Category: cool stuff
What we want to achieve vs. what we do to achieve it.
Often times following one of my strongman performances, when people find out I have a personal training studio they make the mistake in assuming that the clientele I typically work with are up and coming strongmen.
My demo vid so you know what I’m talking about.
This is not the case. It used to be that when people wanted me to teach them some of the classic feats of strength, I’d tell them “Do a Turkish get up with 100lbs, then come back to me and I will teach you.” Now I just send them to my coach Hairculese Chris Rider, because quite simply in my opinion he’s way better at teaching it than I am. And by the way, he’s coming to my studio on September 9th to run the Break Through Strength workshop.
The kind of people I work with aren’t normally up and coming strongmen, bodybuilders, or professional athletes. They are usually recreational exercisers that simply want to look, feel and perform better in life. There is a difference between “fitness” and “health” but that’s another topic for another day.
When I sit people down for the goal assessment interview, I dig into their goals to try to figure out what it is that they want to achieve. It’s quite simple really.
- Find out what they want to achieve.
- Figure out where they are, compared to where they would like to be.
- Based on the first 2, determine the actions necessary to bring them from where they are to where they want to be.
And when we’ve determined which actions are necessary to achieve said goals, then you simply do the things. And that’s the hard part really.
Let’s take for example someone who wants to lose 50lbs. It’s quite simple really, the super secret yet effective combo diet and exercise has produced more success stories for weight loss than any other way of doing it.
Here’s how; train with an intense yet safe program consistently over time and follow a diet that works. I personally do intermittent fasting but for most people, I recommend the slow carb diet popularized in the book the 4hour Body by Tim Ferriss for most people (google it).
If you follow those actions consistently, you’ll lose weight. If you aren’t losing weight, or any other goal for that matter, then it’s time to look at the actions you’ve taken.
Were you training hard enough, often enough?
Did you follow your diet to the T (as in, all the rules all the time)?
Fat loss requires a full-time commitment which is a pain in the ass. I know, it’s a big commitment to do all the actions that it takes to achieve your goals which is why I ask people to rate how committed they are. On a scale from 1-10 if I get anything less than an 8, then it’s simply not enough and I send them away.
However, if someone simply wants to be all around healthy and strong, strength training and eating generally healthy foods can work wonders. This is a goal too, although not a very specific one and the program needed to achieve it is not nearly as harsh in its execution.
This is where most people are. Most of the ones I work with are along these lines. They simply want to know how to train safely so they can move through life stronger, a bit leaner and healthier without having to live inside of a gym off of nothing but boiled chicken, steamed broccoli and protein shakes.
What are your goals? Do you need help with them?
If so, give my trial membership a go by texting me at 973 476 5328. Just tell me who you are and what you’d like to achieve and I’ll see what I can do to help.
Eric Moss is a world record holding professional strongman, author, speaker and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen 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 in Boonton Township New Jersey with Lewandowski Chiropractic and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, and Parsippany New Jersey.
re: NY Times Weight Training May Help to Ease or Prevent Depression
About a week or so ago I saw one of my clients post an article from the New York Times on Facebook entitled Weight Training May Help to Ease or Prevent Depression. The topic of this article talked about how weight training can help with depression citing some scientific studies. I don’t need science to point this out because I’ve seen it with several of my personal training clients and I’ve lived it as well.
A while back I was depressed from a failed marriage. The marriage therapist that we had gone to offered to help me continue to which case I told him where to go and how to get there (I didn’t think much of him). Sometimes professional help is needed, but just like not all personal trainers are created equal, not all therapists are created equal either.
Besides, he failed me already. Instead of seeking professional help I googled how to cope with divorce.
The very first thing it had said was “get in shape.” Now I’ve been working in the fitness industry for about 15 years and was already in shape so I took it to the next level and started training to be a steel-bending strongman under the guidance of my first mentor.
Before that would happen, I had to sort out my head through what I like to call “Iron Therapy”.
Sometime ago punk rock legend and my celebrity look-alike Henry Rollins wrote an article called The Iron.
Henry Rollins
Yours truly
A well written and truthful article, I found myself agreeing with him and when that article by the New York Times came out and people started posting about it, I immediately thought of the Henry Rollins article and how it related to my own experiences.
Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind.
The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.
Yes! Truth!
Every pharmaceutical drug before it hits the market has to be split tested against a placebo. The reasoning for this is because the power of the mind can influence the body to make it better. The placebo effect is a very real effect and I often times say that because of this “psychology can influence physiology”. You can in some cases literally think yourself well. And as the legendary Mighty Atom used to say, “Think you are strong and you are strong.”
On the opposite side of the coin is that physiology can influence psychology. You see when you train there are a ton of feel-good hormones and stuff that flood your body, it can almost be euphoric which is part of the reason people feel addicted to training. That and progress can be addicting as well. Lifting a weight with ease that previously felt impossible gives you a confidence that you can’t really get anywhere else.
In addition to this, when you see the changes in your body that occur from weight training it makes you feel good about yourself. When you feel good about yourself, you feel good. Plain and simple.
And isn’t feeling good what we really want in the end?
If you want my help with this, activate the one-week trial membership by texting me at 973 476 5328.
Eric Moss is a world record holding professional strongman, author, speaker and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen 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 in Boonton Township New Jersey with Lewandowski Chiropractic and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, and Parsippany New Jersey.
Getting Results, Nutrition and Advice from Bobby Flay Fit
I enjoy cooking and recommend others learn to cook as well, particularly when going through a body transformation program. For one thing, cooking gives you power because you are in control of what you put into your body which is very helpful for body transformation. When you depend on others to cook for you, you are at the mercy of what they cook which may or may not be in line with what your goals are.
“But my mommy/wife/whoever doesn’t cook that so I can’t lose weight.”
Yes, I hear that excuse, and of the excuses I hear, this one probably annoys me the most because it is whining defers responsibility. Well, maybe the one of “but I can’t give up xyz.”
Recently I picked up The Bobby Flay Fit book (which I do recommend). The way I see it, I want my family to eat well and having good tasting healthful recipes can pay dividends long term. Pick a recipe, practice it with the intent of mastering it, eventually you’ll have a delicious healthful dish that your daughter turns down in favor of chicken nuggets that are shaped like dinosaurs.
Of the recipes I’ve made, 2 out of 3 were successes. The rest have a lot of ingredients that I didn’t have readily available. So I guess the recipes are good, but some of the fitness advice I take a bit of issue with.
Here is a piece of advice I take issue with;
Once you’ve hit a groove, mix things up. Not only can doing the same thing day in and day out get boring, but your body needs to be challenged in new ways or it can become used to a workout. There’s no better feeling than being sore from a new workout and knowing you’re flexing new muscles.
Uhm, no. Admittedly, this is an opinion of mine but there is no better feeling than actually hitting a new personal record and accomplishing a goal. That’s the part that lets you know that what you are doing is actually working, not being sore.
And the way you do that is you fluctuate the intensity (percentage of your max weight), your sets and your reps…not your exercise selection. Do something similar, but not the same. There are many different ways to do this.
You probably won’t be sore, but that’s not a bad thing because soreness is not an indicator of progress. It’s just soreness. Progress is in actually getting closer to your goal, and it’s measurable.
Second, and this part is fact, you won’t be flexing “new muscles”. You already have all the muscles you’ll ever have and in fact already have muscles capable of lifting a car. They just don’t know it yet. Gaining muscle is actually developing muscle fibers that are already there and you can train them faster but doing it the smart way.
If you need help with this and you happen to be anywhere near Boonton Township, give my personal training one week trial membership a go. We will know quickly whether or not we are a good fit to work together. Text me at 973 476 5328.
Eric Moss is a world record holding professional strongman, author, speaker and personal trainer. In the tradition of the strongmen 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 in Boonton Township New Jersey with Lewandowski Chiropractic and is close to Mountain Lakes, Denville, and Parsippany New Jersey.