Fitness Notes: Saving Time, Avoiding Injury, and Getting Motivated

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

What is going on, everybody? Welcome to this Wednesday edition of the Warrior Soul Podcast. My name is Chris Albert. And like I said, this is the Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday, fitness notes edition. Now, if you haven't been to the podcast before, if you haven't listened to us before, we do three different types of episodes here.

On Mondays, we publish interviews, that is normally with somebody who's done something awesome with their life who has some tips for all of us to live better lives. Then on Wednesday, I'm publishing these fitness notes. And these are questions that I draw from the Warrior Soul Fitness Academy about fitness and nutrition. And then on Fridays, I'm publishing our Warrior Notes episodes. And those are episodes about mindset, tips for you to develop a stronger mindset so that you can live a better life.

Now, before we get into this episode, I just want to tell you about a few things. Number one, this is, of course, the Warrior Soul podcast. What is the Warrior Soul podcast? Well, I put this podcast together a few years ago, because I noticed that there was extremely high rates of veteran suicide, really high rates of veteran homelessness, and high rate of chronic disease in the veteran community. And when I noticed that, I also noticed that there were a lot of people out there trying to raise awareness about these issues.

And I have nothing against that. I think that the people who are doing those campaigns and the people who are still doing those campaigns, they're awesome people. But I want to do more than raise awareness. I want to deliver action actual solutions. And my goal is not just to stop veteran suicide.

It's to get all veterans to truly live. Now, if you're not a veteran, please stick around, because everything we go over in this podcast can also help you regardless of your status, if you're a veteran or if you're not. We focus on the veteran community because that's my community, and that's where we see the problems at. Now number two, I also want to mention this. The way we spread the word about this podcast, I don't take out ads, don't, you know, I don't have a lot of budget to spend on ads.

The way we spread the word about this podcast is by getting you to do written reviews on iTunes. That's all we ask from you. So, you know, if you find something helpful that we've gone over, if if you find anything that that you find valuable here, I just ask that you head over to iTunes and that you write us a written review. I love it when people put the five stars, that's awesome, but it's those written reviews that really put us over the top. So please, if you can, head over there, write us a review, and share these episodes out with those who can really use them.

Before we start the conversation, I also want to mention that this podcast is made possible by the good people at f bomb nutrition. They make awesome, delicious packets of macadamia nut butters. These things are so good. They mix them up with chocolate, with sea salt, with pecan butter, and with coconut butter. And like I said, they're absolutely delicious, and they have no sugar in them.

And they're also sending boxes of this stuff overseas to the troops so that they can supplement their MREs with some good nutritious snacks. So if you want to support an awesome company that makes an amazing product, head over to www.dropanfbomb.com and use the code Warrior Soul at checkout to get yourself 20% off of your first order. Now, couple of different questions that came up today for fitness notes. Number one, people were inquiring minds who have any questions that they want me to answer here on fitness notes, you can join the Warrior Soul Fitness Academy. That's our private Facebook group, and anybody can join it.

And I'm asking for questions every week over there. Alright? So if you want your question to get answered, just head over to the private Facebook group and join there, and then I will answer your question when you ask them to me. Alright, so we have a few questions that came up today. So Mary Alexandra wants to know how to tone up without doing pointless movements or without damaging her body.

Right, that's a really important thing because a lot of people think that you need to wear and tear your body down in order to get results. And that's just not the case. Abracadabra Ali, that's a great name, She said finding motivation not to overeat or undereat and to put her sneakers on and to go workout during depression. Right? So basically trying to get fit even though you're in depression.

And then Robert has a similar question and it's it's having to do with inferiority complex. So he says he's got an inferiority complement complex and he's got a real pessimistic outlook on life. And that creates a lack of motivation to do anything. Alright, so I'm going get into these questions and we'll take them one by one. So the first question, Mary Alexandra, toning up without doing pointless movements that she doesn't enjoy and without damaging her body.

She says she really likes rock climbing and she really wants to devote more time to that. So there's a few different things to talk about here. So number one, as far as rock climbing goes, that is an amazing resistance exercise in and of itself. And the very act of rock climbing, that can definitely help you as far as getting tone, building muscle, building upper body strength, building a strong core. There's so many things that that you could benefit from from rock climbing.

Now, here's the kicker though. The problem that a lot of people will have with things like this is that when it comes to rock climbing, it's not something you can do all the time. Right? It's not something you can can do every single day. Right?

And and so you need to work it into a routine that's also going to contain some assistance exercises that are going to keep you from getting injured or damaging your body. So let's get back to the definition of training, what training is. Now, if you have a preferred sport like rock climbing or jiu-jitsu or let's say obstacle course racing, or maybe you're you're a football player, you're trying to get better at golf. The whole point of training and training for sports is to prevent yourself from getting injured in the first place. Right?

So there's that mindset that has to come in there. Whole point of training needs to be that you are trying to keep yourself from getting injured during your sport of choice. Now a lot of people don't have a sport of choice. Right? They're they're just training and training. They're training to get into the best shape that they can.

Still even there, the point of training there is to keep you from getting injured in your day to day life, to allow you to really perform better, and to limit the wear and tear that your body goes through on day to day life or to limit the amount of deterioration that can happen. Okay? So when we're talking about training for something, if you have a preferred sport, your main focus should be on strengthening yourself for that preferred sport, and then, you know, getting all of your conditioning and and, the ancillary conditioning that you need to to perform that sport from actually doing that sport. Okay? So when I whenever I'm training like a jiu-jitsu guy, for example, I'll focus on getting him strong in the gym, and I'll focus on, you know, movements like squats, like deadlifts, like like the compound movements.

But I won't do a lot of let's say like Tabata exercises or anything like that. The reason is because the best conditioning for jiu-jitsu is gonna be in doing jiu-jitsu. Now for Mary Alexander here, the best conditioning for rock climbing is going to be doing more rock climbing. So the answer to, really trying to devote more time to rock climbing is actually to devote more time to rock climbing. Because a lot of the stuff you're you're currently doing in the gym right now is is mainly to keep you just in shape for rock climbing.

But the best way of staying in shape for rock climbing, to develop the upper body strength you need, to develop the grip strength you need, that type of stuff, is going to be, to keep rock climbing. Okay? So number one, I would I would make more time for that. Okay? Getting rid of the pointless movements you don't enjoy or those other things.

I don't think you'd need to add a whole lot to, you know, your routine other than rock climbing, you know, three or four times a week. Right? So so you could devote more time to rock climbing, and then you could put less time in the gym. Let's say, less time doing like overhead presses or doing, you know, bench presses or or even, you know, less time doing, you know, things like like getting on a treadmill or or a bike or anything like that, because rock climbing in and of itself, while it's a very anaerobic exercise, there's also going to be some aerobic benefit to there. So what I would do Mary Alexander is number one, I'd focus on on rock climbing, you know, three to four times a week.

And then when you do get into the gym, you could do a couple of different things. Number one, you can go to the gym once or twice a week to get to get some assistance exercises in there. What I would focus on in your gym time is probably doing some some at least some body weight squats or or some some, you know, kettlebell squats or something like that. The main point of that is to to strengthen your spine, strengthen your core, and also to strengthen your legs and your glutes and things like that. And then maybe potentially, doing some some deadlifts.

Now when I say deadlifts, don't mean loading up the bar with hundreds of pounds of weight or anything like that. What I mean is is you load up the bar, maybe even just with your body weight or or even a little less than that, and then doing deadlifts. The reason why I think you should focus on those two exercises, the squat and the deadlift, is because of something called Wolff's Law. Now, Wolff's Law is a law that states that your your skeleton is going to adapt to the demands placed under that that that's placed upon it. So literally, when you're deadlifting, you're squatting, you're doing total body movements like that, you're strengthening your bones.

Alright, and that's going to strengthen your structure. You're also going to be strengthening your core throughout that those types of workouts. And so I would focus on doing those compound type movements. As far as any type of conditioning or anything like that, already said that the best conditioning that you're gonna get is gonna come from, rock climbing. But, what I would also focus on here is mobility.

So doing things like yoga, right? Taking yourself through those poses, putting yourself through those those yoga poses is going to help you to become not only, more mobile but more flexible in order to accomplish a lot of what you want to do on rock climbing. And it's also going to be a great way of strengthening your body without putting increased damage on it. So, those things right there. So three to four days of rock climbing, and then, you know, a couple of days of weightlifting, focusing on compound movements, squats and deadlifts.

And then, you know, really focusing on mobility through doing some yoga or doing some other type of mobility practice. And I think that is really about as much as you need there. Now, as far as toning up and getting that toned look, now what's that going to come from? Well that's going to come from, in addition to doing all of this exercise that you're doing, you know incorporating a better diet. Making sure that you're watching your calories, putting yourself, into a slight caloric deficit but still making sure that you're getting all the protein that you need in order to build muscle, and getting all the nutrients that you need in order to to move forward with your journey here, right?

To get the look and to get the performance, right? So focus on those two things, Mary Alexandra, make sure that you're getting the right type of programming with your routine, and then making sure that you're getting the right type of diet. Now for the rest of you who might be doing other things as far as, you know, whether you're you're doing other sports or whether you're just working out to look better. Again, it's those two things. Making sure you're getting the right kind of programming, and then making sure that you are getting the right type of diet.

I've got a world of resources both up on the Warrior Soul Agoge website at www.warriorsoulagoge.com or you can head over to the Warrior Soul Agoge YouTube channel where I talk at length about building muscle and about burning fat, on on numerous different levels. So, but remember what I said about if you're doing a sport, most of your conditioning should come from the sport. Your focus in the gym should become to become strong. Right? If you're not doing a sport then then yeah, make sure you're getting some sort of conditioning in and that's where more cardio would come into play.

But Mary Alexandra, I would not recommend doing tons and tons of steady cardio or anything like that. For the next question, abracadabra Ali, finding motivation not to overeat or undereat and to put my sneakers on to go workout during depression. So this is a big question I get, in trying to find the motivation to do anything during depression. Now, one thing you need to understand about exercise and training is that exercise and training delivers a veritable pharmacy of chemicals that are going to have a positive impact on you if you're going through depression. And there's been studies that have demonstrated this.

So exercising, aerobic exercise is actually more effective than antidepressants in getting people to feel better during a depression. And so one thing to potentially motivate you is that it's going to make you feel better. Getting out there and moving and doing it regularly is going to release a lot of awesome happy chemicals to make you feel absolutely amazing and help you to get over that depression. And if there's anybody out there suffering from depression, this is something I highly recommend. Getting regular aerobic exercise, getting into the gym, lifting those weights, because every time you do a workout like that, it's gonna make you feel really good.

As far as the overeating and and not overeating or undereating part, you know, what I would say here is to really try to sit down with yourself and focus on understanding what you want out of this life. Understand that, you know, if you are gonna overeat on something, or if you're gonna binge on something that's not necessarily going to make you feel better. It's gonna make you potentially feel worse. And I'm a big believer in the idea that a lot of depression happens because we don't take care of this vessel that we have, we don't take care of our body, we don't get the nutrients that we need. So what I would do here is I would take a day by day item by item, and start by trying to get some more physical activity in, Right?

The more physical activity you in you do, the less likely you're going to be to to undereat. Right? The less likely you're going to be to undereat, you're going to feel like you need to get some fuel into your body. And so I'd start with some physical activity, you know, maybe start by doing a long walk, right, and getting outside, getting out there in the sun, right. And you know, just exposing yourself to the sun and it's going to increase your vitamin D, that's going to make you feel a whole lot better.

Right? So get outside, do some physical activity. Don't necessarily try to force yourself to go to the gym. Right? And I think this is a mistake a lot of people do a lot of people make because if you're feeling depressed and you gotta get forced to go to the gym, the gym these days in a lot of ways is almost like a social experience.

And a lot of people get anxiety from that. And if you start to associate physical activity with that with that negative experience, then it's going to keep you from doing it. So start with doing something that you'll potentially enjoy better, like like I said, getting outside in the sun, going for a walk. And then, you know, I've said this a bunch of times, walking is a really good way to start. Right?

And the reason why it's a good way to start is because what you can do from there is every block or so you could start doing exercises. Right? So every block or so you could start, doing some push ups or doing a few sets of squats or something like that. Right? But don't just associate physical activity with the gym.

Try and get it in an environment where where you're gonna enjoy it a little bit more. Now that could mean those walks, that could mean running, that could mean purchasing a kettlebell and taking it out to your back lawn or to a park or something like that, and just experiencing nature. That could mean hiking, it could mean so many different things. But don't just limit your physical activity to to something that you're not enjoying like the gym. Right?

The gym's obviously not motivating you enough right now, and that might that that won't necessarily mean that that's gonna be the case for the long haul. There might be a point in time where you're ready to go back to the gym. But, but for now, focus on doing it in an environment that you're gonna gonna enjoy more. Like I said, once you start to get that activity level up, you'll be less likely to undereat. Okay?

So you'll be less likely to to skip meals because you're gonna need more energy in order to do things. And one of the reasons why you're not undereat, why why you're under eating might be because you're not hungry. So force yourself to get hungry by by getting out there and burning some of that blood sugar off. And then, you know, maybe as far as overeating goes, figuring out a way to reward yourself in the long haul for not overeating. Right?

So let's say you go through a week and you are really really enjoying or not enjoying, you're you're you're sticking to your diet. Right? You're sticking to your diet. You're sticking to what you, laid out for yourself, and and you stuck to your commitment to yourself. Well, then pick a day where you're gonna treat yourself to something that you really enjoy.

And this is a trick that I used to use when I was training for for bodybuilding shows, because the diet was very very restrictive. Most of the time I was eating things like chicken and broccoli, which I hate. I hate both chicken. I hate grilled chicken breast and I hate broccoli. But what I would do is every Friday night, I'd go out and I'd eat a meal at my favorite restaurant.

And I'd love that because, you know, my week as it built up, I I'd be going through this chicken, this broccoli, this monotony, and then I would, really build up to to Friday. And and, you know, it really kept me motivated to stay in the game because that meant I got to reward myself and I got to reward myself without, really destroying my conscious. So definitely something I would I would try to do is is start to figure out exactly what's going to motivate you to to eat right through the week, and then treat yourself, reward yourself with a cheat meal. And then the next day, get right back on the wagon and go right back at it, you know, and just allow yourself to enjoy your food. I think you'll find that when you're rewarding yourself for a week long of good eating, then you're going to enjoy that meal so much better rather than if you ate like a cheeseburger and french fries every single day.

Right? That cheeseburger and french fries will feel and taste so much better, on those days when you've earned it. Right? So that's what I hope is helpful advice. Please let me know if you've got any questions on that.

So the third question kind of gets along in this vein, and it's from Robert. And he says that he has an inferiority complex, and he's got a pessimistic outlook on life. And that brings a lack of motivation and self worth, and that's why he doesn't train, doesn't work out, doesn't diet, doesn't do anything. Because he doesn't feel like he's worth it. And this is an issue that I put a lot of my thought into lately.

And the reason why I put a lot of my thought into it is because, I developed a course called kill the victim, murder the tyrant, build your empire. And the reason why I developed this course is because I spent a few years coaching people through the London Real Academy. My good friend Brian Rose at London Real, he has a series of courses and and one of them is the Business Accelerator. And I was the lead instructor on that course and other courses for a while and what I would notice is that you know the Business Accelerator was centered around getting people to start businesses. We took people through the process of starting an online business from start to finish and we gave them every single thing they needed.

We taught them how to build landing pages, how to set it all up. I noticed that even though we gave people all this stuff, so many people got tripped up in their own resistance. So many people got tripped up every time they ran into an obstacle. That's because so many people were stuck in the victim mindset. Right?

And, you know, one of the things I would say here, Robert, is that if you're dealing with an inferiority complex, you're dealing with a situation where you're viewing the world as as being against you, you're seeing yourself as beneath the world as being crushed somehow. And that's ingrained in your psychology. So what do we need to do here? And where do we start? We got to start by understanding something.

And there's a lot of you out there who don't feel like you're good enough to do things. You don't feel like you're good enough to to to do anything in this life. And the one thing that you all have to understand is that every single one of you is a miracle. Every single one of you is a miracle. In this vast universe that, you know, we don't even know how expansive it is, how many other worlds there are like ours out there, how many other planets there are like ours. We got the opportunity to live here, in this time, and in this place, where we have so many advantages. We have the opportunity to listen to podcasts. We have the opportunity to look up anything on our iPhones. We live in a time and place where poverty is at the lowest it's ever been, and we live in a time and place where regardless of who we are if we're living in the Western world right now we have a lot of advantages.

Right? And I think that in order for us to even think about moving forward, we have to get beyond the idea that we're somehow a victim of circumstance. We're not a victim of circumstance. We're a victim of our own minds. We're a victim of the idea of believing that we're victims.

And so you're not inferior in any way. Right? What you are is putting yourself into the mindset that you're inferior. Okay? Now, how do you fix that mindset?

Well, way you fix that mindset is you start to do things. And you start with small things. You start with saying, you know what, every day when I wake up for the next week, I'm gonna do 10 push ups. Alright? And then the week after that, you say, alright, I did 10 push ups, now I'm going to do 20.

Okay, and just start with doing a small habit every single day. The power of that is this. Once you do that for a week, you'll have the confidence that you've been able to do something for a week. Right? You don't just end up being a person with a perfect body.

You don't automatically end up being somebody with awesome fitness. You don't automatically just end up as being somebody who's successful at anything. It's got to start with something small. Alright, so so the biggest thing to do right now is to start. Okay, and once you start, start to figure out ways that you can improve upon what you've done so far.

And so lay that foundation, right? So like I said, after you get those 10 push ups done for a week, then try to do 10 squats after that. Right? Add squats to the equation. Then after you've done that, maybe you add 10 burpees, right?

So 10 push ups, 10 squats, 10 burpees, alright? And then so once you do that for another week, then try doing multiple sets of 10 push ups, 10 squats, 10 burpees. Try to get through five sets of that, Right? And then once you're able to do that, you'll have really built up a really good workout. You'll have really built up a really good routine.

And as you're able to add more in there, your confidence is going to build. And then life won't look so pessimistic. Why? Because you've learned the power of implementing something into your life that's gonna help to make you better. And once you learn how to do that in one area, you'll learn how to do it in other areas.

You'll learn how to do it in your job. Figuring out how to be better at what you're doing. You'll learn it as far as your relationships. How to figure out how to be in a better relationship with your wife, your spouse. Start with the small things.

Focus on getting those done. And then from there, those will build up into big things. That's all I got for this week, guys. I hope this was helpful. I know a lot of times I can go down rabbit holes, and I can jump off into tangents and I don't want to do that.

Want to stay focused so I can help you with these questions. Let me know how I did. Head over to the Warrior Soul Fitness Academy private Facebook group. Send me a message. Let me know exactly what you thought about this week's Warrior thoughts.

If you can get up there on iTunes, write us a review. I'm looking forward to speaking to you again on Friday with our Warrior Notes episode. Talk to you guys soon. Thank you so much for listening.