Spare Tyres, Love handles and Sit ups

Spare Tyres, love Handles and Sit Ups

Every Now and then I get asked this question below

How Do I get rid of my belly fat? Because I’ve been doing tons of Crunches and sit ups and nothing is happening *Sad Face*

I then half heartedly try to explain that you can’t choose where to lose fat from and try to explain the value of sit ups, but most people stop hearing what they want to hear and tune out

Well if you are part of the percentage of people who actually want to know the answer to this question then please proceed

Fact 1) You cannot decide where to lose fat from

Fact 2) If you are still overweight you are eating too much for your bodies need

Fact 3) Weight loss is hard and not an overnight miracle, it takes hard work, dedication and discipline

Fact 4) Weight Loss and Health are not always the same thing and it’s important to decide which one you want to be, both will get you at the same point in life, but in different ways and times

Fact 5) Sit Ups are a great Abdominal and Hip exercise

Now we have these facts but what can we do about it , you want some practical advice that you can actually use right!

Tip 1 ) Define your end goal, e.g. weight loss, becoming healthier, becoming fitter etc

Tip 2) Understand what it’s going to take to reach your goals

Tip 3) Create Goals, and set a date for when you would like to achieve them

Tip 4) Understand that failing to meet these goals in your set dates is not the end of the world, success is created by the ability to fail, and proceed continuously until you reach to your goal

Tip 5) Realize that you need these plans in place  -

-          A lifestyle Eating diet/plan/guide

-          A Fitness plan/strategy/goal

-          Over 5 different goals you would like to reach

-          A Personal life Strategy so that you keep yourself motivated

Tip 6) Food Tip, Eat Real Food, Stay away from the supermarket isles, stay on the outside of the supermarket

Tip 7) Train with intensity

Tip 8) Dream Big and Go for your goals regardless of how realistic they are, nothing great has ever come from being realistic or listening to people who bring you down or tell you, you can’t do what it is you want to do

Tip 9) Surround yourself with people who build you up and support your dreams

Tip 10 ) Learn more about yourself, what motivates you and inspires you and realize that motivation is not given to us, we have to take it and continually feed it to our brain. 

Raul 

Owner / Head Trainer

CrossFit Down Under

Why Mainstream Gyms Suck!

Mainstream Gym’s Suck

Here’s a scenario, you can’t drop weights on the ground, there is no space to run, it’s full of machines where people are running like hamsters on the same spot over and over again. There are expensive televisions on the walls but very few dumb bells, you can get told off if you don’t wipe your sweat off the benches. The people in this place don’t know your name and most likely don’t care. The place is full of recycled air and let’s admit it it’s always too cold no matter how hot it is outside.

There are useless machines in these places called elliptical’s which make you look like a gazelle which has had its legs trapped in an endless moving apparatus. It’s full of isolation machines which are great if you want to become a professional body builder but completely useless for almost anything else. 

This place is also full of mirrors which always make me think about weather this place is actually a mirror store. In very few of these places will we ever see any actual useful fitness devises or equipment.

Where are the gymnastics rings, where at the Olympic bumper plates, where are the Medicine balls, where is the space to run, where are the pull up bars, where is the space to practice body weight movements, where are the skipping ropes, where are the people who actually want to get fit?

In these interesting boxes you will also find a handful of people who attend these places but never ever actually get to meet each other. Too busy with headphones in their ears or staring into their televisions while calmly pacing themselves on their recliner bicycle.

Most of these places call themselves But!!! I am here to argue that in most of these buildings it is actually very hard to get Fit

What are your thoughts?

Nutrition

Nutrition

What are you feeding yourself?

Don’t think about your food I am not talking about that,

I am talking about..... what are you really feeding yourself

What Ideas, beliefs, thoughts and mindsets do you have about life?

And do they help you achieve your goals?

Or do these believes hinder you from being the best version of yourself?

What are the people around you like?

Do they build you up or do they tear you down?

Before you ever really begin to understand the importance of good nutrients into your body you have to understand the importance of great thoughts in your life

You have to understand the importance of a great mindset

Successful people, don’t recognize failure as the end of the road but a stepping stone to a greater day

Calm people don’t look for confrontations in their lives, it’s not that confrontations don’t exist in their life, they just choose to treat confrontational situations differently

Can you see where I am going with this

Understand what it is you are feeding yourself

And recognize that to be the best version of ourselves we are going to have to feed ourselves some pretty awesomely good nutritious thoughts, beliefs, ideas and mindsets about the world we live

Challenge: I Challenge you to write a belief that makes your life better

I’ll write one of mine

“I believe that Hard work pays off”

*I am not sure if it’s true, or if hard work is really the best way to achieve things , but this belief serves more purpose than not

Anyway that’s all from me Tonight , Take care

Write Soon

From your Friendly Blogger

Raul

What is CrossFit?

What is CrossFit?

I could begin and finish this article by saying CrossFit is .... “The greatest fitness program ever”

But to truly understand what CrossFit is and why I think so highly of it, I believe we need to establish some ideas and define some terms.

I see CrossFit as something more than just a fitness training program, I see it as a tool to understand ourselves.

From the technical aspect CrossFit is

“Constantly Varied Functional Movements Performed at High Intensity Across Broad Times and modal domains”

But what does this mean?

We’ll Let’s Break it down

Constantly Varied refers to training in as many different ways as you possibly can

Functional Movements refer to Training with  movements that are classified as functional to humans e.g. putting things over head, lifting things from the ground, lifting heavy things, sprints, running for a long time, rowing, climbing a rope, climbing a wall, squatting etc...

Performed at High Intensity  which refers training with a high power output of energy, training with a high level of exertion , to put it plainly training really hard with a lot effort

Across Broad times and modal domains refers to training in different time frames, so for example think of sprinting, you can’t sprint a marathon you can only really sprint 100 meters unless you are an elite sprinter

Now another example is a marathon runner who trains in the 2 hours plus zone

Training in different time frames produces different responses from the body which is why it’s important to train in as many different times frames as we can for example training for 2 minutes, for 10 minutes, for 20 + minutes and sometimes for over an hour

Modal domains refers to training using different energy systems and muscle recruitment patterns so for example weight lifting produces a different effect on the body than running does which is why it’s important to train in both to be able to benefit from as many different stimulus to achieve greater fitness

Now Let's Define Fitness

Easy being Proficient in the following 

• Cardio Respiratory Endurance
• Strength
• Stamina
• Flexibility
• Accuracy
• Co ordination
• Agility 
• Speed 
• Power
• Balance 

If you are too proficient in one of these and not as proficient in the others then you are not the fittest version of yourself , you are a specialist but you are not Fit ,being strong does not make you fit, being a good runner does not make you fit, being a gymnasts does not make you fit

Fitness comes from the ability to be a good runner and weightlifter who can swim and also do gymnastics 

But where does the magic lie?

Well the magic of CrossFit lies in training

The act of striving to being better than you were yesterday at something

We don’t train to get worse , we train to get better

And constant training towards getting better is really where the magic happens in the Training, because it forces you to continually confront the things we don’t want to do.

In CrossFit we constantly look fear in the eyes and beat it down through pure will and perseverance

CrossFit is really a life training program that will train your mindset, your will and will have you look deep into the depths of your conscience to really ask the hard questions like

“What am I made of?”

And

“Who do I want to be?”

CrossFit is the most elite training program in the world if you want it to be, but it’s not for the elite

CrossFit is for everybody and anybody who aspires to be Elite at life

And please understand that distinction, it’s not for those who are  elite but for those who want  to be elite

Now My question for you is

Do

you want 

to be Elite in life?

Peace Ya’ll

Raul

Why not to Trust most personal Trainers and the fitness industry

Why Not to Trust most personal Trainers and the Fitness industry

·         Fact No. 1 The Fitness industry sells fitness products

·         Fact 2. To fitness professionals

·         Fact 3 Who then go and try and convince you that these fitness products are essential

·         Fact 4 Why am I ranting on about this?

·         Fact 5 Because They keep trying to convince me that Sit ups do nothing for my core and that Pull ups are going to hurt my shoulders and that I shouldn’t squat below parallel

·         Fact 6 And because they keep trying to sell me this stupid heart rate monitors

Okay so here is the truth, Gymnasts and Martial Artists , well the art of these disciplines and their training techniques have been around for a long

Long

Long

Long

Time

And Their training techniques work, hey who would have thought

But come around the 21^st Century and the fitness industry will have you believe that sit ups are not good for your core and that squatting below 90 degrees hurt your knees and that older people shouldn’t exercise and that kids who are only 13 with 7 months and 4 days should lift weights, They come up with all of this bogus information about training and development and they get so far up their own ass in bullshit that they forget to take a look at what centuries of training techniques have done to achieving the amazing prowess that gymnasts and martial artists still posses over other sports.  

Here is a fact you cannot go wrong with the

Push Up

Pull Up

Squat

Sit Up

At the end of the day everything you do will come back to these 4 movements in one way or another

And mastering them is key

So don’t let the fitness industry fool you when they talk to you about swiss balls being the end be all of training or trainers when they tell you that you need more core strength from doing funny yoga looking poses on a funny apparatus .

Sorry for my rant but I had a company approach to sponsor one of their silly products and I lost the plot, anyway take care

Peace out

What is Success?

What is Success?

I have been obsessed with this question for quite a while

As have a million other people

And I don’t claim to have a special answer to this question or helping you achieve success

But I will give you a perspective

Success in my life has been the “Journey” and “act of achieving what I have set myself out to achieve.

Some of the things I have set out to achieve have taken me many years, some of them have taken  blood, sweat and tears.

But what is important of achieving anything and being successful in doing so is recognizing

The skill and ability to persevere through conflict, obstacles and failures

Success comes the ability to stare at Failure in the face and being brave enough to say

“I am going to try again”

And

“Again”

And

“Again”

The ability to try and continue until you receive the result you are after....

Life is neither a marathon nor a sprint, it’s more like a CrossFit work out

You never know what’s going to be thrown at you, but you better be ready for whatever comes out

And nothing is more important than facing these challenges head on to the best of our abilities

“Success the ability to achieve the goals we set out for ourselves”

But I tried something and it got too hard

Or it wasn’t what it thought it was going to be

Here is what I really learnt to understand of achieving Success

“Success is ability to not bullshit to yourself and genuinely and honestly admit to yourself what your priorities are and going after your priorities in life regardless of what obstacles are placed in front of you”

Really admitting to yourself what you truly want from life is one of the real key successes to achieving in goal you set out for yourself

But you can’t choose any goal

You must choose a goal you are ready to pursue none of this half assed shit you know you do from time to time, I mean really go after it

What I am talking about is going after something you want so much that you will sacrifice anything for it

Anything? ......

.........

.....

..

.

Yes Anything!!

Because when you have your priorities straight you know what you are willing to sacrifice to get there!

Anyway Take Care Peep’s

Peace Ya’ll

P.S Remember get your priorities straight and then and only then can you truly be successful in what you decide

What is in our Control?

What is in our Control?

Too often in life we preoccupy our brains with the things that are outside of our control

And too often we pay no attention to the things we do have control over

Today I’d like to delve into Control and how understanding what we control and de associating ourselves from the things we have no control over can help us achieve our goals in a much smoother fashion.

Somebody once told me (P.s no actually told me this, but it sounds better when I let people imagine that I hang out with really insightful old wise men) that

Life

“Is not what happens to us”

But

“What we do, with what happens to us”

We could sit here all day winging about the things we have no control over, like the people who have hurt us, or those who do us wrong, or the fact that your phone hates you because it decided to have a flat battery just when you had a really important call

Or

We could sit here and realize that there are thousands of actions, thoughts and patterns which we control  every day which dictate the course of our life

In Life I have realized that the truth of the matter is not as important as what we do with the “beliefs”  which we may call truths that we tell ourselves

Here is a belief

“I will not get upset that things get too hard”

I will

“Be Upset that I am not better”

But

“I can control improving myself everyday”

The realization of being able to focus your energy towards improvement

will be infinitely more beneficial than the realization of our constant winging about the things we have no control over

“Don’t get angry you haven’t lost the weight you wanted to”

But

“Understand that there are more things you can take control of to help you achieve your goal

Understand that

We are not a victim of our circumstances but a hero waiting to prove our circumstances wrong

Peace Ya’ll

Raul

Why Can't I Lose Weight!

Why Can’t I lose weight!

A lot of people ask me all day long, how can I lose weight? And I have found myself giving the same answer over and over again in a million different ways hoping that people understand it.

Weight loss is much more than just losing fat, it’s about understanding “Goal setting” and “Goal achievement”.

You may not know what I am referring to with this and you may be asking yourself,

I thought you were going to tell me that McDonalds is bad that the new Gillian Michael’s “Super Shredded bikini abs” was the solution well we both know that McDonalds is not the healthiest option and we both know that Gillian Michael’s is not our cure.

What we really have to look into is asking ourselves “How much do I really want to lose weight?”

Do you want to lose weight more you want to go out on Saturday night and get trashed?

Do you want to lose weight more than you want to eat chocolate every time you see it?

Do you want to exercise more than you want to sit down after work and munch on some chips whilst watching the biggest loser?

Do you want to look in the mirror everyday and say tomorrow is the day everything changes?

Or Do you want to be the person who looks in the mirror and says “I did everything I could today”

This is the most practical piece of advice I could give you

Ask yourself the tough questions!

Ask yourself what you really want out of life and don’t be afraid of the answer

Unless you really, really, really want to lose weight it’s not going to happen

It takes a lot of hard work

It’s not about finding a great coach, personal trainer, magical pill, exercise program, perfect diet

What weight loss is really about

is about finding yourself! (Sorry if we got too deep and meaningful here)

But this is the honest truth, Weight loss is about Finding out who you are right now and who you would like to become and realizing that to become somebody that you are not,

You are going to have to Sacrifice who you are for what you could become!

There I said it, I gave the magic pill

Ask yourself the Tough Questions

Find out who you are

Find out who you want to be

Be consistent

Show Up Everyday

Continually stare fear and obstacles in the face and don’t let them derail you from your goal

Here is another tip

“Successful people fail a lot more than normal people”

 And if you are going to be successful in losing weight, don’t be afraid of admitting your failures or accepting that sometimes we are not perfect

It’s not what happens to us in life, it’s about what we do with what happens to us!

Peace Ya’ll

Take care

Your not so Friendly but Truthful Blogger

Raul

Qualified Personal Trainer

Level 1 CrossFit Trainer

Certificate in Fitness III

Certificate in Fitness IV

Registered with Fitness Australia

Head Trainer/ Owner- CrossFit Down Under

Why not to waste your time on infomercials!

Why not to waste your time on Infomercials!

So here is a fact.

About 99.9% of all fitness and health infomercials are bullshit and use a 30 minute long add to make you feel crap about yourself to sell you a shit product that does nothing for you but lose weight out of your wallet.

Here are some info/ fitness/ gadgets that do not work

·      

   The Ab Circle Pro

·         The Ab swing

·         The Ab King

·         The Ab King Pro

·         The Ab Blaster

·         The Ab Rocker

·         The Ab “Insert random word here”

Here is another fact the people with six packs modelling for these fitness gadget commercials would never actually use the equipment being used

Here is another fact, exercise is free!! Good Old Fashioned body weight training has been getting gymnasts and martial artists with muscular stomachs for centuries.

Here is an even better fact, what do you doing Staying Up this late anyway Watching Infomercial’s

So What can you do? You may be asking

Here is some advice

Just Eat Real Food

What may that be , well you know this, i know this, vegetable lasagne knows this but basically

Eat your

·         Vegetables

·         Fruits

·         Meats

·         Nuts

·         Seed’s

And try these Work out’s

If you are fit

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1  Sit Ups and Push Ups, Every minute on the minute do 5 Burpee’s

And if you haven’t exercised in a while

10-5-3 Push Ups on your knee’s and sit ups with an anchor on your feet,

Peace Ya’ll

Qualified Personal Trainer

Level 1 CrossFit Trainer

Certificate in Fitness III

Certificate in Fitness IV

Registered with Fitness Australia

Head Trainer/ Owner- CrossFit Down Under

Just Show Up

Just Show Up!

So much of life is just showing up! As woody Allen famously quoted “80 percent of success in life is just showing up”.

But showing up where? You may be asking yourself...

Showing up to practice, showing up to training, showing up to work, showing up to opportunities, showing up to meetings, showing up to doing the right thing, showing up and not running away from the things you’ve got to do!

So life get’s in the way sometimes.

But when you have a mission and purpose you shouldn’t let life stop you

you make life get around your way!

You’ve got show up regardless of the obstacles placed in front of you or the circumstances you might find yourself in

Showing up everyday develops discipline

Discipline develops a routine

A routine takes you in a direction

And greatness is routine and a way of life, not a magical thing that happens sometimes and not others, greatness comes from being the best every time, because you show up and because you don’t make or let excuses get in the way of you achieving your goals

We all know there are times when we don’t show up, and then that one time becomes two and then three becomes four and five becomes seven, before you know it seven become ten and you quit.

Nothing worthwhile in this life comes from quitting

So Just show up,

You know where you have to be

And take note that sometimes Showing up is all it takes to get better or improve in an area of your life

Examples

When you begin a diet, don’t go crazy and just eat lettuce and water for 3 weeks, but eat lettuce everyday and then introduce other healthier foods into your lifestyle, slowly but surely consistency will bring you great results

When you start training for a goal, weight loss, race, etc.. Don’t try and kill it in the gym like crazy the first day (no one cares), but at least show up everyday and give yourself the chance to succeed

When you learn an instrument don’t just give up because you can’t play like Hendrix on the first try but keep showing up to your guitar and practice with it and in time who knows how you’ll play

Don’t lie to yourself and say you can’t learn gymnastics when you’ve never shown up to practice to even understand how you could begin

So.....Show up.

Raul

Qualified Personal Trainer

Level 1 CrossFit Trainer

Certificate in Fitness III

Certificate in Fitness IV

Registered with Fitness Australia

Head Trainer/ Owner- CrossFit Down Under

Why I Think Treadmill's Suck

Why I think Tread Mill’s Suck

Yes I said it, they suck!

Running on a treadmill has nothing to do with actual Running.

To put it Simply Running on a treadmill will only help you get better at running on the spot

Running on a treadmill makes you no better than a hamster on a ridiculous endless wheel

Running on a  treadmill is easy, let’s face it, this is why we do it , its too cold outside, its too hot outside, its too 26 degree’s outside when I’d like it to be 22, you know what I mean and catch my drift but let’s get serious, this is why running on the treadmill is useless

·         Your body adapts to the stimulus too quickly because there is no variance in the running.

·         Why Would you care about body adaptation, well if you are trying to lose weight, this means your body will very quickly realize how to most effectively stop using excess energy while running on this apparatus

·         But I use incline? Okay fair enough incline running on Treadmill can be beneficial but chances are your treadmill does not go that high or you put it up for a second and then take it off

·         They only re-enforce bad running technique

·         You get no forward propulsion; This is the acceleration of speed when you are running anywhere but on this apparatus

·         Running a 5 K on a treadmill feel’s nothing like running a 5 K race

·         Running a 12 K definitely feel’s nothing like running a 12 K race

·         Yes you develop some aerobic endurance but it’s nothing like you would develop if you trained outside on terrains that have hills and turns and obstacles.

Reasons Why Running Outside is Better

·         It Toughens you up

·         No Seriously it toughens you up and if you are trying to cut down your running times a bit of toughness will go a long way

·         It is unpredictable, sometimes there are hills, sometimes there’s dirt, concrete, grass, parks all of these things give variance to your running

·         You Choose your Intensity , This may not apply to every body but if you are practicing sprints , you won’t be able to achieve the same level of acceleration on a treadmill as you would on a free space

·         More realistic to sports and races

·         Hill Running!

·         Run hills for a bit and your regular runs around the block will feel like a joke

·         Running with others! Your only as good as who you train with and if you don’t add a bit of competition your only going to get so far

·         Running Drills and different running techniques ; Try running backwards, side ways, with high knee’s, while kicking your butt,etc.

·         Running with an object (so you can do this on a treadmill but it’s going to be too easy so step it up and try running with a sand bag on your shoulder outside (great for creating a really strong core)

·         Amazing sceneries

·         Go places, get out of the house, don’t run in front of our t.v. if you can run while watching Dr. Phil you are not running to the best of your abilities

This list could go on and on and on and on, but I’ve decided to make it short

I hope this makes sense and encourages you to run outside, toughen up and enjoy the cold, the hot, the rain and dirt.

P.S  I am not hating on you if you run on treadmill’s I am hating on the fitness industry that sold you one.

Qualified Personal Trainer

Level 1 CrossFit Trainer

Certificate in Fitness III

Certificate in Fitness IV

Registered with Fitness Australia

Head Trainer/ Owner- CrossFit Down Under