Eighty percent of success is showing up. ~Woody Allen

I just found out the event my be live streamed on http://goodlift.info/live.php

I lift at noon EST  on the 23rd

Rant and Tip for May 4, 2012

Quote: Eighty percent of success is showing up.  ~Woody Allen

A funny but, true quote for today, I hope you apply it the way I will. Applying it to your diet takes a more than just showing up though. I would say you need to at least apply the 80% to planning the appropriate meal and the 20% would be just eating it. Exercise is where I really see the benefit for this quote is. Once you get to the gym or the area of your home where you exercise regularly your body becomes prepared for the stress and performance to follow. My workout partner and I often start yawning like crazy as we enter the gym. Our brains are telling the rest of our body to get ready because the real work is about to start. The yawning is not boredom setting in but instead it is our bodies taking in as much oxygen as possible to get prepared.

I cannot stress enough how important it is to fully engulf yourself in your new diet plan and the key to doing this is in the definition of the word diet. Too often we look at the word diet as something we do temporarily to achieve a certain weight goal. Actually your diet is as defined by MerriamWebster.com

1

A: food and drink regularly provided or consumed

B: habitual nourishment

C: the kind and amount of food prescribed for a person or animal for a special reason

D: a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight

I choose to ignore definition d: a regimen of eating and drinking sparingly so as to reduce one's weight this is because if we look at the other definitions we can see that our diet is more of a life style of eating, the means by which we seek nourishment to sustain ourselves or to improve our health. Really if we had maintained a proper diet throughout our lives we would never find ourselves over weight in the first place. However that is not the case for most of us and at some point in time we made the choice to choose food or food substances that had a negative effect on us. I say food substances because I have never seen a Frito, Dorito, Cheese Puff and any other of the sundry of items that many people consider food growing on a tree or from the ground. I am also pretty sure I have never seen a Frito foraging for food in the woods. It  seems to me that many of the issues we have health wise can in many cases be traced back to processed foods. When did we become so lazy to not take the time to cook a healthy meal for ourselves? Besides cooking together can be a healthy and enjoyable process for couples. I think I have rambled enough about processed foods.

My training has been going very well. I have been training very hard in the bench shirt every week. Normally a person would only train in the shirt every other week. I however do not have that luxury. I have had to train every week in the shirt for the past 6 weeks and have made some great progress doing so. I do think I will hit a 500 bench in the shirt someday and will continue to work hard towards that goal. Since training so much in the shirt my shoulder have ached to the point that I have not been squatting in a couple of weeks, I will start squatting again this Sunday with an Easy bar. With this type of bar I will be able to keep my lower body strength up and even improve without putting all the pressure on my shoulders while stretching my arms out to the bar. My arms will be in front of me and this will protect my joints.

Have a great workout!!

Tip: Proper Form for the Squat Exercise

1 Use an approximate shoulder-width foot stance.

2 Descend in a controlled manner.

3 Ascend at a variety of speeds (including fast but controlled).

4 Exhale after the major effort on the ascent.

5 Avoid bouncing or twisting in the bottom position.

6 Maintain a normal posture with an erect spine.

7 Descend to the point where the tops of the thighs are parallel to the floor.

8 Keep feet flat on the floor.