Warrior Blog

Warrior's Why - Personal Values It's time to take a giant step back - to get grounded.  Today, take a few moments to reflect and consider your personal values.  We normally take this on in our personal yearly planning cycle in December - and if you haven't done it lately, now is a great time to get started!  Our values ground us - and can serve to guide as as we choose between different opportunities, games we play and actions to take when breakdowns occur.  It is said that we don't "select" our values - but rather that we "discover" them.  Take on reviewing the list of personal values and see what you discover around your own values.   We'll build more on them inside this series each week.   Download your Warrior Why Values List to get your juices flowing here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12DRjHw9oiEU8l3EqesGeDMS_KvBWVwdm/view?usp=sharing #HealthyLivingWarrior #GayPersonalTrainer #GayTrainer #PersonalTrainer #Trainer #PersonalTraining #T...

Strength Training - Repetition Range   You're on a mission to realize gains in your overall strength.  Don't get that confused with getting bigger - although you will likely notice some mass increase as well as you continue to training.  This training is focused on being able to generate more force (lift more weight) with your lean muscle mass - generating (and increasing) the maximal force your muscle cells can generate. This type of training requires heavy lifting - pushing a weight that you can lift a maximum of 6 times.  With that said - this doesn't look like going into the gym 5 days a week and grunting out heavy sets of 6.  In strength training programs, proper periodization is critical to balance progressive overload and muscle recovery to allow the body to continue to grow stronger and prevent injury. If you've been training for strength, and not happy with your results - either lack of progress, overtraining strain, or injury - reach out and we'll...

 Context is Decisive Context is decisive.  Your mindset and mental chatter (your created context) creates the world that you experience every day.  The good news is that you get to create your context - and that you are always creating your context.  And the bad news is that oftentimes, we are not consciously generating our an empowered context to live inside. Consider a weight loss goal.  What is your context around losing weight?  Does this journey occur as hard, depriving yourself, feeling hungry, being different from others?  Take a few moments to look at what comes up for you?  Maybe you're light up by the journey - the opportunity to be more active as you drop the weight, discovering new healthy foods, sharing your journey with friends and contributing to their health and wellbeing. Consider that all of those things are true - and none of them are true at the same time.  You get to create your context - and it will drive your exper...

 Glute Stretches Your glute muscles are critical to your every day life!  They support hip rotation, walking, running and tackling stairs.  Your glute muscles are also connected to many other muscles - so tightness in the glutes can manifest in tightness or pain in your in your leg, back, hip and pelvic regions.   Take on stretching out your glutes regularly with the Pigeon Pose - which works out your gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus, hips and your piriformis (there is nothing worse than a tight piriformis ... watch for it in an upcoming Muscle Monday). Start from a  downward dog position,  bend left leg and drop knee to left.  Next, extend right leg behind you.  Press right hip towards the mat. Inhale, then exhale as you walk your palms as far forward as is comfortable.  It’s very important to keep your hips squared away in this pose.  Hold for 20 to 30 seconds, then repeat on the right leg. #HealthyLivingWarrior #GayPersonalTraine...

 Labelless Foods Psst.... want the secret to healthy eating, more energy, weight loss and weight maintenance? Wait for it... Label-less foods.  Yup - that's right.  Eating whole foods, straight from the earth without processing is going to drive forward your results for your goals.  People I work with often complain about tracking their food - it's hard, a nuisance, a little bit confronting.  And here's a trick I've learned - I can actually have you skip tracking whole fruits and vegetables without having any impact on your nutrition goals (within reason of course... if you're eating 12 whole pineapples a day or something like that... the deal is off). The thing with whole foods is the body uses them efficiently - drawing all the nutrients out of them and processing the waste material efficiently.  Take on boosting your daily intake of food that don't have a label.  If it's got a bar code, it's processed - you get to track it and also be present to the...

  Smoked Salmon Feta and Asparagus Omelet What you need: 4 oz. (125g) asparagus 1 tsp. coconut oil 3 large eggs 5 tbsp. (70ml) milk, plant or dairy 2 oz. (60g) smoked salmon, cut into pieces ¼ cup (30g) feta cheese (or brie, camembert), cubed 4-5 cherry tomatoes, halved dill, to serve What you need to do: Wash the asparagus, break off the hard ends the discard (they will break themselves in the right place). Cut the softer stalks diagonally to about 1/2 cm pieces.  Boil in lightly salted water for about 2 minutes, then strain and set aside. In a bowl, whisk eggs with the milk, salt and pepper. Add asparagus, salmon and cubed cheese, mix everything well. Heat the oven to 350F (180C). Heat the oil in a pan (diameter of approx. 24 cm) over medium heat, and pour in the egg mixture, rearrange the toppings if necessary. Top with the halved cherry tomatoes (cut end up). Cover the pan with a lid and cook until the mass is set for about 5 minutes. Then place in the oven (without cover)...

 Endurance - Repetition Range You're on a mission to boost your endurance through your time in the gym!  So - what does your endurance based workout look like?  How many reps are you doing inside your workout to train your existing muscle mass to work longer?  Endurance training is intentional - you are focused on boosting the performance of your existing muscle mass.  This isn't about getting bigger - or even stronger!  This is about performing consistently - for the long haul.  Inside this goal - you'll discover that you are going to be lifting lighter weights.  You know that showing off your endurance doesn't happen in the gym - it happens out in the world - inside your event, sport or challenge.  The gym is your playground to build. The general rule of thumb... for endurance results, you want to be pushing a weight that allows you to complete 14 - 20 plus reps of each selected exercise.  If you lift heavier than that, you'll be build...

Begin Where You Are! This is the first post in our Body Image series - and we're starting right at the beginning.  For clarity - that's where you are now!  "Begin Where You Are"  is the foundation of all my client work and program design.   This means getting in touch with what is so - right now.  We are less concerned with "how you got here" and we'll look at that as we look at building new habits.  Start off with just getting what is so at the moment.  We'll take on weight, body fat percentage, and measurements - without any judgement or significance - these are only numbers - and they will help us to evaluate your accomplishments along the journey.  P rogress pictures (before / during / after) are also a great way to document your journey and be with where you're starting.   The key here is to get that there is nothing wrong with where you're starting.  You may have all kinds of thoughts about your body image - and we'l...

 Cardio for Weight Loss Let's talk cardio intensity for weight loss.  There are two things to consider here - first - for weight loss, you have to generate a calorie deficit (burn off more calories than you consume) on an ongoing basis.  The deficit can be generated based on reducing the calories consumed - and also by burning more calories by engaging in physical activity. And - too often, people hop onto cardio equipment or activities and crank it up full blast, exhausting themselves in an attempt to "burn off as much fat as possible" What's missing is the second factor... when the body most efficiently burns fat.  The body access and burns fat stores most efficiently at light levels of exertion. This looks like exercising at 60% - 70% of your maximum heart rate for 40 - 80 minutes.   If you're going beyond 70% of your maximum heart rate, you'll be requiring energy at a rate faster than the body can breakdown and access fat store. You'll be improving you...

 Hypertrophy - Repetition Range You're on a mission to gain size and muscle mass in the gym!  So - what does your workout look like?  How many reps are you doing inside your workout support maximal muscle hypertrophy?  Let's start with the general rule of thumb... for hypertrophy results, you want to be pushing a weight that allows you to complete 8-12 reps of each selected exercise.  If you lift heavier than that, you'll be building more strength / power.  If you lift lighter and get more than 12 reps, you start to move into building muscular endurance.  Nothing wrong with either of these ranges - they just aren't aligned with your hypertrophy goals. Next - you want to take on creating and periodizing your hypertrophy phase to keep your muscles reacting to the stress imposed by the workout.  You don't want to take on the same exercises / workouts over your whole building phase - you'll plateau out.  Consider taking on a 12-week Hypertrophy b...

How Much Protein Do I Need for Weight Loss? I liken protein to the almost magical component of training, muscle building and weight loss!  It's critical to the point where it is the starting point for macronutrient meal plan planning.    For weight loss goals, adequate protein is critical as protein is "muscle sparing" - you want to lose fat mass - not just weight.  You want to retain the lean muscle mass you have on your body - and for that you want adequate levels of protein. So how much you ask?  For weight loss programs, you want to make sure that you're consuming 2 g of protein for every kilogram of body weight.  So a 180 pound male (81.65 kg) should be consuming 164 grams of protein each day.  Since protein has 4 calories per gram, this means that 656 calories of their daily food consumption should come from protein sources.  Does that seem like a lot to you?  Chances are that you haven't been getting enough protein during your past wei...