspects of fitness.
Your Health is truly your wealth
Your health is all you have. If you’re not intentional about living a wellness lifestyle, then you’ll be forced to deal with consequences later and then you won’t have a choice about whether to be intentional. The choice is yours.
DO IT OR DIE
Leave A Comment