The Mental Thought Process of Training and Getting Healthy During the Pandemic
Earlier today as I sipped my coffee and looked out at the remaining yardwork that will just have to be put off tomorrow, I found myself in a quandry about what to write about.
So I go to the Boonton Facebook group since my personal training studio is in Boonton and I ask for ideas about what to write about. Pretty much immediately I got 2 responses both of which I’ll attempt to address in this article.
I’ll start with the second one about the mental thought process and how to keep on going, because it seems that it also relates to the first one anyway.
Years ago I was offered an opportunity that would change my life forever. I was going through a difficult time in my life and New Jersey’s Superman the late, great Greg Matonick offered to coach me in the ways of bending steel and possibly become a modern-day performing strongman.
If you’ve never heard of that before or seen me in action, here is my demo video to give you a quick idea of what I’m talking about.
And though he taught me body positioning, technique and that sort of thing, he also spent an extraordinary part teaching and guiding me through the mental end of things.
Here’s the thing, with anything you want to achieve whether it’s dropping 3 dress sizes or working up to being able to run a marathon it starts in the head. Greg used to tell me “Set your mind…focus on what you want to achieve”
One of the keys to staying positive in the face of adversity is having the right spark that sets the blaze that can push you through the discomfort that comes from training.
One of the types of clients that can be a lot of fun to work with are brides. Having a wedding date bearing down on you knowing that you are going to be standing in front of all of your loved ones, staring into the eyes of “the one” and immortalized in the photographs in the wedding album can light a spark that can fuel even the laziest people to push through exhaustion. The key is having that deadline baring down on you. That deadline can’t be too far away either.
One of my influences Dan John has this concept of bus bench and park bench programs. I like to call them “burst programs” as in you burst in and power through all guns blazing for anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks to get to where you want to go. The motivation can power you through for 6 to 12 weeks of intense burst program style training before you run out of willpower and burn out.
The Amazing 12 Body Transformation Program is a prime example of one of the “burst programs” that I offer in my personal training studio. It’s an intense program that involves training twice a day for 5 days per week for 12 weeks and is known to produce insane results.
During the training sessions themselves, you’ll notice there is a sort of mental chatter. You can almost hear it when you talk yourself out of a lift, or when in the middle of an intense cardiovascular session you tell yourself “this is hard, this sucks, I’m tired…where is all the oxygen?”
A big thing I learned working with Greg is pushing through the mental chatter. It’s a piece of steel…and yeah it’s hard…but that’s all it is.
Hard, but not impossible.
On the other end of things are what I like to call “sustain programs”. These are the programs you basically live on and takes a longer-term approach. Get in there, if you feel an energetic push on, if you’re a bit tired that day, back off a little bit. You just keep consistent and get the training sessions in and make steady progress over time, building them into healthy habits as you go.
It’s more sustainable because it’s less stressful. Your only commitment there is to simply show up. When you show up, you’ll train. If you don’t hit the numbers you want to hit, no big deal…you’ll get it.
I know, all this is all fun and good and everything but how does this apply to you, your training and your health?
Well for the first suggestion about what to do during the quarantine. One is just picking an easy healthy habit to implement and stick with it. It could be something as simple as drinking more water, committing to walking in the morning, trying out fasting, or keeping a food journal. With all the bigger gyms still closed, now may not be the best time for a “burst type program” but there is always something you can do. Work with what you have, pick one thing, and put it into your schedule to dedicate some time to it….consistently. When it becomes a habit, pick another thing and repeat the process. Just ask yourself “What is something easy I can consistently do starting today that will eventually help me get to my goal?”
Here are additional tips for what to do during the pandemic.
As for the other one regarding mindset, awareness brings clarity. Make note of the mental chatter so that when it comes you recognize it for what it is and learn to tune it out. That is something that you get better at with practice.
Here’s a bit more about the mindset of training.
And yeah, here comes the self-serving part. 1 on 1 personal training is currently allowed during the pandemic. It’s easier to stay positive when you have someone to guide you and cheer for you and it’s easier to stay consistent when you make an appointment with someone that will hold you accountable to your own goals.
If this is of interest to you I offer a 1-week free trial membership. Since it’s 1 on 1 personal training only it is limited by my availability. Simply call or text me at 973 476 5328 to get started. I prefer text because I’m not always able to pick up the phone (I have a 3-year old and an 11-month-old neither of whom believe in social distancing when I’m on the phone), but I can usually return a text reasonably quickly.
In the meantime, stay happy, stay healthy, stay strong and be safe everyone.
Eric Moss is a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville and Parsippany New Jersey.
Ripping Two Phonebooks for Feats of Strength Friday
Once again if you are unfamiliar with who I am, my name is Eric Moss. I have a personal training studio located on Main Street in Boonton. In addition to being a personal trainer I have a side business where I perform feats of strength as part of a live show.
With many things still in shutdown, I’ve pivoted to doing them on youtube to reach an audience that wouldn’t see this sort of thing.
Today’s feat is a classic that was performed by many of the strongmen of the Vaudeville era.
And btw, if you are in Boonton and are looking for personal training I invite you to give my one-week free trial membership a go and see if you think it’s for you. Just text me at 973 476 5328 with any questions.
Eric Moss is a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville and Parsippany New Jersey.
One of the Best All-Purpose Functional Exercises – The loaded carry
One of my cousins got heavy into self-sustainable gardening and was telling me about it. Immediately the thought of not having to water my plants or till anything and possibly have great soil (my soil quality is very low) appealed to me.
It also didn’t hurt that the name of the method was called “back to Eden” and my baby girl is also named “Eden”.
So if you are unfamiliar with the method, in a nutshell you put a ton of wood chips on top of the soil to simulate the way nature works. Think of how much stuff is on the forest floor, and how rich the soil is there.
So I ordered some chips last Friday came home to this pile in my driveway.
Jokingly I’ve been telling my personal training clients that we are going to change their workouts to be one of the best all-purpose functional exercises out there. Something akin to what Mr. Miyagi had done in the Karate Kid.
Even though I may have been poking a little bit of fun, in actuality, loaded carries are one of the best things you can do when you program them correctly. I’m not talking about carrying buckets of wood chips up a flight of stairs to dump into a wheel barrow.
Right now amongst my personal training clients, I have two doing farmers carries using a hex bar, going heavy for short distance.
I have one personal training client that is at the start of a 12-week periodization cycle involving overhead press, bench press, squats and deadlifts with the top working set of each being 50% of what they can handle. In order to find something that wouldn’t interfere with the plan and fill in the blanks so I selected single arm rack walks.
A personal training client that is on vacation was instructed to do turkish getups to an overhead walk just like in this video. (using a dumbbell he has)
Why is it such a valuable exercise? Well there could be a number of things related to grip and shoulder stability but I think one of the valuable things about it makes you resilient to injury.
Whenever you take a step the weight implement wobbles back and forth side to side just a bit lighting up your abs and all the other things involved with the movement. Essentially, the inertia from the weight tries to move you around. It’s slight and is therefore less likely to injure you, while simultaneously getting you stronger.
When people get injured it’s oftentimes because something moved out of position (like if a stronger person falls down, they are less likely to get injured than a weak person). The way to stop that is to strengthen it.
It’ also one of the values of unilaterally loaded exercises is because they force your body to get stabilized and get stronger.
In addition to that, it trains your grip and your strength endurance. All of these things are good and has a high amount of transfer to various things like whooping the other team in a game of lacrosse or picking your kid up and carrying them up the stairs as they scream “I don’t want to go to bed!”
And really that’s the point of all this stuff. It’s not about what you do in my personal training studio, it’s about how it helps you in whatever it is you do that makes you happy.
Strength for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Because you should have the strength and health to live life free of the inhibitions that come with weakness and poor health.
If you need help with this, I have a free trial available. Availability is limited since I have to do everything one on one until life returns to normal. Check my personal training schedule to see if I can fit you in and text me at 973 476 5328 to get started.
Eric Moss is a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, motivational speaker, and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen more common during the turn of the century, he performs feats of strength such as bending steel and breaking chains as part of a show and speaks on goal achievement for corporations, nonprofits, government as well as for schools and universities. His exclusive personal training studio is located on Main Street in Boonton New Jersey, is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, Montville and Parsippany New Jersey.