Your Healthiest New Year Yet

Empowered Training
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          It’s inevitable: as the calendar transitions from the end of one year to the start of the next, we often feel that “New Year, New Me” mentality. For those preparing for that fresh start and have an idea, vision, or plan in mind come January, I applaud you. Whether you’re trying to better yourself as a person, your health, relationships with loved ones, or financially, here are a few tips that will ensure your success in the New Year:

  1. Listen to your heart and listen to yourself. When you have a plan and you know that in the pit of your stomach you HAVE to do it, then that’s your subconscious mind sending you a message. Do it and take action.

    Remember you learn to run after you learn to walk. So take those small steps.

     

  2. Surround yourself with those that think positively and support your vision. Avoid people that will try to distract you. Don’t let someone who is comfortable in their ways stop you from working hard. . They will try to get into your head and prove how, ‘crazy’ you may be for pursuing what you want. Don’t let them.

     

  3. Live in gratitude for the present moment. You can never predict tomorrow, and you cannot predict how your day will pan out, but you can do your best to control how you react to things. The moments you feel that failure will come, do not let it get to you. It’s normal to have those feelings, but if you fall into it, you will only begin hurt yourself and give up.

    Acknowledge the fact that no successful event in your life was ever easy. Think of the time you learned to drive. How many times did you mistaken the gas and break or almost hit the parked cars in your area? None of that meant you were a terrible driver, you were getting use to the new environment and change in yourself. So let the fear go, put the gear back in drive and keep moving forward.

     

  4. Write down a plan for the New Year and a couple of action steps you can implement to put that plan in motion. 

 

Starting a new wellness plan is often the hardest part, but once you start and commit to continuing, everything will begin to flow naturally. You’re probably saying, ‘easier said than done’ but that’s why I’m here. That’s what Empowered Training is designed to do for you. The Empowered Training program will help you set up a plan and help to keep you on track until you see the visible results of your hard work, or better yet: feel the positive effects of your hard work. Together we can make this your healthiest New Year yet!

7 Ways to Stay Motivated In The Gym

Empowered Training
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We love to look great, stay healthy and push ourselves each day. Health and exercise is part of our daily routine and well, it’s OUR lifestyle. Doing it every day and staying committed to the gym can be tough when you find yourself stuck in a regular day to day routine.  Coming from experience, I personally know the feeling, and it sucks! It takes away the excitement you once had, and instead of it feeling like a lifestyle routine, it begins to feel like a work routine. After seeing first hand, talking to members and things I find to be pretty effective, I have come up with 7 tips to get you engaged and find the excitement into your gym time….

  1. Gym partner- Finding yourself that SWOLE-mate to lift and push you more than you normally do, can do more than just build a stronger relationship. A gym partner that is as serious as you about the gym, will hold you accountable and push you both mentally and physically to help you achieve results.

  2. Change the environment- Changing the scene can make a huge impact. On nice days, take the exercise routine outdoors. When you have beautiful weather, take advantage. Go for a run and after every few miles, stop and do body exercises for a certain amount of reps or time. Rest after and continue. Most local parks have a fitness trail that you follow and gives you an exercise when you reach a check point.

  3. New routine- If you prefer the weights and machines, try changing the way you train. Example, try switching cardio for strength training first and then finish with cardio. Another switch could be the machine or exercise that you do and the reps, sets and rest time. Play with your routine and see what works with you and gives you a challenge.   

  4. Playlist- We all love music, so why not create a playlist that you can pump iron with. Same with the playlist, add and change the songs from time to time.  

  5. Keep track of progress- Record every exercise you do. Write down how many sets, reps and rest time. Each week you repeat the same pattern, you’ll see where you are getting stronger and where you need improvement.

  6. 15 minute prep – Sometimes all you need is a quick prep. Warming up with a motivational audio. Or driving around and taking the long route to prepare yourself with a playlist or just the peace and quiet you have to yourself. 

  7. Rest- If you find yourself doing all of the above and nothing works, try taking one or two weeks off. Maybe your body just needs a rest and often times we ignore the warning signs our mind and body send. Listen to your body and rest, guarantee you’ll feel better when you get back. 

 

"Empowered Training...Change your mind, change your body, change your life!"

You Don't Need Cardio To Get Results

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              If you think you need cardio to get results, then you must be out of your mind! Just kidding, you need Cardio, Cardio, and more Cardio!  We love it, we hate it, but we need it. Just like doing laundry. When it comes to getting the results you truly desire, asides from the strength training and nutrition, cardio is a must. You don’t like the idea of running on a ‘dread’mill or ‘kill’ipticle for 30 minutes, let alone an hour. But you feel guilty for having those drinks and that burger last night so you have to burn it off. So what is the best way to burn it off and exactly how much, how long, and how intense should the cardio session be? Well that’s what we will dig into today.

              Before we dig into a new method of cardio, I want you to understand that cardio comes in many ways. “Cardio” meaning “cardio vascular endurance” is the body’s ability to continue exertion while getting energy from the aerobic system used to supply the body with energy. Wait, What!? Basically, cardio means having the endurance to keep working at an intensity level that is both manageable and still challenging to your body. Some examples are long distance running, swimming, or biking. If your body has a poor cardio vascular endurance, you will fatigue quicker. Sometimes feeling a shortness of breath. But the good news is, you can fix it. Just like you train muscles to get bigger and stronger, or leaner and defined, you can also increase your cardio endurance level. Now … how can you make cardio fun…

              We established that many of us, including myself, are not a big fan of doing cardio on a treadmill or bike for a long time. So what can we do? Well there is one type of “cardio” called High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). Some fitness professionals know it as HIIT or metabolic training. What this type of training consists of is various exercises and different time frames that hit every body part in 45-60 minutes; we really don’t need to be in the gym for more than that. Although it’s my way of cardio, I don’t establish it as only cardio, as you would with long distance running. Why? Because with HIIT, you are doing more than cardio. You are, no pun intended, hitting every muscle group by doing exercises with various movements, heavy to moderate weight and progressions in a certain time frame; this does not only work cardio, but muscular endurance and strength as well. Here is an example of a High Intensity Interval Session, or Fat Burning Session as I call them.

The time frame is a 40:20. 40 seconds of work, 20 seconds of rest. You will complete 5 exercises, each individual exercise will be done in 40 seconds, with 20 seconds of rest going into the next exercise. Once you finish the last exercise, you will take 50 seconds of rest and repeat the cycle. Beginners can repeat the cycle 5 times. Advanced can repeat the cycle 7-8 times.

Exercises

1. Jumping Jacks

2. Body Weight Push Ups

3. Dumbbell Romanian Deadlift

4. Alternating Dumbbell Curl

5. Body Weight Speed Squat

50 seconds rest, repeat

As you can see, I added a few exercises that require weight. You activate every muscle group and all it takes is 45 minutes, 35-40 for beginners. The next question is how much, how long, and how intense? 

              Let us break down the following question of how much, how long, and how intense, one at a time. If you are a beginner, you might consider doing this at least 2-3 times a week. Intermediate or advanced could go 5 times a week. It’s safe to say we establish that 45-60 minutes is all you really need. As for how intense, that depends on you. Normally I encourage my online clients and personal clients to go at 100%. This doesn’t mean that my 100% will be the same as yours. We are all different. Go at what feels like YOUR 100%. If I were to ask you at the end of the session how you felt on a scale of 1-10. 1-Eh, ok, could have been better; 10-Out of breath or destroyed as my clients say. If you say 8, 9 or 10, then you know you gave it your 100%. Anything less than that is fine as well, if it happens from time to time. You probably had a rough day or night, and hey it happens.

                Everything that I just explained, showed you a new way to spice up your cardio. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on the treadmill. Some people love it, just like they love the bike, swimming or whatever it is that gives them their satisfaction of cardio. But if you are like me and do cardio to drop a few pounds or maintain weight, while losing fat, maintaining muscle, and want to avoid the repetitive routine, then this is the right workout for you. Best part, you can always change the time frame and exercises so it’s never boring. It’s worked for many of my clients, friends, family, and myself.

 

“On a personal note, I want to thank everyone who has supported me on my journey in fitness. All my family, friends, co-workers, and mentors. My passion for fitness and educating the public will always continue to grow. I look forward to growing as a Professional Fitness Trainer through training and learning the lives of my clients. Thank you all for the support. This blog is for you!”

Look Around You

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     Motivation! One of my favorite topics to discuss about with clients and with friends. What would be the number one thing that motivates YOU? Truly and carefully think about it. Meaning what comes to mind the moment you feel defeated, but brings you back to your feet? Maybe its family? A friend? Or your dream career? What is it? If you don’t have anything that’s fine. Not all people can say they have something to keep them going when they are defeated. What I can say is, motivation starts with your environment and the people around you. Mostly speaking the friends around you.

     When someone asks you who your friends are, who comes to mind? From that amount, how many of those would you consider to be the ones that push you and always have nothing but a great time with you? If the number stayed the same, congratulations. It’s safe to say you have found your true friends and you really don’t need to read much more.  If you couldn’t find one person, then you should do a reality check and get rid of the negative people in your life. Or maybe consider changing your environment. We always hear the saying, “Friends come and go, but family is forever”, anytime an argument happens between friends. Arguments and disagreements can cause tension in relationships, and this ultimately leads to hurt feelings. The “friends” that constantly bring nothing but tension, stress, and mentally and/or emotionally drain you. I know this from seeing and hearing it from clients. I have and had the privilege to work with countless clients who came to the gym looking to get in shape because they are tired of feeling sad and are unhappy with their lives. Usually unhappiness and negative emotions that are a result of a stressful job, bad relationship with a significant other, death, or family problems. By working out, they are looking to find a way to better their health and find their stress reliever.

     Every client walks in with the same expectation, to see physical change. What they are not realizing is with change they are not only going to see physical change, but also mental and a lot of positive emotional change. As a self-defense mechanism, most clients tend to be shy and stray away from people because they are not confident with themselves. What they are not realizing is that everyone who they think is or could be judging is actually doing the same thing as them, feeling shy and nervous. By saying a simple ‘Hello” and smile, you begin to create a new positive atmosphere around you because you are beginning to break away from that shyness that leads to meeting new people. People who could in fact share the same, or if not slightly different story on why they started working out. Once they see that they are not the only ones who have felt defeated, they begin to form a mutual friendship. The type of friendship that motivates one another to keep pushing and looks out for you. A friendship that gives you someone to help you on your journey to a better you.

     It doesn’t have to only happen in the gym. I used my clients because they are an example on how changing your environment leads to making the right friends and helps you find the positive motivation that you have been looking for. It can happen in anyplace. Just make sure to choose a place that you find to give you the happiness that you seek. Eventually the positive people that belong in your life as well as the right motivation will begin to fall in place. Trust me, it feels great to have 5 loyal, motivating friends than to have 25 “come and go” friends.

“Once you learn how to be happy, you won’t tolerate being around people who make you feel anything less”

What Is Your New Bike?

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               Like the old saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” I’m sure that many, if not everyone, have heard this saying multiple times in their life. When and why where we told this exactly? Well now that’s when it all changes for everyone.

                Personally I like this quote and I truly believe that if you don’t succeed the first time, try again. Why? Well for many reasons. One reason being is finding success after many times of failure. Second reason being that everything is trial and error. We don’t always succeed from the first time. This quote, I have found to be applicable for many scenarios. Some examples, trying to save money for a desired goal like a vacation, car, or just to save for emergencies.  Possibly getting a degree for a future career, or the one that many have dealt with, relationships. If you can agree with any one, or all, of these scenarios you can remember the hard ships that came with any of them. As much as you want success in anything you truly want to accomplish, the feeling of failure or failure itself, comes into play.

                Failure or the feeling of failure should never be the excuse you give yourself to let it all go and stop at what you worked hard for. See it as another trial and error moment in your life. Think of the time in your life when you got your first bike with training wheels. Can you remember the bike? The color? The feel of the brand new rubber handles? Or the smell of the fresh new rubber from the tires? How excited were you? Knowing you can now join the neighborhood kids. I can remember it all and I was always looking forward to the afternoon, after my mighty morphing power rangers of course. The bike in this case, was the dream that I always wanted to come true. I had it and it was great while it lasted. Like anything that once gave us excitement at some point becomes stagnant, and that’s what happened.  As much as I loved the bike and being out, I wanted some more excitement and that excitement came from the vision of riding with no training wheels. Now we come to the day where the training wheels are off. It’s there, right in front of me, the bike with no training wheels. Excited, I jumped on, took my first few pedals and…..fell right off. At this point, the feeling went from excited to, “never mind I need the training wheels again.” Luckily I had my older brother to help me get back up and try and try again. 3 days later, I was falling less and feeling more confident. Eventually I was on my own and riding with ease.

                It’s funny to see how much more confident we are as children, but the older we get, the moment we fall off the bike, we want to give up. The bike example is my example to relate to the quote and to help you understand that everything is trial and error. When we fall, just get back again and continue riding. When a goal or vision becomes stagnant and you feel giving up is the best solution, take a few moments and ask yourself, why? What can I do to make it better? What caused things to be the way they are? If you can take the time to answer these questions and get to the root of the unhappiness, chances are you will find the solution. Just like the bike, you fall once and you fall twice. After the first few trials, you still fall, but after some time passes, you are falling less and less. Why? Because you begin to find out why you are falling and what you need to correct it. Maybe you went too fast, you wobbled or leaned too much to one side, either way you find the reason. Once you find the solution, apply it and don’t get frustrated when you don’t see results right away. It takes time and if you try your best and still see no results, than that’s that, it’s another lesson learned. You will realize that you gave it your best and what’s meant to be will be.

Apply this to any goal, doesn’t matter if the goal is to lose weight, changing career paths, or even being in a relationship. Keep fighting for what you truly want and gives you the excitement of the new bike.

“Life is trial and error. Every relationship is not meant to work. Sometimes you’re just meant to learn the lesson”

 

You Will Never Know, Until You Try

Muscle & Weight Loss Made Simple
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Why do we stop working for what we want? Why are we so quick to give up before actually investing time into something worth investing? Well one word comes to mind, Frustration. Frustration from things never going as planned. Frustration from constantly having setbacks that makes us feel like failures. Frustration from the thought of all the hard work you must invest to get to where you really want to be. Frustration can really push you or break you. It may set you in a negative state of mind that causes you to quit. Any frustration, big or small can stop you from thinking clear on what you want to get accomplished. It could also be the other way around. Frustration can be the reason why you achieve the success you want from any goal that you set. In other words, you find the opportunity in a negative situation.

Everyone wants to get to their end goal as quick as possible, right? It’s like driving a car. You start from point A and you drive until you get to point B. You estimate a 45 minute drive if you leave early to avoid any major traffic. You decide to play it safe. Making it an easy and stress less drive. Just like you planned, no traffic and arriving at the time you estimated to arrive. Awesome! You’re happy you got their safe and everything went as planned. Often times, goals can indeed be very similar like the car example. Everything goes smoothly because you decided to play it safe and planned ahead on how you would reach the end goal. But sometimes destiny has its own plans and well, everything can go out the window, despite how much effort you put to avoid any obstacle.  

Let’s take that same example and add a twist. So, you start from point A and plan to arrive at point B in 45 minutes. On the way, your car gets a flat tire. You’re 30 minutes into the drive and your destination is only 20 minutes away. You are by yourself, cell phone reception is low, the nearest gas station is a few miles away, and you never changed a flat tire in your life. So what do you do? You change the tire any way you can, despite never doing it a day in your life. Why? It’s either find the solution in yourself or stay there longer until a miracle happens. You realize you are almost to your end goal, turning back will be pointless. If the tire can be replaced, its common sense to keep going forward until you get to your point B, or nearest help. Once you get the spare on, you slowly drive with precaution. Now you’ve arrived to the nearest gas station, found someone to fix it and got yourself back on the road.

With all that talk about cars, I want to make it clear that all goals can be very similar to that of the flat tire. How? Why? Well in the scenario, the flat tire represents the obstacle. Fixing the flat tire is best solution. You know you are not far from your goal and if you decide to quit, then you will never know how long you will have to wait until help arrives. Once you let the frustration pass, you take the time to think clear and find the solution within yourself. You not only begin to find various solutions, but you learn to be stronger and more confident. Once you take your solution idea and put it into action, the results only move you forward. Taking every step along the way with precaution, until you’re confident enough to move forward with ease.

We shouldn’t be too quick to give up the moment frustration comes into play. Obstacles are inevitable and you can only have control over so much. Do not allow frustration to overcome you. Let it pass, take the time to cool off, or even sleep on it. I guarantee results will come when you have a clearer mind and begin to brainstorm. Treat each obstacle that comes your way as a flat tire, the only solution is to fix it and once its fixed, keep moving forward. I’m sure you wouldn’t abandon your car and begin to walk home. Fix the solution and with every step along the way, you will realize more about yourself then when you started the trip.  

“To conquer frustration, one must remain intensely focused on the outcome, not the obstacle.”