Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. – Arthur Ashe
100 words of Fitness:
“Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat. Practice and train major lifts: deadlift, clean, squat, presses, C&J, and snatch. Similarly, master the basics of gymnastics: pull-ups, dips, rope climb, push-ups, sit-ups, presses to handstand, pirouettes, flips, splits, and holds. Bike, run, swim, row, etc., hard and fast. Five or six days per week, mix these elements in as many combinations and patterns as creativity will allow. Routine is the enemy. Keep workouts short and intense. Regularly learn and play new sports.” —Greg Glassman, CrossFit Founder
Simple!
At no point in these 100 words does it say, “be fit to start, know how to do all these movements, have the perfect gym gear or even to join a gym”. Being fit and becoming fit are the same journey, you are learning about your body & mind, you are challenging them to try new things & find success between the failure over and over again. The 100 words of fitness is your guidebook on how to do it.
Start where you are:
If you haven’t trained or been physically active in a very long time if at all, then leave running a marathon on the weekend or hitting a 100kg clean & jerk until later on in your fitness journey. Start by gaining awareness of your body & mind, things like: can I touch my toes, if not how far down my legs can I get? Now guess what, you have your first measurable fitness goal.
Use what you have:
When you start, you may not have access to a gym or the budget to join a gym or know what to do at a gym. Use your body, 20 burpees per day for a month is a great place to start. No equipment, no gym, just you, your mind and your body. You may find after 2 weeks you want to increase your burpee number…go for it!
Use your friends, that fit co-worker or your gym crew to keep you motivated & on track. Studies have shown just 1 phone call from someone checking in on your training will keep you training.
Do what you can:
So, you’ve signed up to your local gym. You see in the programmed workout Handstand holds…No one expects you to be able to hold a handstand (yet it’s only day 1), so please don’t just stop, give up or think this is all too hard. Pause, pause that thought pattern, take a deep controlled breath. Your trainers have been in your exact spot before and know what to do. Every workout has scaling options which will assist you to find a movement to perform in the workout which will progress you towards the handstand hold and give you the desired experience for the workout. If you are at the gym, there are trainers floating around everywhere ready to help you out!
You may have just come off a more then hectic night shift or your newborn baby has decided sleeping at night is not for them…do what you can! Some days you are the champion taking home the workout crown & other days you are just happy to participate. Either way you are growing & strengthening your fitness and knowledge of yourself.
Consistency is key!
Your fitness & health journey isn’t just the 1 hour you spend in the gym, it is also the 23 hours you spend outside the gym that effects your fitness. These 23hours are spent sleeping, reading, eating, incidental exercise (taking the stairs instead of the lift), breathing (another blog coming about nasal breathing). Are you creating the greatest opportunities & surrounding yourself with the best tools daily to reach your full athletic potential and fully express what your DNA is capable of?
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