Strengths & Weaknesses

“Our strength grows out of our weaknesses.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

When we focus solely on our strengths, we only get better & stronger at what we're good at.  Only by taking a look at our weaknesses, assessing what they are, can we solve them and turn them into strengths.  

We often only do what we're good at because it is comfortable and we know we'll be successful at it.  There is a lot of fear in taking a look at our weaknesses because we fear that they will lead to failure. 

We all have them.  They keep us from accomplishing what we want because of that fear.  

Make your weaknesses your strengths.  Attack them, change them.  

Recently I've switched up my training program so that my areas of weakness can become my strength.  I got so comfortable doing things that I'm good at, that my strength was stagnating.  
Now it's time to assess my weaknesses, do things I'm not so comfortable doing, do things that I'm probably not good at, and make what were my weaknesses, my strengths.  

So....
What do you think your weaknesses are? 
&
How can you make them your strengths?

Examine your weaknesses.
Figure out your strengths.
Figure out how to make your weaknesses into your strengths.

Passion

"Let your passion be the reason for your existence and your successes the result of your persistence"


Where does your passion lie?  
What are you passionate about?  

Our passion lies with making sure we give you our very best. That starts with our dedication to your success and that means a passion for education, your education.
That's why we take the time to instruct, coach, and correct everything we do.  That's why there is a section full of articles that have the potential to help you, to give you tips on how to be better.

There is an enormous amount of useless misinformation out there that is full of pseudoscience and mumbo-jumbo.  It's an overload of misleading, awful information that the public just eats up, because health, fitness, and losing weight is emotional.  It has such an emotional factor to it, that anything that promises weight loss, or increased health, no matter how irrational or fraudulent it may be, sells.  In reality, most of it has no basis in the real training world.
"Get your flat abs doing these 3 moves."  Really?!?  No, your abs will not get flat doing those 3 moves.  Yes, your abs will work, but flat abs come from proper diet and exercise intensity. 

Take this pill, or powder, or whatever and boom, you'll lose weight.
Try this cleanse!!

Too much info dilutes really good info.

With each and every training session, we try to teach our clients a little more.  It could be something small like a new way to stretch, if you should stretch at all, or maybe its learning how to foam roll, or about proper nutrition, but the key is, its something.
Something you can take away from your training session and apply to your every day life.
Nothing makes us prouder than seeing a client incorporate our advice and see success.
We are always available to answer any questions you have or and advice you may seek.  We don't keep anything a secret, we don't keep our methods to ourselves.
We believe that an educated client makes the best client because an educated client will take ownership over their progress and their success.

Lastly, our greatest joys come in the little things, like seeing a client hit a PR on a lift, or all of sudden being able to move pain free, or having that a-ha moment where they get it, even if its just an a-ha on one particular exercise.  They still get it.  

That is what we are passionate about.  I ask "What are you passionate about?"

Movement & Life

"Movement is life. Life is a process.  Improve the quality of the process and you improve the quality of life itself."
-Moshe Feldenkrais

Take a look at the quote above.  How do you interpret that?

Movement, much like life, is a process. Each day you wake up is an opportunity to move, to improve your ability to move, to find new ways to move that you may not have thought of. When was the last time you crawled around on the ground? Or rolled around?  Go crawl your face off!

We have such a structure to our lives, where we are told to sit still, to not move, and this structure is basically killing us. Stillness leads to inactivity which leads to our muscles getting weak & tight. How often do you find yourself in a state of stillness?  Sitting, standing, laying, etc?

Still, we wonder why most of us have some sort of chronic pain. Like our knee aches, or our elbow, or our neck, or most especially our backs.  Do you have back pain?  My guess you have some sort of nagging ache that comes and goes, however it goes away once you start moving.  

Well duh!  

Movement is one of the best forms of therapy for chronic pain. The research is out there.
No drugs or surgery!  Just movement.  

Want to feel better physically and mentally, MOVE!
It won't change everything, because its not a miracle drug, but I guarantee that if you move more, you will feel a whole lot better.  

The moment you stop moving is the moment you stop living.

Don't stop living!
Go out and improve the quality in which you move, improve how often you move.  You'll be amazed how much your life improves, how some of those aches and pains go away,(I'm not talking soreness) how much happier you'll be.

Don't Be Afraid To Fail

You've failed many times, although you may not remember.

You fell down the first time you tried to walk.

You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim, didn't you?

Did you hit the ball the first time you swung the bat?

Heavy hitters, the ones who hit the most home runs, also strike out a lot.

R. H. Macy failed seven times before his store in New York caught on.

English Novelist John Creasey got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 books.

Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times, but he also hit 714 home runs.

Don’t worry about failure.

Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.

Priorities

Where do your priorities lie?

Actions Express Priorities- Gandhi

As Gandhi says, what we do, what our actions are, reflect where our priorities lie.  In our society, spending habits in terms of money and time seem to be a good indicator of priorities.  If we spend a lot on one thing over another,  it's clearly more important to us.  Go take a look at your spending habits:

How much you pay for cable TV?
How much time do you watch TV?
How much is your monthly phone bill?
How often are you checking Facebook, Instagram etc?
How much do you spend on entertainment or eating out at restaurants?

How much do you spend on your fitness goals?
How much do you spend on great nutrition?

Are your priorities all lined up with what you say you want?  Or are there multiple things in front of what you say you want?
One of the best things I've heard, or maybe I made it up myself is that you are going to spend time and money on your health.  It's inevitable.  The key question is whether your are going to be proactive with exercise and nutrition, or reactive with doctors and medication.

There are 168 hours in a week.  That is plenty of time to get stuff done whether they are bringing you closer to your goals or further away.  So....
Where are you spending that time?

Here's what you are going to do to find out where your priorities are?  Much like a food journal, I want you to keep track of how many hours you are dedicating to everything you do.

• Internet time
• TV time
• Nutrition/Meal prep time 
• Exercise time
• Etc

You can literally add an category you want!

After a week, you'll get a better picture of what you are doing and where you spend a majority of your time.  Then you can see if your actions really line up with what you say you want.  

Why Do We Fall?

Have you ever seen Batman Begins?

I have.  Multiple times.  Why? Because the Christopher Nolan trilogy is freakin badass.  
Anyway, as I was watching Batman Begins, I noticed a theme and there is an amazing quote in the movie that I think we all need to remember from time to time, because often we look at failure as an end, as being defeated.  As, well, failure.  
It's mentioned twice, once by Bruce Wayne's father & a second time by Alfred.

"Why do we fall?"
"So we can learn to pick ourselves up"

How many times have you failed at something, before you finally got it?  Every time we fail, we find an opportunity to learn something, not only about the task we are trying to accomplish, but more importantly, about ourselves.  We learn how far we can be pushed, how much we can take, how strong we really are.  

I'm not talking about "hey i can lift 500lbs."  I'm talking true strength, that inner drive to not give up at the first sign of struggle, that inner voice that tells you to get up off the ground when you've been knocked down.

Watch a baby learn to walk.  What happens?  They get up, take a step and boom they're down.  They get up again, get two steps, and down they go.  They adapt, they learn, they find a way to get it done.  And eventually they're walking!

The biggest struggle I've been seeing is doing a push-up.  Maybe its a matter of strength, maybe its a matter of technique, maybe its a matter of learning the motor plan.  But you're not going to give up on it.  You're going to keep at it!  You are going to keep doing those negative push-ups, keep doing those pop-ups.  Why?  Because each time you do them, you learn, each time you collapse, you have an opportunity to pick yourself up, literally, from the ground.

Don't get frustrated at the day to day.  Use every failure as a learning experience meant to make you better.


One of my favorite things to do on my way to work is listen to Eric Thomas, and if you haven't heard of him go on YouTube right now!!
One of my favorite quotes, and it fits today's theme, is

"A setback is a setup for a comeback."

So remember that next time you're in a struggle.

Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone

“Change comes with sacrifice... When you want to make a change you must be prepared to make a sacrifice of escaping the comfort zone!” 
― Israelmore Ayivor, The Great Hand Book of Quotes

For those that have been watching our events list, you'll be aware that I gave a presentation this weekend at FEI Eclipse alongside very intelligent speakers and fitness professionals.  If not, well, I gave a presentation this weekend in NYC on motor learning, coaching and cueing.  

All of us at AMP know that I am not the most outspoken person, nor would you describe me as extroverted.  
The running joke around AMP is that I don't talk or use my words often.
If you've seen the board in the back the past few weeks, Mike and Adam have been giving me words of the day to say 10 times to get me to say more. 

So its not a surprise when I tell you that standing up in front of a conference, albeit 10-15 people is not only nerve racking for me, but it takes me so far outside of my comfort zone that I'm uncomfortable.  And that is the sacrifice I have to make in order to change or to make a change.

Not only do I want to make a change for myself, but I want to be a part of a wave of change in the fitness industry itself.  I don't want to be in fear of speaking in front of groups, because ultimately I want to be able to do that, to teach, to educate.  Me speaking and presenting information at these events helps educate trainers in a largely uneducated field.  

So the quote above really speaks to me.  Because I have all these "outside goals" past AMP, I have to change, I have to adapt, I have to be willing to put in effort, I have to sacrifice my own comfort level to be a part of the bigger picture.  My comfort level is either staying introverted like you probably see at AMP, but its all hiding behind my keyboard.  If you read these emails and blog posts and articles that I write, you see I have no problem with words.  But that's typing, not speaking.  It's very easy for me to write, in fact it comes pretty natural to me.  But that can only accomplish my goals only so much.

So what does all this have to do with you?  

We all have goals, we all have aspirations, but we all also hide in our comfort zones.  How often have you found yourself staying in a comfort zone out of fear of the unknown, out of fear of what could happen?  Making a change, whether its attaining life goals or health/fitness goals requires some sort of sacrifice to get out of your comfort zone.  

It could be your uncomfortable with that out of breath feeling, or from having to give up control if even only for an hour, or uncomfortable with sweating, or lifting, or even just being uncomfortable with not excelling at something.  Maybe your comfort zone is staying with a so-so diet because getting out of it and starting a healthy nutrition plan is foreign and scary.  

Change is scary, change is foreign, change requires sacrifice. But if you really want to change, I'm telling you to get out of your comfort zone, because in the end, the results, the feeling of satisfaction will be worth it.