Author: Eric Moss
The destination informs the path (motivational article)
Years ago when I was having an argument with my first wife I had said “I just want to make the world strong. What’s so wrong with that?”
For whatever reason she started hating the fact that I was passionate about strength. But in the end, it hinted to me that she wasn’t right for me anyway.
We had disagreed on more than that. She thought it was ok to mess around with my best friend behind my back. I disagreed.
Anyway having a mission statement can act as an assessment tool to let you know whether or not you are on the right path.
It’s simple to think about really. Utilizing my mission statement of making the world strong informs me of what kinds of business decisions I should make.
As an example let’s compare two different kinds of things that have been suggested to me to start offering my personal training clients in Boonton.
One would be Isagenix or insert whatever multilevel marketing gimmick “has just hit the east coast” so I could squeeze more money out of my clients. ? </eyeroll>
Another would be the Amazing 12 Body Transformation Program.
Isagenix can provide some decent before and afters. If you switch out the junk food you’ve been eating with a liquid diet, yes you’ll likely lose weight.
But did it make you stronger?
On the other hand, when I first saw the transformations from people going through A12 I was impressed. Not just the body transformations in the before and afters were great either. They got massively stronger. Results like turning 1 rep maxes into 10 rep maxes within a 12-week timeframe are nothing to sneeze at.
Funny side note when I was interviewing to become an A12 coach they had to make sure that our philosophies were compatible. One was make a profound change in people’s lives (ie life is for living) by getting them to redefine preconceived limits which is just another way of getting people past limiting beliefs about what they are capable of ie strong.
So would going through Amazing 12 make you stronger? Yes, so it fell in line with my mission statement, hence I started offering it in my personal training studio. Life coaching helps with the mental component of that greater purpose and it is the same thing with every personal training certification course I’ve either taken or taught at and every piece of equipment I’ve bought.
The addition of the Functional Movement Screen simply lets me know if I can make you strong safely and gives me a plan of attack to get you to a point where I can make you strong. In other words, it falls inline with it.
Even my career as a professional performing strongman and motivational speaker fell in line with it. I originally started learning from my first mentor because I wanted to learn another way of making people stronger.
And as it turns out, not only could I use the mindset strategies with my personal training clients, as a performer and motivational speaker I could inspire them by the feats and teach them mental strength that they could use in their lives and careers.
Strength is a mindset, strength is an attitude that you carry with you throughout every aspect of your life with everything you do.
Eric Moss
Teaching the mindset for strength for audiences with about 500 in attendance is leveraging my time pretty effectively. I know one girl who had reached out to me after I presented at her high school works as a personal trainer now.
In other words, it fit my mission of making the world stronger.
If you have a health and fitness goal, it helps to define what you want so you know whether or not you are getting closer. The destination reveals the path and your actions need to align with your goals.
As an example, if you want to lose weight, making excuses about why you should skip your workout and eating junk food isn’t inline with goal. Get back on the path.
Earlier this week I was having a talk with one of my personal training clients. She had recently started a podcast and wasn’t sure where she wanted to go with it. So I started asking some questions about it. I was like:
What’s your end goal?
What’s your mission statement?
Why did you start a podcast?
When she knows what those answers are, it will let her know what kinds of things she can post and what direction she should go with her podcast.
And yes I know this article was written about my passion for strength, but strength helps with everything. It is the ability to withstand and overcome all challenges, whether that’s building a business, or losing weight and feeling great.
If you need help with this, I have a free trial of my personal training services in Boonton. My studio is on Main Street, the one with all the rolled-up frying pans in the window. Just text me at 973 476 5328 and let me know who you are and what your mission statement is ?
Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and doubles as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. 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.
Driving a nail through a frying pan – Feats of Strength Friday
So here’s the deal, in addition to being a Personal Trainer in Boonton (my personal training studio is on Main Street, the one with all the frying pans in the window) I’m also a modern day performing strongman which basically means I perform feats of strength as part of a live show.
Well last week I was on my way to help my brother in law pick up an armoir (they had just moved) and as we were chatting he was asking me how I pivoted my strongman business. I had told him that the only thing I’m doing is a different feat of strength each week until life returns to normal and posting it on youtube.
As I was talking about it, I had said I’m starting to run out of ideas for things to do which means I have to start combining ideas to keep it new.
This one is sort of a hybrid between two of my most popular feats of strength. Driving a nail through a wooden board, and rolling up a frying pan.
Enjoy!
Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and doubles as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. 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 live 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.
Isometrics for Strength
In addition to being a personal trainer in Boonton New Jersey (my personal training studio is on Main Street), I’m also a modern-day performing strongman.
Being a performing strongman I have to be strong enough to perform the feats of strength that make up my show at a reasonably high level, which means I have to train specifically for them in addition to being all-around strong.
One of the most effective ways to train them, is to perform isometrics, more specifically overcoming isometrics.
Isometrics is when the muscle fibers don’t move. A plank could be considered an isometric. Overcoming isometrics is essentially pushing or pulling against an immovable object with as much force as you can generate.
As an example, if you lift 200lbs off the floor you’re only going to be using the approximately the number of motor units as is needed to lift that 200lbs. When you put everything you have access to into it, well you are training everything you have access to.
When you do this, you train all the available motor units you currently have access to, making it highly effective. Training sessions are very short because a little bit goes a long way and it can be very easy to overdo it if it isn’t dosed correctly.
Some of the drawbacks are that the greatest gains in strength tend to be very specific to the joint angle (15 degrees either direction of the joint angle). That doesn’t necessarily mean that it only gains strength there, just that most of it is.
In a study (Thepault-Mathieu et al, 1988) in one of their groups there was an increase of 54% at the joint angle, and 25% over the rest of the range. Those are massive increases in strength for just 5 weeks worth of training.
Those big increases specifically at the joint angle are what make them especially effective at training the feats of strength in my show since they are short ranges of motion.
For all around strength development, very effective though I don’t think that’s the only thing you should use. With myself and with my personal training clients I use a mixture of isometric, dynamic and explosive movements. Whatever the best tool for the task is and programmed effectively.
If you would like to get started in an all inclusive strength and fitness program and would like my help, I have a 1 week trial membership where you can test drive it first to see if you like it. Send me a text at 973 476 5328 to get started. My personal training studio is located at 620 Main Street, Boonton.
Eric Moss is a personal trainer in Boonton and doubles as a world-record-holding modern-day professional performing strongman, author, and motivational speaker. 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.