So, I’m going to pick up right where I left off with Part I with the 13 things I’m currently doing within my training and life that have been successful.
That’s what we’re all after in life isn’t it? To be successful in what we do? At least I am…
Here’s the second half of what I’m doing starting with #7 which is that each and every morning, for the past 60 days, I’ve been taking in a serving of Athletic Greens.
If you don’t know what Athletic Greens is, basically think of it as your insurance policy in terms of when it comes to getting in your daily recommended dose of vitamins and nutrients.
You can naturally cover ALL your nutritional bases with Athletic Greens. Ingredients sourced from whole foods increase the absorption of nutrients, boost your body’s alkalinity, and improve digestive health.
The result can be immediate Athletic Greens, bringing profound changes in health, energy, and performance.
YES! To all you punks out there that say, “EAT REAL FOODS”… I eat plenty of veggies and fruits throughout the day in forms of spinach, berries, broccoli, cabbage, kale, ect but I want to be 110% sure I’m getting in all of my vitamins and nutrients… Or at least getting in a good amount.
Since adding Athletic Greens in I feel a ton more alert in the morning. The only real effect I’ve seen is with the extra energy. I tried another Greens drink before and it worked the same, however, it tasted like complete SH*T! When it comes to stuff like this, I usually don’t care what the taste is like but, I think Athletic Greens tastes pretty damn good…
Something that’s funny to me is how some people say Athletic Greens is way too expensive for them when their paying $2-3 for their Red Bulls and Rock Star drinks every day, multiple times a day…
I know because I used to drink a Rock Star in the AM and another in the PM and they were about $3 a pop! I thinks its been an awesome trade off with terms of investments for extra sources of energy…
Both financially and health wise.
Along with the Athletic Greens, I’ve been taking in their Omega 3 Fish Oil as well (Hasn’t been released yet). I’ve been taking Omega 3’s for some time now but, recently I just switched up to the Athlete Greens Omega 3. It’s quality stuff and is almost 50% pure.
If you didn’t know, most fish oils out there are only about 15-20% pure. This isn’t good and means a few things: 1) There’s lots more fillers and toxins in them and 2) You’ll have to take more of it to get in your recommended daily amount.
With the Athletic Greens Omega 3, I only take about 4-6 / day which gives me more than enough omega 3 fatty acids. It’s recommended you take about 2-4 grams of Omega 3’s per day. I take 2 capsules after my main meals – Breakfast, Lunch, and always dinner.
8) I’ve found the PERFECT Training Shoe.
For the last 5 weeks I’ve been training in these….
These have been absolutely amazing! I love them! Their the New Balance Minimus 20 – Minimus Trail and they kick ass!
I run, sprint, lift, jump, and train in these bad boys and they have been great. I think they may be the best thing next to your Vibram Five Fingers. I’ve never owned a pair of those but, the review are great.
What’s nice about my NB Minimus 20’s is I can do anything in them. Pull heavy ass sleds around, sprint, jump, Olympic lift… Their highly versatile.
When you train, it’s good to be able to feel your feet grip the ground, especially when you’re squatting and deadlifting. The truth is, most people wear shoes that give way too much support and in return, take away your foot’s ability to freely move. Overtime, you’ll weaken your ankles, feet, legs, plus lose overall mobility.
I can remember numerous high school athletes that have came into my gym to train wearing high top basketball sneakers. I quickly had them training in their socks or bare feet.
Overall, I would say to train in shoes like these or at least similar like your Vibrams, Nike Free’s, and even Inov-8’s.
I have never used actual lifting shoes for Olympic lifts before but, I feel good training Olympic lifts in the Minimus 20’s.
Overall, I’m a huge fan of the New Balance 20’s and if you didn’t know, I’m also a shoe junkie and shoe-aholic! I have so many damn pairs of shoes that I don’t know what to do with them all.
Bottom line – the NB 20’s are my new fav’s!
9) Alkalize my water…
Every morning, when I wake up, even before I take in my Athletic Greens and fish oil, I’ve made a rule that I must drink a 16 oz bottled water with pH drops in it first. Along with this, I’ve been alkalizing all the water I drink during the day (or at least trying).
I’ll get back to what I use to alkalize my water with after I explain why I do this…
Something I’ve been looking more into is how to alkalize the body. It’s been said that the only real sickness of the body is “Acidity of the Body”.
We do things each and everyday that help increase the acidity of the body. Most of these things are from the foods we eat, and the chemicals we’re exposed to. I won’t get into too much detail here but, the fact is that most of us are very unbalanced when it comes to our bodies pH levels.
Here’s a good resource I found if you want to know more about pH levels and Acidity of the Body.
If you’re very acidic, you’ll get sick more often, feel tired, and be more prone to disease.
On the other hand, to combat this, we need to try to alkalize our bodies so we are less acidic. There are many ways to do this like:
- Increasing the amount of veggies and greens we eat per day
- Drinking Pure Alkalized Water
- Detoxing Every few months
- Increase intake of Omega 3’s
- Decrease the amount of toxins you take in by cutting back on sh*tty foods
- Eat whole natural organic foods
- Decrease intake of caffeine, fruit juices, soda, and all sugars
Those are a few of the things you can do but there are a ton more!
I’ll be researching more and more about how to alkalize the body. I really feel this is super important for my health as should you.
Now, the reason I use pH drops in my water is to help increase my bodies alkalinity. It will take a ton more than just adding some pH drops into my water but, every little bit counts. I would also recommend you drink purified bottled water over your regular tap water… Lots of chemicals in regular tap water…
10) Warm Up With Weaknesses
One of the major changes I’ve made within my training is with my warm up. Instead of doing the same thing over and over, I have about 3-4 different warm ups I’ve been using as I tweak each one up depending on what I’m training that day.
For instance, one of my major weaknesses is with pistol squats. So, on days where I’m squatting, I’m usually hitting about 10-15 pistol squats per leg within the warm up mixed in with a ton of activation movements for my glutes and hamstrings. I know my low back is tight so I’ll throw in a bunch of lower back mobility drills and foam rolling within the warm up as well.
Or when I deadlift, here what I typically go through:
- Double Jumps x 100
- BW squats, push ups, rows
- Various lunging movements
- Various hip and hamstring based movements
- side shuffles, skips, hops, bear crawls, inch worms
- band complex for shoulders, hips, back
- empty loaded deadlift / Oly lift variations x 10-15 reps a piece – sumo, snatch, regular, good morning, RDL, front squat
- begin workout…
Seems like a lot but when you do this, overtime you build up more conditioning and get acclimated to it.
Many people that come into my gym for the first few time get waxed by the normal warm up… I mean, they are wiped out, puking, light headed, done…
This is sad but true… Take note and start taking your warm up SERIOUSLY!
Other things I may hit just to touch up on stuff will be snatch balances, overhead squats, false grip ring pull ups, inch worms, empty bar power squat cleans, handstand push ups, and other empty bar loaded Olympic lift variations.
As always, as you can see, I’m keeping the warm up very dynamic with tons of jumps, bodyweight movements, active stretching, and sprints. I feel the warm up is almost more important than the actually workout. This is when you get your mind right and focused in on your training session. The warm up is NOT dick around time…
Heck, two of the greatest strength coaches in the world came out with a whole product based around the warm up – AMPED WARMUP.
11) Rage Against The Machine
I’ve been on a HUGE Rage Against The Machine kick lately. This band has been pushing me through my workouts like none other…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-58-36lSqG4[/youtube]
12) I rest when I need to…
There’s been a ton of different methods I’ve personally used in the past on how many days to train per week or how many to train in a row, ect…
Three days per week… Four days… Five…
For me and my personal goals, I’ve found that the best results have come from really “feeling out” how I am and rest based off of that.
I still take a deload week every 3-4 weeks where I’ll cut back on the major movements I’m doing and hit up tons of light kettlebell, sandbag, and bodyweight work but, something I’ve started to do that has really been a success is to take rests when I’m beat up and go hard when I feel good. Even if this means I train 3-4 days in a row.
Lately I’ve been on a 1 day on – 1 day off schedule where I’ll hit up 1-3 workouts in a day then fully rest the next. I’ve also been doing 2 days on – 1 day off. It all depends on how I feel.
I’ll test out how I feel in the warm up and if I feel fast, alert, and explosive, I’ll go ahead and attack the workouts I have planned but, if I feel the opposite, I’ll rest.
I still think for guys looking to get strong and jacked should approach training 3-4 days a week either in a M, W, Friday or M, T, Th, Friday type split format to be the best for that type of goal to get lean and mean. On days they don’t lift, I would recommend HIIT cardio with sprints or something similar.
I don’t want guys out there that may be reading this to think, “Oh, now I should train 3-4 days in a row and expect results???”
You still need to train according to the results YOU want and need.
If you want to get ripped up and strong, you need to follow a more balanced training program. For me, I need to be ready for anything so I have been approaching my training that way and thus far, it’s worked.
13) Every Morning and Every Night, I do this…
I recite my goals.
I have a 4 x 6 inch note card that has my major goals and overall visions on it and every night, before I go to bed and when I wake up, I take out this card and I read it with 110% belief and conviction that it WILL HAPPEN.
If you don’t have goals or do, but haven’t wrote them down yet, I suggest you do so right now.
Stop what you’re doing right now and take out a small note card.
On the top, write out what it it you truly want to accomplish. What is your overall most important goal to achieve?? If you have 2-3 three, write them all down.
Write them down and then write down the things that you must do on a daily and consistent basis to achieve that goal or set of goals overtime.
Make sure that this goal or goals are things you truly want and they have actual meaning to you. You must believe within every single cell in your body that you can and will make it happen.
Read this everyday before you go to sleep and right when you wake up. You can also pull it out during the day and recite it anytime you’re feeling unmotivated or lazy. If this has enough meaning to you, it’ll fire you up and get you moving forward again.
The more you read it and the more you believe it will happen, the more you will automatically start doing the things necessary to accomplish that goal.
Just trust me on this one…
This is extremely powerful!
Live Aggressive and Get Strong!
Let me know in the COMMENTS what your favorite point was out of the 13 I shared…. Let’s get over 50 and I’ll pick more people to send new T-Shirts to…