Why I do what I do

The life of a health practitioner/trainer/sports kinesiologist/small business owner is a career filled with many different challenges and obstacles. People often ask me where my drive and determination comes from to be at work from 6 am to 6 pm (or later) and still continuously study, train, eat well and maintain a loving relationship at home and still have energy to give.  Well to be brutally honest there are times when I wonder if it is all worth it, if maybe a regular job with normal hours is better than al the additional responsibility, if maybe this isn’t the right path for me to take and all the other concerns that every other person has when they evaluate their own lives.

I do what I do for a number of reasons. I think of these reasons everyday. This is not just my job or even my career. It is my vocation, my calling my purpose for this life. I don’t think of each new client as a chore or a task; I think of each new client as an opportunity. Everyday I get the opportunity to work with someone on the one thing they will have with them for their rest of their lives – their body. When I first really grasped this concept and its true meaning, it was a revelation. Every minute I am with someone is an opportunity to positively affect them for as long as they are alive. This is a gift.

The nature of my work draws me to study more and more fields and disciplines and relate them to the clients I have the opportunity to treat. This has led me to study (in no particular order) endocrinology, weight training, programming, periodization, rehab, biomechanics, kinesiology, counseling, eastern medicine, acupuncture theory, anatomy, physiology, naturopathic medicine, functional medicine, vibrational medicine and nutrition to name a few. Now the amazing thing about this is this is what I would do if I didn’t have to work! This stuff fascinated me and there is always so much more to learn. Every time you feel you are getting a solid grasp on a concept you will learn something new that will totally shift your viewpoint. According to Dr John Demartini when your vocation and your vacation are matched, you have mastered your life. I dare not say I have mastered my life (still a number of things to work on) but I must be getting close!

The clients I work with bring with them new experiences and perspectives from which I can learn and further grow as a person. I have recently had one of my most challenging clients with a case history  that would make most people give up. Yet this person was strong, determined and optimistic. People like this are a reason to come to work – they can inspire us to be better people and also to appreciate the gifts that we each have. I fell I have learnt so much from my clients that it is nearly unfair to make money from working with them!

I challenge you to look at your life and see if you can identify the reasons why you do what you do. If you look hard enough you will find there is an underlying reason that you are involves you in your work. If you really can’t see a reason maybe this will push you to be accountable, and hold yourself to a higher standard so you too can make your vocation your vacation.

What I’m excited about

In the fitness industry, you see a lot of blogs ranting about what is wrong in the industry, what needs to change etc etc. What I’m going to do today is miss that trend and blog about what I’m currently excited about in the world of health and fitness. We need more positive information in the fitness industry to combat the sea of negativity that is out there.

1. Biofeedback testing – This is a big one in the industry at the moment. It is polarising many people in the industry. Some very vocal supporters include Mike T Nelson and Adam T Glass (must have something to do with the middle T). my opinion on it is undecided but it definitely intrigues me. I have been using biofeedback testing in my clinical practice through Applied Kinesiology but have never used range of motion testing. I am still not totally sold on biofeedback testing for program design but have used it with exercise selection and workout duration. As of this moment I am not a convert but you could call me a biofeedback agnostic! Watch this space for more!

2. Magnesium Oil and DHEA optimisation – Many thanks to Mike Mahler for educating me about this through his facebook page. Looking at hormone optimisation is something I am very big on with my clients as I believe it is absolutely essential for optimal health and performance. I will be going to New York later this year to study Charles Poliquin’s Biosignature course to further my understanding of his approach to treating hormones. Anyway, back to DHEA, it is a super important hormone when it comes to repair. Anytime we are stressed, we release Cortisol to the detriment of DHEA. THink of DHEA as the Yin to Cortisols Yang. Using magnesium oil is a cheap and effective way to restore levels of this important hormone plus replenish magnesium, which has a whole host of other benefits

3. Functional Medicine – This in my opinion is the future of health. Using a combination of high tech lab testing, clinical reasoning, natural remedies and lifestyle modification it is the complete method of treating chronic illnesses. I have just started to study it and cannot wait to integrate it fully into my practice.

4. Kettlebell Sport – This is my new training pastime. It basically involves timed sets of ten minutes with three differnet lifts – the kettlebell snatch, the 2 arm kettlebell jerk and the 2 arm kettlebell long cycle clean and jerk. Absolutely brutal but awesome training!

5 Random thoughts

It has been a busy couple of days at DC Health this week. Plenty of training clients, breaking records, treating clients with kinesiology, writing nutritional programs it has been go go go! With this in mind, I decided it may be a good idea to get a blog out there with what is rattling around my brain at the moment. Hopefully this will inform you as well as provide me with some sanity!

1. Dead Letter Circus is my favorite band! Seriously these guys are so talented and this is their first album. Really looking forward to what they produce over the next couple of years

2. Kettlebell training is awesome!

Kettlebells are a great training tool. I love training with them and use them with a lot of my clients. I do believe they have been marketed incorrectly and are promoted as a tool for every goal. Kettlebells are best used to develop power endurance. They are not the best tool for hypertrophy and maximal strength gain. The best tool for that is a barbell. I also do not use them with all my clients. Doing high rep kettlebell snatches with a person with shoulder issues and a severe lack of thoracic mobility = malpractice. Adjust the tool you use for the body using it. Just because an exericse looks cool doesn’t mean you should, or can do it!

3. Programming is key

Trainers who don’t program don’t deserve to get paid. Honestly. Doing random exercises with no designated sets or reps and with no structure is not training, but entertaining. Seriously this pisses me off. 80 bucks an hour (or more) to supervise someone doing a workout? Thats what a training partner does! According to Alwyn Cosgrove it takes about 5% more skill to supervise a workout than it does to perform a workout. Your clients are paying you for your program design expertise! A good program should include:

Soft tissue work/mobility

Strength

Conditioning

Recovery/Regeneration

All of this needs to be put into context of the persons goals. Click here to find out if your program matches your goals.

4. You do not need to train bad movements

Even as I write this and read it back to myself the whole concept of training bad movements is ass backwards. A concept espoused by some in the industry is because we will perform biomechanically poor movements in every day life, we should train them. This is used by training things like deadlifts with a rounded back and other poor movements. This is like smashing your head into a wall in preparation for when you do. Boxers and other combat athletes do not (I hope!) put their gloves down and get punched in the face because it may happen in a fight. When we do these poor movements, we program our nervous system to use these poor movements as default programs for movement. This is giving bad information to your computer. It’s going to crash! Also, ligaments and other structures only have a limited capacity for stress. Once they lose their resilience, they break. This is what happens with non contact ACL injuries. Poor movement creates this. Why would we train this?

5. Metabolic flexibility is a good concept, but its implementation is of concern

Metabolic flexibility is the concept that our body should be metabolically flexible enough to break down fats or carbohydrates for food. This in theory is fantastic and requires a person to have good health to do this. Some people however are seeing your diet should be as BAD as possible while maintaining body composition and blood measures. This is to keep the bodies metabolic flexibility trained. This is probably the most irresponsible thing I have ever heard!

The breakdown of food as fuel is going to happen no matter what we eat. We can all agree on that. However, the quality and quantity of energy we get is going to depend on the quality of the food we eat. We can all agree that high quality healthy food is better for us than take away. And yes, I can understand that there are times where we can’t eat ideally and our bodies should be able to cope. But when we eat poor quality food we affect our endocrine, digestive, respiratory, immune, neural and all other systems! Is it really worth training our ability to use processed sugar as fuel if it suppresses our immune system for 8 hours, leaches minerals from our bodies to process it, depletes our valuable enzyme reserves and over stimulates our sympathetic nervous system leading to adrenaline resistance and insulin issues? Focus on getting healthy by eating high quality food as much as you can, exercise, drink water and maintain control over your life and your metabolic flexibility improves anyway!

Thats about all for today see you next time!

Training Questions to ask yourself

1. Am I training for a goal or entertainment?

2. Does my training program match my goals?

3. Do my behaviors match my goals?

4. Do I have a realistic, measurable goal set?

Many people train for health, performance, aesthetic enhancement and fun. All of these reasons for training are fantastic but I would bet that barely any people who train have asked themselves these four questions about their training. If you do ask yourself these questions, you will automatically put yourself ahead of 99% of all people who exercise and ahead of 98% of personal trainers.

1. Am I training for a goal or entertainment?

This question is the first one to answer to determine whether you are actually serious about your training. If you are just training for fun though, more power to you. You are still improving your health and a range of other factors. The answer to this first question however, is the key to answering the others. If you are just training for fun, you can stop reading now. For those who answer that they are training for a goal, read on!

2. Does my training program match my goals?

This is the most important question to ask yourself. Your training program needs to match your goals for you to have any likelihood of achieving them. This sounds incredibly obvious, but is neglected by nearly every trainee. For example, does your training program match your goal if your goal is fat loss and you are performing a bodybuilding body part split? I don’t think so! If you want to gain muscle, do you think doing bodyblade curls on a swiss ball will help? I don’t think so, you are not training, you are entertaining!

Hypertrophy training? Really?

3. Do my behaviors match my goals?

Training is a 24 hour a day dedication. Achieving your goals in the gym is a 24 hour a day task. You need to ensure as well as train hard you need to recover hard. this means eating right, drinking right, sleeping right, taking your supplements, using the foam roller, stretching or whatever behavior aligns with your goals. You want to lose weight but eat at fast food restaurants 3x a week? Not going to happen? Want to gain muscle but are up to 3am each night watching ESPN? Not going to happen! Quite often we will see that a trainee has a decent program and works hard but is undoing themselves in the other 23 hours a day they have available to them.

4. Do I have a realistic, measurable goal set?

This question, although last, tells you the likelihood of ever achieving your goal even f you are doing a good program and following it up with good behaviors. If your goal is to drop to 10% body fat from 15% in 6 months while increasing your dead lift 20 kilograms, that is a realistic and quantifiable goal. If you want to run a marathon, compete in kettlebell sport, gain 30 pounds of muscle and double your bench press in 3 months, it is not going to happen! Focus on setting smart goals and also only a limited number. There is only so many goals one person can achieve.

So remember to ask yourselves these questions in regards to your training and also stop bitching to people that you aren’t achieving your goals until you can answer all these questions with a truthful yes! The only person that is responsible is you!