Who would trade places with you?

As a personal trainer, I deal with body image issues every day. It never ceases to amaze me how many people do not like the way they look. Regardless of thier age, fitness level, looks, they do not like themselves. If you are one of these people, I can tell you that it is all in your head. And, I will bet any amount of money that you know someone who would gladly trade places with you. Does that mean you should just be thankful and leave it at that? No. Try to imagine what that person would do if they could be you for a day.

This is what I mean;

Are you having a bad hair day? Yea? I'm bald. what little hair that I have, I shave off. If I could trade places with you do you think that I would bitch about how bad my hair looked? HELL NO! I would run my fingers through it, comb it, wash it...HEY I HAVE HAIR!!!! I would be ECSTATIC.

Are you a "fat girl with a pretty face?" Yea? Many girls regardless of being slim, never hear that they are pretty. Do you think that they wouldn't enjoy trading places for a day, and hearing about how pretty they are?

Are you under 100 pounds overweight? Yea? Have you ever watched The Biggest Loser? The first show of every season when the new contestants arrive to the ranch they get weighed in. Many of them are 150 -250 pounds overweight. Just look at what they can accomplish. Not only on the ranch, but at home. Imagine if they started at only 40 pounds overweight!

I came to this conclusion when I was 37 years old. I was at a health expo watching former professional wrestler Diamond Dallas Page at the age of 50, do 10 one armed pushups. I thought to myself "Wow my dad is in his 70's, what would dad do with 50? For that matter, what would Diamond Dallas Page do with 37?" It was then, that I stopped worrying about getting older. I'm 40 now, and it still holds true.

So, practice appreciating yourself. Because, you can bet that somebody else is.

Until next time.

Daily Sweat for 10/1/09

Well, it's been a hectic couple of weeks for me. I turned 40, put one of my dogs down (on my birthday WTF?!?!?!), had eFing AWESOME birthday party, and have been very busy with my awesome clients. I've gotten my workouts in-I just haven't taken the time to post. So, here is today's workout.

40 lb dumbell, 200 1 arm swings. Got through it by switching hands
every 10 reps. The workout took me about 10 minutes.

I just cannot say enough about swings. They work the whole body, build functional strength, awesome stamina, and fires up the posterior chain (ass). Seriously, I challenge you to find anyone who reguarily does these movements, whose ass isn't rock hard! I'm just sayin...

But, if you don't use proper technique, you'll wrench the hell out of your back. So, i've included links that show good technique. Enjoy!

One Arm Dumbbell Swings: http://gubernatrix.co.uk/2007/11/one-arm-dumbbell-swing/

Daily sweat, 9/16/09

I'm a big fan of dumbell complex training. Which is, doing 2 or more movements, 1 after another. I wanted to make sure that I hit everything. So I grabbed the 35's and chose 4 movements:

1. Flat Bench Press
2. Front Squat
3. Bent Over Row
4. Stiff Legged Deadlift

1 bench press, sit up and 1 front squat, bend over and 1 row, then 1 stiff legged deadlift, and back to the bench. To throw a twist, I added 1 rep to each exercise with each set until I hit 15 reps for each. At the finish, I was into it for total of 120 reps for everything.

This mother lover took me 35 minutes! GEEZUS that was hard (that's what she said).

Daily Sweat, 9/15/09

Very short on time today. So I needed to hit it hard and fast. Did that sound dirty? Ok here it is;

When I'm in a hurry, I like to do the sledge hammer and tire workout. Basically, I beat a truck tire with my 10lb sledge 200 times. Going 100x on my left side, then 100x on my right. I split it up 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5 strikes each side. Finished in 11 minutes!

Daily sweat for 9/14/09

Punching and squatting are as a good as anything for torching fat, building muscle, and expanding lung capacity. Either exercise can stand on it's own if your form is sound. So, today I chose to do 300 squats, and throw 1200 punches on my free standing punching bag. My goal was finish as fast as possible. I broke it up in 15 sets.



The 1st was 20 squats and 10 punches. On each additional set I doubled the number punches while keeping the squats the same. So, the 15th set was; 20 squats, and 1200 punches. I was able to get through it in 10 minutes. DAMN! when I finished I was dripping sweat and my lungs were on fire. What great way to kick off the week!

Welcome, and what is "M.Y.H.A?"

"M.Y.H.A." stands for "Move your hot ass." And, it is my philosophy on fitness. Getting in shape is as simple as 2 things, moving your body, and breaking a hard sweat. That's it. Beyond that, it's just a matter of choosing what to do, and how long to do it. With this blog I intend to share ideas, my own workouts (or "daily sweats"), and give shout outs to my clients. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned!