Strength Basics

Getting stronger, fitter, and healthier by sticking to the basics. It's not rocket science, it's doing the simple stuff the right way. Strength-Basics updates every Monday, plus extra posts during the week.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Removing the Negative

The other day I saw Lee Burton speak at a seminar. He was speaking about corrective exercise, and said "Remove the negative." He meant, remove those negative things that cause the problem in the first place, before you work on correcting the problem.

That got me thinking, what is the negative in my client's lives? What acts the most as a negative drag on their forward progress? What about you guys? What is holding you back?

Some of these can be obvious. Let's look at a few.

Diet. If your goal is fat loss / body recomposition (a fancy way to say "lose fat, gain muscle"), diet is going to play a major roll. What's the most obvious negative for you? Is it daily soda consumption? Too much bread (a loaf a day keeps the six-pack away)? Too little food (critical for folks trying to gain weight)? By removing the negative, you can make a clean and easy jump in the right direction. It's not adding something new but just dropping something holding you back.

Posture. Got a sore back and rounded shoulders, and you sit hunched over a PC all day? Try standing and walking around, changing your workstation, or a more back-friendly chair. Get some lumbar support for your back when you drive so you don't hunch over the steering wheel.

Negative feedback. Some people mean well, but drag on you too - "You'll never succeed." "All those weights and exercises . . . you are bound to get hurt and I don't want to see that happen to you." "Live a little, have a doughnut, you earned it." You don't need to dump the friend per se, but you can avoid the conversation and steer it away from training or eating.

Everyone has a little bit of a headwind that slows them down. What's an easy negative you can cut away to get you sailing more smoothly towards your goals?


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