Justin Rivelli's Physique Transformations

Before we start, let’s clarify what a winner is. For the purpose of this post a winner is anyone who survived the Zombie invasion and the end of the world on December 21, 2012. Congratulations! On a more serious note, a winner can be defined as anyone who enjoys what they do while accomplishing a goal they aim too. Below I listed how “winner’s” think and how to fix some “losing” qualities you may have. Do you generally have a “winning” or a “losing” mindset? Let’s find out.

“Winner’s” STRIVE for success, they don’t try to AVOID failure.

Are you motivated to get better or are you motivated to avoid failure? Which way do you think and what’s the difference?

• With the “winning” mindset you strive for awesomeness.
• You blame your lack of success on your own EFFORT not your ABILITY. Saying this, to get more awesome, all you have to do is try harder. This way FAILURE will INCREASE your motivation not decrease it.
• You will take responsibility for your failures and credit for your successes. This will also give you confidence to succeed repeatedly.

Opposing the way “winners” think, “losers” focus on avoiding failure.

• They are filled with self doubt.
• They believe their failures occur because of a lack of ability and or infrequent successes.
• They blame themselves for failure and take minimal to no credit when they achieve success.

Coaching note:

You also see these “losers” stop putting forth effort to protect their self worth. If people knew they tried hard and still failed, others would “know” they didn’t have the ability to succeed. To help solve this problem you would have to do things like build on success, set personal goals etc. like I mentioned in the past two articles “Coaching the M word” and “How to Progress”.

They don’t think they know everything.

(of course this is bad)

Nobody knows everything. If someone did or at least thought they did, they would never learn anything new. The quote that’s been floating around the strength and conditioning world for quite some time now is “the more you learn the more you find out you don’t know”. It’s one of the truest statements I have ever heard.

“Winner’s” arms are open, even they do belong to a “tribe”.

I’ll explain this in the fitness realm since that is the purpose of this blog. I am defining a “tribe” as a group which possesses certain qualities and characteristics that make it a unique. Before I get more in depth, let’s think about this in the simpler mindset.

In general, a lot of people do Yoga because they are naturally able to get into crazy positions, just like a lot of people do bodybuilding because they are naturally muscular. We all know that bodybuilders could become more mobile and flexible if they did Yoga, which would in turn could decrease chance of injury and give them the ability to get into better positions so they can perform better. Where on the opposite hand people who practice Yoga could get stronger, become more aware of how to fire muscles, and decrease some excessive laxity in their joints if they did some other types of training.

Taking it a step further and for example #1, let’s take a look at…Yogies:

Since most people are not even near as mobile or as flexible as they should be Yoga is fantastic. It’s even good for people who can’t relax, or for anyone who just plain likes it and it gets them moving. But saying this there are a lot of yoga fanatics, teachers and people out there who promote it for different types of dysfunction or pain either because it has “worked for them” or for whatever else it may be. The reality is, certain dysfunctions along with things like back, neck, hip and shoulder pain etc. are very complex problems. Not all problems have the same exact underlying cause and Yoga could (and sometimes does) make a particular problem worse. When it comes to being put into hypermobile positions, not everyone deserves to, nor should they be trying to get there. Of course with a good Yoga mentor, they do understand things like this and that other methods and modalities are better options to treat injury or dysfunction.

For example #2 let’s look at CrossFit:

I am not going to ramble on about how CrossFit seems to cause a lot of SLAP tears, UCL, or lumbar injuries like a lot of other people seem to be doing, but instead I will explain what is beneficial about it, so you understand my point of how you should not get “set in your ways”.

Besides, what about all the other “general fitness certified trainer’s” that cue bad technique causing injuries (acute or chronic) or that neglect soft tissue work or proper warm ups to prevent injury? I am around your average “trainers” almost all day and see very few doing any prophylactic work or that pay attention to detail (technique, nutrition, sleep, stress etc.). Instead everyone seems to be bashing CrossFit coaches and tearing them down. Instead let’s try to make ALL PEOPLE who coach aware of the most effective and safest training methods out their according to their client’s goals.

Now that I am off that tangent…

I like CrossFit for the idea that it gets women to lift weights, the average crowd moving, and it gives people a sense of meaning and feeling of comradery. It also gets some people eating better with the Paleo diet they support. CrossFit brings about and forms some of the most dedicated fitness individuals I have seen in a long time. But saying this, some die hards take it way too far as I have heard the following things said recently…

“You are starting football soon? You should do CrossFit. CrossFit makes you good at Olympic lifting. I want to get big, I’m going to start CrossFit” Doesn’t that just sound a little off to most of you?

Even though I think CrossFit would contribute to achieving the above goals, I also believe it is a jack of all trades master of none type of fitness. It makes you good at many things, but great at none. Think about it, if you want to be good at Powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, a particular sport or bodybuilding etc. you have to specialize. Again, the intelligent and knowledgeable people who practice CrossFit do understand this. They understand the reality of what it is, does, and can do. These people are a rare person to find from my current personal experience.

To sum this up, you can see how I am far from being a CrossFitter, nor do I practice full on Yoga, but I am open to what they preach, can learn things from them, and do recognize these forms of practice benefit people in certain ways. In the fitness world, don’t just eliminate all other forms of exercise once you find your niche or because you hear something bad about it. Research it, ask questions, try it for yourself, seek out people who are good at it, etc. Then form your own opinion. Even still, in my eyes there is no need to shoot anything down as you can always learn keeping an open mind.

Successful people challenge beliefs. Even the most popular information that’s supposed to be right.

Successful people aren’t afraid to do anything or bring up controversial ideas. I love the quote from a TED talks video I saw a couple years ago that I’ll never forget by sir Ken Robinson. He said “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” I believe successful people are not afraid of what other people think even though they do value others opinions. If you always go with the crowd and worry about how someone might criticize you, you will never have room to grow and be creative on your own.

A lot of stuff we are taught is wrong anyways. Question everything, and believe in the information you find measurable and that actually works. I will post real life examples of this in the future to prevent to article from getting longer than it already is!

Winner’s surround themselves with other extremely successful people.

Successful people usually find people that are the best at what they want to do and learn from them.  If you want to be good at what you do learn from willing reliable sources and trust them. They know what works and will leave out a lot of the “dirty work” or “headaches” you don’t have to deal with.

In the past two articles I wrote about how you can’t motivate people but you can create and environment to get people to motivate themselves. By surrounding yourself with winner’s you are one step closer to an ideal environment. Don’t miss out on opportunities of learning from the best people you can find. It may change your outlook on things forever. Usually talking to these people is like striking gold.

Note: There will be certainly be other ways of achieving your goals and I 100% encourage experimentation and originality like I mentioned above, but saying this let’s read the next statement…

Successful people run away from analysis paralysis.

This refers to or over-thinking a situation so that a decision or action is never taken. For the purpose of fitness,  this problem causes people over analyze “what to do next” because of the limitless possibilities. In other words, they overwhelmed by and don’t act. That is obviously not good.

Their movement is not limited by their mind.

Winner’s are confident and know they can achieve anything.

By this I simply mean you can do anything even if your mind tells you not too. We have standards of everything. Whether its a world record time, a level of leanness you want to achieve, or even a GPA you want to achieve.

You think your muscles are tired on a high rep set? I guarantee most of you could do an extra 5-10 reps (YES 5-10 REPS) even while keeping form if you really pushed yourself. I’m not saying do it all the time, I am just saying more is possible than you think. My point again is most people limit themselves way too much because of what they see, here, or believe. They do what their mind or body tells them which is sometimes not so fantastic.

Look at the 4 minute mile. Now I am not a runner but I understand it was first achieved in 1954 by Roger Bannister in 3:59.4. Now his record is broken, and the “four minute barrier” as they call it is the STANDARD of all male professional middle distance runners. Even though we do have advanced training techniques etc. I believe just seeing it was possible was the biggest breakthrough for many.

One of the biggest reasons I love my job is that the things I have seen clients accomplish blow not only their own minds, but friends, family members and everyone around them who ever has doubts. Proving them wrong is great and all, but just that feeling of success is unexplainable.

Before I conclude, here are 18 more really important bullets about “winner’s” I want to throw at you without explaining too much.

1. Nobody has time. Successful people make time.
2. They know there is no shortcut to success. Hard work is the habit of 99% of successful people.
3. Winner’s inspire each other, challenge one another, uplift and encourage everyone. They make other peoples lives better.
4. The best of the best are constantly growing and learning. They are constantly working at mastering there craft.
5. Winner’s follow through. They do what they set out too.
6. They constantly visualize the future, can see the end result, and know what they have to do to get do to get there.
7. They know “why” they are doing not just what.
8. Once they become locked in, THAT’S IT. Any threats or negative remarks DO NOT effect them.
9. The best learn from experience, successes and failures.
10. They set realistic personal goals, monitor and evaluate progress, then adjust accordingly.
11. The more they learn the more they realize they don’t know.
12. There is no room for a bunch of negative self talk in a winners mind. Positive words like I am doing this, rather than I might be able to do this are the norm.
13. They believe in, love and are passionate about what they do, ensuring forever progress and learning.
14. They find things that work best for them.
15. They study both sides. For example do want to be healthy? Then study health, but also study the unhealthy.
16. They know what’s going on around them, not just in front of them.
17. They focus on what matters, not the miniscule b.s. everyone else worries about.
18. They appreciate other people more.

By having these winning qualities you can become unstoppable. You can accomplish what you aim to, and even what you never thought was in your reach. By changing your expectations and implementing most of the above steps, I believe you will become the best of the beasts. Good luck on your journey and get to becoming much more awesome.

References:

Successful Coaching. Fourth ed. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2012. Print.

(Even watching Rocky won’t keep you motivated for long)

The phony idea of pumping people up, intense yelling, or even a “motivational movie” will most likely NOT cure unmotivated people to create lasting change. This is an inadequate way of thinking about this misunderstood and poorly implemented word. My goal for this post it to teach you more about the ”m” word, how to maximize it’s potency and duration, and solutions to make motivation “work”. With that said, let’s get right to it.

Motivation is literally the desire to do things. I believe every coach who understands the “m word” does not try to motivate others per say. People who want to accomplish something and have lasting must find a way to motivate themselves. Now saying this, (if you’re a coach) it’s your job to help guide them to do so. Below I list some pointers on how to go about doing this. Here we go…

1. First, you must have control and be able to motivate yourself before trying to help someone else do so.

Practice what you preach. Seriously. If you hate what you do and you’re trying to help someone at it, they will hate it too. If you’re bad at what you do or do, or you do not like what you’re doing, people can see right through you and they will in turn be bad at it too. Don’t you love the people who are awesome at what they do and or are excited for life? Aren’t you inspired by them? Passion is contagious.

If you are one of those people who already have a passion and are good at what you do, learn what is that’s motivating you so you can inspire and help others. Just remember, when it comes to dealing with people everyone is different. You will read about this more specifically below.

2. Have other “testimonials” or highly successful people being coached by you lead by example and inspire others.

I think every coach needs individuals that lead by example and show others what is actually possible. Whenever you can show others demonstrating awesome levels of success it is fantastic, a reflection of what you do. Know who these “gems” of clients are, tell them, and keep developing and helping these people. They will become your “secret powers” that will lead and help others achieve ridiculous results and better progress. Inspiration and it’s power is a topic that will be brought up in part three of this series “How Successful People Think”.

3. To help a person to motivate themselves, you must appeal to THEIR values.

One of the major things you must figure out when trying to motivate another person is to recognize their values and what’s important to each and every one of them. Ask questions like…

1. What matters most to you today?
2. For what reasons do you want to achieve whatever it may be?
3. What value do you place on a achieving these goals?

Whether the goal is the same as yours or the opposite it does not matter. For example in the training sense, some people value hard work, where others are just happy to participate. Some value being with their family, others don’t. A simple often overlooked way to do this is to actually ask and LOOK AT and evaluate people’s lifestyles, starting points, goals etc. so you can help them determine what they can realistically achieve and how long it will take. It goes a long way.

4. We do things because we want to fulfill our needs, we enjoy them, and because they matter.

When you or others are not enjoying the process, feeling worthy or successful, I can almost guarantee you have lost motivation. Gain a clear understanding of what your client wants to get out of fitness and life. Understanding people as individuals will help you understand how reaching their goals will CAUSE them to reach their fitness and life goals. Find out why others are unmotivated. Do they even want to achieve something. Have they become bored? What can you do to bring them back to life and help them set an awesome goal they want to achieve. Some questions to ask could be…

• Do you feel a sense of meaning?
• Did you get caught up in the sense that you’re doing this because you think you have to?
• Why are your clients signing up?
• What do they want to achieve?
• Who is important in their life?
• Who do they want to please or make proud if anyone?
• What are their hobbies?
• What is their lifestyle like inside and outside of work?
• How many food pushers, anti-fitness people or “threats” do they receive each day?

Continuing on this idea, if you are looking to be successful at what you do, for the most part intrinsic drive (doing things because they matter, you want to, you enjoy them) will out-weight extrinsic drive (rewards, money etc.) any day of the week. This is the secret to high performance. According to Dan Pink, the science confirms this and proves it over and over again. If you want to know more about this guy look him up. His new ideas on business and how management is not needed are pretty incredible as well.

5. Catch people when they do something good.  But before you do so, there’s another “catch” you must know as well.

Complimenting people all the time on things they always do good get’s old. Instead, notice and praise people for great performance and on things they don’t normally seem to “get”.  Then they will see you really understand and care about them.

For example, if your training a group and Sally always has great deadlift technique or always seems to eat a good breakfast, don’t repeat back, “terrific form!” or “nice discipline with breakfast this morning” every time. She will know in her head,” I always do this, whats the big deal?”

On the other hand if John has terrible deadlift form, and you see him make an improvement, this is the time to give him a pat on the back, show some praise and shout out “excellent lift!” or something along those lines according to your personality. Acknowledge what he achieved and he will know you are not missing anything. Or in other words you pay attention to him ALL the time and notice what hes doing. Show the people you genuinely care.

6. Have a  proven system in place, and set realistic goals WITH your clients not FOR them. Along with this, teach others to gain control of their individual success.

Anyone can set a goal for someone but if they don’t want it in the first place you might as well flush it down the toilet. To create a successful environment where people can motivate themselves, help others develop goals that will lead to results they want. I believe successful people and coaches know what triggers each person to get strive for and reach success.

Obviously setting SMARTER (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely, Evaluate, Re-evaluate, Satisfactory) guidelines/goals are great. By doing this “the right way” at the least you will…

• Be honest with yourself and lay out a good starting point. You must have total honesty about where you are at.
• Have better time management
• Have more self confidence now that you believe goals are possible
• Know what expect from yourself
• Understand what value you place on achieving a goal.

I believe that when people achieve success, it keeps them “going”. It also boosts self confidence, and gives them hope there is light at the end of the tunnel. Having a coach that can see the future is a plus, but if you don’t have one that can or even one at all, just understand that if you’re not making progress something has to either be changed, modified, or progressed.

7. MEASURE, show and explain to people what is possible once you have the above figured out. Set people up for success!

I understand everyone is very different but if you explain  “on average” what happens, at least you have a starting point and something to work with. For example, with my systems if I have someone going for fat loss this is what I show them. Feel free to make something like this on your own but do not show anything if you cannot 100% guarantee it!

With measuring let’s stick with this idea of fat loss. If you never follow through and measure your progress, you will never know if you’re getting better or worse. Not dragging on just measure more often. No not everyday but more often. Measure at the same time and day every week. On the other hand, if you’re going for strength log your numbers. Etc. etc. etc.

What not to do when setting goals…

Have you ever had a coach or someone that compared you to the someone else with different genetics, tendon insertions, genders, ability levels? If they are comparing you to the best player you don’t have a shot of being like for a while or at all how do you think that will make you feel? If so, when you fail you and your coach will both be disappointed and in shock even though you did your best with the tools you had. Sometimes its impossible to reach certain desired outcomes and this failure crushes people, especially children.

That said I believe 99% of people limit themselves way too much, and that everyone can reach goals much higher than they ever thought possible. For example if you have always carried a bit to much body fat and or think, “I’ll never look like I used too”, you are already limiting yourself and it’s not true. I guarantee you can get A LOT leaner than you think with the proper effort, consistency and intensity.

8. Like I said in part one of this series, when setting goals find the optimal activation point.

• For some people, if you set a goal is too hard: They will get anxiety, feel pressured, and get overwhelmed when trying to accomplish it.

• Whereas for others if the goal is too hard: They will feed off of the challenge and get 10000 times better.

It’s your job to understand yourself and or your clients. Don’t let people fail all the time who get worse by doing so. Don’t let people always achieve success easily when failing will make them bust there tail even more. Set goals near the upper limits of your own or other people’s individual abilities but not too hard to achieve. If the goal is too hard, you/they will fail, if it’s too easy you/they will become bored. It’s a very simple process often overlooked.

9. Stop dabbling, stop “shoulding” and stop trying.  Passion, inspiration, commitment and consistency are what matters.

(Counting how long you last here will definitely help you fail)

For example, if you’re counting the days you have stuck to a new nutrition or training system that’s not going to stick forever. It’s really not that cool how long you lasted if it doesn’t make you better or help you grow to produce the results you are really after. You’re just seeing how many days you can last. Patience has a lot to do with this. We all expect things to fast. When what we want doesn’t happen “right now” we jump to the next thing.

Everyone screws up, gets stressed, depressed, or in general just has mess ups. The real thing to think about is how did you get past this crisis? Consistency. passion and setting yourself up to win is the key. If you’re not inspired, what do you have? With passion and inspiration you feel alive, excited and in control of your life. A ridiculous combination for consistency, progress, happiness and success.

Touching on the trying debate: “I am trying to do this because”…”I should do this because”…PLEASE STOPE RIGHT THERE! Do not pass go, and do not collect $200.00. Trying or shoulding doesn’t work. Why MUST you have this? In short list and lay out strong reasons for achieving your goals instead.

Now to conclude this abruptly and out of nowhere…Hopefully after reading this post you will now go watch 3 motivational movies, and have someone yell in your face to do something. Kidding! But on a serious note if you read over an implement the ideas above on how to create a successful environment to motivate yourself and or others, you will find a better road map to achieve some awesomeness!

References:

Successful Coaching. Fourth ed. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2012. Print.

Kids are the most awesome creatures on earth to learn from. I believe most of us need to be reminded on how they think, and also how they make themselves get better more often. From crawling to running, babbling to talking, and getting fed to feeding, the progressions for becoming more efficient at each of the stages are just so logical. But you rarely see anyone taking any type of proper progressions in the gym atmosphere for better results. This series is going to help you and or your family, friends, or clients to get awesome results by showing you…

1. How “naturally” learning things works best. (A different reason kids stay so excited and enthusiastic for life)
2. How to get the poorly used and misunderstood word “motivation” to be more potent, longer lasting, and actually work for you and or your family, friends, clients etc.
3. The way successful people generally think.

1. Getting Better: Finding the optimal challenge.

I am not talking about anything crazy here. There are endless possible program designs, exercises, sets, reps, tempos etc. to help you reach your goals. What I’m talking about is how you can find the right nutrition and training systems that will fit you or your clients to help them progress efficiently.

Have you ever practiced something on your own you wanted to get better at when you were a child? By saying this I mean WITHOUT a coach or parent teaching or telling you to do something? I can guarantee you have. Did you notice you happened to get better at that skill?

Of course you did, you were letting the magic of “play” happen. It was natural, fun, self fulfilling, and you set better goals than any coach or parent ever could have for you. Let’s take a look at what you did, some examples, and relate it to a current fitness goal like fat loss, strength, or performance you have.

1. The first time you attempted the skill as a little guy or gal, you failed.
2. You learned from your mistakes, felt out your weaknesses and strengths, and realized what you could and couldn’t achieve.
3. From there you set a realistic goal to make yourself better.
4. When that goal was achieved and became more of a habit, you became bored.
5. From here, you set another more challenging goal to progress yourself further, not forgetting what you already learned.
6. You repeated the process.

Are you still having trouble trouble understanding? Need some quick examples?

Example #1:

When I was a kid I tried dunking a basketball. I couldn’t do it and failed miserably. So, I lowered the hoop all the way down, and worked my way up. Sure other factors were involved, but for the most part that’s what happened. My point is if I kept trying to dunk at a standard 10 foot hoop I probably would lose motivation to dunk. If I kept the hoop low I would have become bored. So what I did was progressively raise the hoop keeping the height to where it was not impossible to finish the dunk, but not to easy to slam in someones face all day!

Example #2:

Being a musician, and basically a self-taught one at that, I have an obsession with all musical instruments, drums being my main focus. As a child, I would quickly become bored if I were to play the same thing over and over again. On the other hand if I practiced licks I saw from master drummers I would get frustrated, upset and want to stop. I just did not have the technique, speed, coordination and control of master drummers. Saying so I would always somehow find things to practice I found challenging but that I could achieve after hard work.

How does this relate to fitness nutrition?

The problem is… If you’re trying to lose fat, gain weight etc. and you hop into a fad diet or something you can’t sustain, here is what usually happens. You fall off track, quit, and then you even might try it again or try something else that’s too hard, become frustrated and quit again. Great results right!?

Here’s the solution. Learn like a kid again. Refer to my above process on how you progressed as a child. You failed because the task was too hard. Learn from your mistakes, then set a realistic goal to get better. When the goal is achieved and becomes habit, move on and set another one not forgetting what you already learned. Then repeat. Refer to the numbered process I stated above.

Example: Replace 1 bottle of juice you drink a day with water. Once that’s habit and becomes easy, remove another one. Once that becomes easy take sugar out of your coffee. Once that’s easy replace a sweet with some fruit. Get the point?

How does this relate to fitness training?

The problem is…you are cheating the system. Be the person that knows proper exercise progressions.

For example and keeping this simple, if you can’t get into a proper split squat position you should not be lunging. If you can’t front squat, don’t try to do a barbell clean of any sort. If you can’t do a full range of motion push up, don’t sacrifice form, instead elevate your hands like Lacie does in the video below. I’m sure you get the point by now.

The best “lifter’s” learn technique before they load, and the best athletes don’t try moves in games until they have mastered them off the field. The best don’t cheat the system.

The other problem is, most people either don’t know how to regress, don’t know they are doing these things wrong, and or won’t leave their ego at the door. I know this because I see things like this every day. By butchering exercises you can’t perform you are not making yourself better at them so you can progress to bigger and better things. But, you are making yourself better at being worse at the exercise by reinforcing bad form and movement.

Most commercial gyms and exercise classes usually make situations like this worse.

How come anyone can walk into a class and magically perform every exercise no matter their current fitness level? Reality is they can’t, even though they may think they can. Form is usually compromised, people have different goals, and its hard for one person “modify” or “advance” 30 people at once, especially without screening or assessing the people participating. Sure some exercises are modified, and just ripping through exercises may be fun, but the truth is its far from being as beneficial as it could be.

Solution: Remember the examples from above? When in doubt think back to when you were a kid. If  a skill is too difficult to perform back off and look for another solution. When it gets easy, its becomes habit, and you become bored make the skill harder. If you can’t perform a full range of motion push up elevate the hands and work your way down. Sure there are other progressions but it can really be that simple. If you’re curious I am not a fan of knee push ups and zero of my clients ranging from 12-84 do them.

If you have to take away one point from all of this, set goals near the upper limits of your own personal abilities. If you’re helping someone out, do the same for them. If the goal is too hard, and you and or they will fail. If it’s too easy and you and or they will become bored. It’s a simple process often overlooked.

Also remember that everyone is so much different when it comes to accomplishing something. Everyone has a different trigger.

• For some people, if a goal is too hard: They will get anxiety, feel pressured, and get overwhelmed.
• For others if a goal is too hard:,They will feed off of the challenge and get 10000 times better.

It’s YOUR job to understand yourself and or your clients.

Don’t let people fail all the time who get discouraged and or worse by doing so. On the other hand don’t let people always achieve success easily when failing will make them bust there tail even more. In the end just keep this progress process fun and exciting for goodness sakes. When you or your client accomplishes a goal at  this “optimal challenge” level you will both will then feel pretty dang successful.

That is all for now. If you liked this post check back for part 2 “Coaching Motivation” to see my view on the misunderstood and poorly used word “motivation” and how to really use it to get yourself and or other people some crazy results.

References:

Successful Coaching. Fourth ed. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2012. Print.