The Junk Food Continuum

Healthy Junk Food, It’s Still Junk Food You Know 

Controversial title aside let us address what I mean through the perspective and experience possessed on this side of the screen, which may differ from yours. 

There’s two kinds of foods to me, or rather two categories.

• Whole Foods (usually single ingredient foods)
• Processed Foods (created with either multiple single ingredients foods or perhaps something else)

It’s also worth understanding that your nutrition can be filled with whole foods and still cause you issues in regards to overeating, excess body fat gain and perhaps even gastrointestinal distress as some foods just don’t agree with people or too much fibre may wreak havoc in your gut. 

Additionally you’ll find some processed foods can be a benefit to your health, allowing extra nutrients to be consumed without necessarily the high food volume that would come with getting the same amount through whole foods. 

People don’t like the idea of good & bad, however we can’t deny that too much of anything will often leads to issues eventually. 

The poison is in the dose after all, at least from a hermetic standpoint.

Still a good thought to keep in mind for overall life though, aim for just enough because even Goldilocks knew this to be the way forwards.

Keeping the above in mind.

What I’ve found in my experience is that those people trying to shift their nutritional paradigm end up taking more of a lateral step, as opposed to one going forwards.

This means that people will usually try to replace one less than optimal food with another one that on the outside looks more preferable yet it’s still allowing and facilitating the poor behaviour/habit to be sustained.

You’ll find this is where people struggle. 

When it comes to behaviour and habits you can’t just get rid of them, you need to replace them with an entirely different one and what often happens is that people replace them with essentially the same habit/behaviour just in a different outfit. 

Circling back to the term ‘Junk Food’ you’ll find people get quite defensive about it.

True enough it’s just semantics yet words carry a lot of emotional weight with people based on the perspective of the world and how they resonate with their own style of language.

Junk food is the style of processed food that you’d see in places such as fast food restaurants, cheap meal substitutes and various other items you’ll find in the confectionary isle of a shop.

You’re not an idiot, you know the difference between foods that are good for your health and those that aren’t so I won’t treat you like an imbecile, I’ll treat you like an adult as that’s how you ought to be eating. 

What does eating like an adult look like?

Essentially the majority of your meals are made up of multiple single ingredient foods that you have prepared and cooked yourself from scratch (or you know whom has cooked the food from scratch for you), and your first choice of beverage would be water. 

It’s worth remembering that as an adult you an also eat any other type of food you choose.

If you fancy highly processed foods that are low in nutritional value and high in calorie density that also carry a cost to your future health (if consumed in excess consistently) then that’s your choice to make, however please understand that it’s then your responsibility to accept the consequences of what you willingly ate.

The same is true for the healthy junk foods that many opt for. 

These are in essence come with the same drawbacks as the highly processed ones, all be it perhaps not as fast acting, however that’s down to the quality of ingredients.

Excess is still excess, which means it won’t ever be needed. 

By all means choose to have it, just be honest with yourself as to why you decided as you did. 

I’m not going to list classic junk foods because there’s already endless lists and examples out there, jump on google and search the term ‘junk food’ and enough will come up that you recognise as potentially staples in your life and how you eat. 

You may wish to address that by the way. 

In regards to the healthy junk foods, well these are a little more niche.

A healthy junk food would be something like a reduced calorie alternative (either via lower fat or lower carbs, or both), smoothies, protein cookies and various other alternative options of what could be called ‘The Kids Menu’.

Epic meals with endless carb/fat sources combined, drowned in extravagant dressings or sources.

Highly rich and glazed meats and their vegetarian/vegan alternatives.

All considered better than typical ‘junk food’ yet when you look at the overall calories and potential levels of nutrients you’ll find their much of a muchness and in some cases I’m saddened to say the classic highly processed food can be lower in calories with more nutrients due to being fortified. 

It seems on our modern world we just can’t win. 

People seem to make anything surrounding nutrition complex 

It’s really not, not really. 

I’ve spent years trying to have people understand a few key principles for nutrition.

• Food Quality = responsible your health/body composition 
• Food Quantity = responsible for your weight/size 

I also have 2 more sub-principles you could call them.

• Choices influence behaviour
• Habits influence everything and they start with a choice 

To truly change your life through food you’ll first need to change the way you see food and most importantly stop replacing one poor choice with which is in essence another poor choice in nicer shoes. 

Don’t get me wrong we’ve all done this, some of us many times over (speaking from my own life).

What’s important is that we learn to accept this struggle and occasional breaks in our consistency because of poor choices being made and instead of saying we’re sorry, we instead want to say to ourselves “Don’t be sorry, be better.”.

It’d be great to hear your thoughts on this.

Perhaps you’ve got some struggles, frustrations or curiosities to share, regardless of what they may be please do reach out because a lot struggle in silence and end up not achieving much of anything due to the fear of being seen as weak or incompetent because they’ve asked for help. 

There is no weakness in asking for help.

Weakness can only be found in choosing to remain weak. 

Instead of saying to yourself “How can I fix/do XYZ”, ask yourself “Who can help me achieve/do/change XYZ.”, Who not how is a great way to think. 

Anyway I’ve rambled on for long enough. 

Go have a productive day,

Ross 

Don’t try to make up for lost training

Guilt for missing a training session or perhaps not performing to your expected level is common.

Instead of taking it on the chin and being sensible the majority of people try their damnedest to make up for this poor display by going thrice as hard in their next session.

I can tell you now without any hesitation that it doesn’t result in any additional fitness or results.

It just makes you tired, potentially sore and injured because you end up overdoing it.

No one likes not being able to get their exercise fix or feeling as if they’re missing out.

You’d do well to understand that for the average person as little as 2 sessions per week (45-90min depending on what you’re doing) can be more than enough training to produce some fantastic results in all facets of health & fitness, additionally having such a short training requirement will provide ample opportunity in a 7 day week to get them both done.

While the popular idea of 6 days per week, double or triple sessions a day or 5 gym classes back to back lingers, it’s not necessarily the most optimal way to train.

Yes if you’re doing it purely for the social element, okay that’s cool.

However unless you’re an aspiring elite level competitor then spending more time in the gym with the hope of more progress is sadly an unfounded one for most people.

Training 4 days per week tops (mon/tues/thur/fri) is pretty much top trumps for a good ROI in the case of most average people, that’s roughly 4 hours of training per week +/- 1 hour depending on how long your sessions are.

Don’t give in to training guilt if you miss a session of have one that isn’t what you consider to be on par.

Forget about it and instead stay on course with your current plan.

If it mean you have to extend it by a week or so, then that’s okay, you’re not on such a tight timescale that if you don’t peak in exactly 62 days, 13 hours, 6 minutes and 53 seconds you’ll lose a gold medal, you can afford to shuffle things around.

One thing I would say is that if you do miss training just adjust your calories and nutrition accordingly, so instead of going for simple foods that you might end up eating a few too many calories from, opt for some nutrient dense ones that are more satiating.

Either way don’t panic, it’s just training at the end of the day.

Why not try doing a little less better than more worse.

You’ll find the reduced pressure of not needed to live in your fitness establishment quite favourable, and trust me I love the gym yet there needs to be other elements in our life too and I’ve not gotten the stage where a lack lustre session or missed day just isn’t worth stressing over any more because the fear of losing all your progress from such a thing happening is just illogical and pointless.

Enjoy,
Ross

Not So NEAT

NEAT, why it’s not what people think it is and how they misinterpret it. 

None exercise activity thermogenesis, of NEAT as it’s widely known is the process of burning calories throughout the day that comes as the result of non exercise related activities, funnily enough. 

Now you might have read the above and see it as literally repeating the same thing within short succession.

It was more to reiterate a point because people will be planning in their 10k steps and doing various things to increase NEAT, which by definition makes it planned exercise because it is scheduled in. 

Odd as it sounds the idea behind the above is that you’re literally not planing extra movement/activities.

This is where people have become very confused.

True NEAT will be the calories burned from the things you don’t think about such as walking upstairs, moving from room to room getting different bits, generally tapping your foot, shuffling around the kitchen while your cooking or hanging out the washing and so on. 

All of that is activity that you wouldn’t necessarily think about that expends energy.

Our modern dilemma is that people are trying to consciously think about the calories they’re burning through everything that isn’t exercise related and this leads to people thinking they’ve ‘earned’ extra calories and trying to reward themselves for their NEAT. 

It has made something that was supposed to be a great way to keep overall fat mass levels in check just by living a regular life with normal daily activities an exercise in seeing who can accumulate the most calories burned through things other than exercise.

Truly a dichotomy.

There is one way you can get around this, and that’s not to try and track your NEAT and instead only focus on the loose number of calories you burned from training while also keeping an eye on your suggested daily caloric requirements that are suitable for your goal. 

It’d be more beneficial than trying to find ways to burn calories to justify more food.

Essentially that’s what people do, and while not a terrible choice it is one that has people being held back and end up frustrated because on paper they’re doing everything right, yet in reality they’re causing themselves to remain in either caloric maintenance or in the wort case scenario a surplus due to rewarding their non-exercise activities.

I’m not saying stop going for walks or doing various bits and pieces during the day.

You’ll just find that without trying to track every single number and instead focusing on portion control, eating more nutrient dense foods and not trying to micromanage every detail will allow you more room to progress in the long run. 

Establish your ideal calories for the day, focus on hitting those needs and let NEAT and even EAT happen on their own, you’ll know when you’ve got it right as over time there will be improvements in body composition.

Keep things simple for maximal effectiveness.

Enjoy,
Ross 

A Little Time Off Works Wonders

How to Deload

In all the years I’ve trained there’s one issue a lot of people that have been bitten by the fitness bug tend to have in common. 

Not taking time off.

Secondarily these same people struggle to take their foot off the gas, always thinking they need to be going more or trying to make up for sessions that weren’t that great or even training days they missed. 

While their desire to progress and give it their 100% is admirable, it’s also their downfall. 

Looking through the technical models of periodisation and programming it is suggested that after 3 weeks of accumulated volume/intensity you’ll need to take a one week deload, this then repeats for multiple blocks to eventually end in a complete rest from training.

As an example after 16 weeks of accumulation and hitting various targets/goals you then take 7-10 days off completely.

The main issue for a lot of people is they hear this and panic. 

Often citing how they feel great and don’t need to take time off, truth be told people can end up ignoring time off for years, sometimes decades although eventually it means something breaks or their training is so lack-lustre that Bech session is little best than mediocre and a box ticking event.

Speak to anyone with half a brain and they’ll immediately understand this is not a great idea. 

Speak to someone that fears instant regression if they don’t train though and you’ll be bombarded with endless reasons as to why they need to train and can’t live without it. Often accompanied by a belligerent tone of voice.

The next time you speak to someone on the more obsessed side of fitness bring this up and watch as their body language changes in a mere blink. 

People have their biases, and they’ll do whatever it takes to appease them.

Even hen you’re talking sensibly, they will go off and find someone to tell them that which they want to hear that justifies their thought process and makes them right and the idea of change unnecessary.

I’ve personally been guilty of this.

It’s why I’m quick to warn people of the dangers of fitness because much like quicksand you don’t notice how entrenched you are until you can’t get out all while you get drawn in deeper and deeper.

There’s a various ways to schedule in restoration and reductions in volume while still training.

Some of the best are:

• Dropping the volume by 40-60% every 6th session while sustaining intensity (so 5x5x100kg becomes 2-3×2-3 or2x5).
• Utilising ‘waviness of loading’, sometimes referred to as the ‘heavy-light-medium’ method whereby you undulate volume, intensity, density, or some other nuance of programming to allow a natural reduction in total stress/load.
• Everyone 30 total sessions reduce total sessions down to 1 or two full body ones for a week
• Tweaking the lifting variation so that less overall load can be used (variable tweaks can also do this as well.

People can still train and attain the feeling they desire, however with less systemic fatigue. 

It’s well known you don’t adapt and overcome (stress) when you’re training, you do that while you’re resting and this is why it’s such a crucial element.

There’s a term with looking up ‘allostatic load’.

Put simply it’s best to think of this as a cup, it can only be filled so far before it overflows and issues part to arise. 

Stress fills this cup, it’s not a bias cup so regardless of if the stress is positive (eustress) or negative (distress) it all goes in the same cup and too much for now will always be too much for now. 

The good thing about this cup is that it can expand over time. 

This happens because of the positive adaptions that occur via hormesis (it’s a toxicology term and where the idea of the poison being about the dose comes from).

Over time hermetic adaptations and change allow our bodies to become more resilient, which makes our overall homeostasis bar become set a little high in regards to function/performance for all of life. 

Health & aesthetics fall in to that as well. 

The body learns to survive first, then once it knows it won’t die it begins to lay down the foundations for positive adaptations to occur that will allow your ‘cup’ to expand giving your mortal tolerance for life, its stresses and additionally more high quality training as well. 

Don’t be fooled though. 

The hermetic response wants to keep you safe by allowing for positive change to happen so that you become more resilient to the same stress the next time around, this is why tying too many different things in one go leads nowhere as you end up overflowing your stress cup.

How much stress can you handle?

This is one of those million dollar questions because it will be slightly different from person to person, however from a broader perspective the majority have about there weeks of neural capacity to accumulate anything and past this point the stress almost always becomes destructive and will have you survive at best meaning you have no progress. 

In the worst case scenario it forces you to stop though injury, hormones sinking to record lows, metal health collapsing and not causing any ‘gains’ to be made. 

Personally I’d say you’ll do well to change a training variable or even the lifting variation every 3 weeks, this will allow you to accumulate a lot of volume over time that will help provide the foundations for quite the impressive structure to be built. 

Of course you’ve got no need to heed  my ramblings.

I would however encourage you to ask yourself these two questions:

• When was the last time I made tangible change?
• What proof do I have of my progress?
• Am I really doing what I need or am I doing what I want?

Give the above some thought as to your answers and then how you can best apply the information above.

Here is a quick example of how you might apply the above to say something like squats.

Squat 3x Per week – 

Block 1

Weeks 1-3 – Front Squat Working to heavy 5
Weeks 4-6 – Squat, woking to heavy 5

Weeks 7-9 – Front Squat Working to heavy 5 +1 Back off set of 10 reps 

Weeks 10-12 Squat, woking to heavy 5 +1 Back off set of 10 reps

Deload Week – Only 1 squat session

Block 2

Weeks 1-3 – Front Squat Working to heavy 5 +2 Back off set of 10 reps
Weeks 4-6 – Squat, woking to heavy 5 +2 Back off set of 10 reps

Weeks 7-9 – Front Squat Working to heavy 5 +2 Back off set of 10 reps 

Weeks 10-12 Squat, woking to heavy 5 +2 Back off set of 10 reps

Deload Week – Reduce load by 60% – work to heavy 5 and do no back off sets 

Block 3

Weeks 1-3 – Front Squat Working to heavy 5 +3 Back off set of 10 reps
Weeks 4-6 – Squat, woking to heavy 5 +3 Back off set of 10 reps

Weeks 7-9 – Front Squat Working to heavy 5 +3 Back off set of 10 reps 

Weeks 10-12 Squat, woking to heavy 5 +3 Back off set of 10 reps

Mini Deload – Squat only once this to your initial heavy 5 from the first block

Peak – Squat only once and aim for a new 5RM PB

Deload – Take a off 7-10 consecutive days return and begin a new program.

This of course isn’t gospel and there’s other nuance you can manipulate, however it’s just to give you the general idea of working towards a new peak and once that is done you take a well deserved rest and start something new.

All too often people try to red line it all the time and it just never ends well. 

Mentally you’ll get frustrated and in the worst scenario you get injured and potentially can’t ever hit the potential you once had, so be mindful that unless you’re a competitive athlete it’s not a race to see who can get their first in fitness, it’s a journey to merely see who gets there. 

I’ve seen a lot fall by the wayside and make up excuses as to why it happened. 

The sad truth for these people is that they made the mistake of not taking enough rest or having a modicum of patience.

Don’t sacrifice your future for gratification in the present, one day you’ll look back and wish you’d done it differently, so take heed and listen to the people that have already made this mistake so that you don’t have to.

Please feel free to leave any questions you have below and I’ll happily answer them for you. 

Seek what you need to thrive in this life, don’t chase a fight to survive. 

Enjoy, 

Ross 

Can I Interest You In Some Knowledge?

Books, Books & More Books 

Y’all know there is a deep love for a good training, nutrition, psychology, philosophy or deeply thought provoking book in my heart 

I’ve shared some of my favourites for training many times over.

Today you’ll find a list of some more obscure ones that sit on my shelf.

Please find below 15 books most people in fitness need to read yet probably won’t 

• Screenwriting 101: Mastering The Art of Story, Angus Fletcher
• Everybody Writes:Your Go-to Guide to Creating Ridiculously Good Content, Ann Handley
• The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff
• The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do & How To Change It, Charles Duhigg
• Emotional Intelligence: What Makes a Leader, Daniel Goleman
• The Great Ideas of Philosophy, Daniel N. Robinson
• Key Person of Influence: The Five-Step Method to Become One of the Most Highly Valued and Highly Paid People in Your Industry, Daniel Priestley
• Incerto Series – (multiple books), Nassim Nicholas Taleb
• The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, Garry Keller & Jay Papasan
• Maps of Meaning, Jordan B Peterson
• Tao Te Ching: The Essential Translation of the Ancient Chinese Book of the Tao, Lao Tzu
• Effective Writing for Business, College, and Life, by William Stanek
• The One-Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard & Spencer Johnson (all of their books are worth reading)
• Strategic Thinking Trilogy: The Book of 5 Rings, The Art of War & The Prince, Miyamoto Musashi, Sun Tzu, Niccolò Machiavelli
• All of the books by Robert Greene, especially The Laws of Human Nature

Adding these to your library isn’t a nicety, it’s a necessity 

What books have you read that you feel everyone in fitness NEEDS to read for continued growth in mind, body, spirit & soul?

Please do leave your suggestions down below.

Enjoy,
Ross

What Fitness People Don’t Discuss

The Insecurities In Fitness 

Have you ever heard, or perhaps said comments like these – 

“It’s easy for them, they’ve got good genetics.”

“They’re lucky they don’t have 11,923 things to do in a day and also look after children.”

“If I lived in the gym I’d look like that too.”

All of these and similar typically come from the woke crowd that is trying to push the agenda of acceptance for all when in reality they themselves don’t accept all people for everything they are. 

It’s quite the hypocrisy really. 

One other forgotten element is that it’s not just the obese, under muscled, deconditioned or virtuous person that has sacrificed their physical/mental health for a different goal that have a plethora of insecurities.

Plenty of people that train and will be shammed or have comments passed in the direction of their physical appearance also have their own fair share of thoughts that drag them down. 

Using myself as an example.

If you’ve never see my physical appearance, well you’ve missing out, lol. 

In all seriousness from a health, performance and aesthetic standpoint I’ve done alright through years of training and choosing to live a life others won’t.

Don’t get me wrong I won’t be stepping on stage and winning any body building titles. 

Mostly because that’s never been of interest, not what i’ve personally trained for nor does it really matter all that much because the level of effort required to be a body builder is just way too much for my own limited capacity. 

That being said when compared to the ‘average man’ which is exactly what I am, average.

People would think me genetical gifted or come up with endless reasons as to why I’ve achieved what I have, which in truth isn’t much. 

Venture over to IG and look up the handle @RossFitPT10 and you’ll see the overall shape I sustain pretty much all of the time. 

Much like any other average fitness person the place I’m in isn’t unachievable for he majority.

Also like many others in a similar place I’ve come under fire from a fair amount of shaming, critique and general hate.

To be truthful I quite enjoy such things as it’s very reflective of the person saying it and shows more about them then it does about me.

That being said such comments and constant negativity thrown towards someone else trying to make something of themselves in a fitness related sense can really grind a person down.

If you’ve read anything else I’ve written you’ll be fully aware I’m quite aloof and a bit cold. 

The overly pragmatic mind doesn’t always resonate with people, Vulcan’s yes, regular people, no.

I’ll freely admit that when I see someone sporting a 45+ inch waist built from excess body fat I’m immediately curious to know why the person has allowed this to happen to them, rightly or wrongly a mind that has always sought answers will continue to do so. 

It’s just a case these days unless someone engages in contestation with me I will keep my thoughts to myself which might not have happened in the many years behind my current self. 

We’re living in a modern culture that allows the acceptance of poor lifestyle choices. 

The pandering towards weak and crippling attitudes that detract from taking personal responsibility.

While the idea that everyone is awesome is a nice one, it’s not really  practical one, especially surrounding health and fitness.

The biggest irony is that anyone that wants to shift any amount of excess body fat, become physically fitter and improve their overall quality of life gets met with endless resistance from those people closest to them that ought to be offering support, not sabotage.

I’ve often said to people they need new fiends, much to their dismay.

When the people around you want you only to succeed to the point that it doesn’t change the pecking order or make them feel bad you know it’s time for a change in your social circle.

What does any of this have to do with insecurities in fitness?

Essentially anyone that ‘looks’ the part in regards to fitness or is deemed to fall into that category by those around them, these people will have as many if not more potential insecurities than those that don’t train at all. 

You see once you begin down the fitness rabbit hole, much like Alice you’ll never see things the same again.

What used to matter doesn’t.

What shouldn’t matter does.

Peoples views, opinions and whispers are nothing more than memories on the wind.

Your own internal voice becomes deafening in it’s self critical approach to picking out every single flaw spanning your entire body. 

Essentially people end up not being good enough for themselves.

True enough this doesn’t happen to everyone, however it is very common and many will proclaim they simply hold themselves to higher standards as their justification for their attitude. 

Don’t get me wrong I’m all for higher standards, however they have to be useful in the long run.

Believe it or not I’ve suffered with a couple of these mental wobble as well. 

Thankfully they weren’t surrounding looks/body image and beyond like thing idea of more muscle, greater leaners etc that pass within moments, they all focused on performance and other related elements that were tangible. 

Sadly though the thought of losing certain levels of strength, cardio vascular performance, flexibility and overall athleticism eventually caused those very things to happen.

The insecurity of going backwards, or losing all that had been worked for ruined me. 

Funny how you meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it. 

Despite having a pretty decent base of applicable knowledge surrounding fitness, training, nutrition all many other things that would have improved my longevity, all be it from needing to take one step backwards to then allow three steps forwards. 

I just couldn’t do it. 

The mental pang of losing what I ended up identifying as, or rather placing all my value in, ended up costing me in regards to making more progress and moving forwards and a decent rate.

Having the fear that one would be seen as less than what was before, of losing respect and getting judged for taking my foot off the case caused me to redline, crash and burn in spectacular glory. 

A lot of other people that you may consider ‘fit’ or to be near the peak of fitness feel the same. 

Be it aesthetically or in another way, the very basic human insecurity of acceptance, importance and being considered valuable will still creep in. 

You yourself might be someone that lost a lot of body fat, gained a decent chunk of muscle and then after a while became neurotic for fear of losing what you’d cultivated only then to hold yourself back from progressing further.

While people will say these mental demons are purely their own and not based on what others think I can say from experience in working with varied folk over the years it’s just not true. 

Most people do care what others think about them. 

Maybe not everyone, however there will be key opinions they wish to be held in a high regard 

If people truly did things for themselves then most of the marketing strategies in any business wouldn’t work as well as they do.

Human psychology, while very nuanced on a case by case basis is still governed by basic principles that apply across the entire species to which there are very few exceptions.

Getting into fitness to build confidence and become happy in yourself is akin to hiring a boat to ate you to an island and then swimming along side it. 

Th idea is a good one, yet the motivations are often skewed, this is what causes the issues. 

If you truly did things for yourself and not a subtle motivator of wanting to be accepted, valued and seen s an important part of someones life (or a community), you’d not fall victim to any insecurities because no opinions would matter. 

In saying above we become out own worts critic, even that is still based on needing acceptance from certain people. 

Understanding we’er social creatures and want to belong is the real way to actually progress in fitness and help control or possibly even rid yourself of insecurities.

Knowing why you want to be thought of in a specific way, how you want that to be and for what deep emotional driving factor will free you from insecurity, or at least it’ll help massively. 

There’s no getting away from feeling this way, there is only understanding it and taking control over the controllable surrounding it (or the will do that to you).

What insecurities have you felt in a fitness sense and why?

Please do leave your thoughts down below because I’m genuinely interested to hear your stories and how you shifted your mindset surrounding them to help instead of hinder.

Enjoy,
Ross

Business Blunders

Fitness Business Ideas To Avoid 🧐

Some things sound great, and look even better on paper.

When it comes to making some ideas a reality though that is where many a fitness progressional falls down.

Any idea you have needs to be put through these three questions 🤓

🥉 – Does the area (demographic) I work in support it?
🥈 – How much potential for growth is there in this business?
🥇 – Why would people find this valuable?

A lot will forgo asking these questions and run with an idea.

While this can be a good course of action, it often leads to a lot of heart ache and lost costs 💷

As such here’s three additional questions to ask.

👾 – Why won’t my business idea work?
👾 – How could this idea fail?
👾 – What haven’t I considered (ask others their thoughts)?

It’ be nice if every idea was a successful one in the world of fitness, however that’s just not the case.

Sadly many a venture is dead before it’s even gotten in the water.

When you think you’ve found a magic idea which leads to a business of potential millions that no one else has ever done before it simply means one of these two things.

🥳 – You’ve literally found what is the sliced bread of fitness.
😟 – It’s never worked well and thus people avoid it.

It’s amazing how often it’s the latter of the two 🤣

What ideas did you have that seems great on paper and when discussed yet fell hard on their face?

Please do share your experiences below 🤓

Enjoy,
Ross

A Common PT Problem

Fitness Professionals & Burn Out

Over the years it has been rather common for many a PT, especially the newer ones to the industry, to join in on every training session/class, etc the run and grind themselves into the ground.

Admittedly this attitude fades with the more experience you gain in fitness, unless your specific niche is to run ‘follow along classes’ that is. 

The main issue with adopting the attitude of involvement is that it does you no favours.

It compromises overall recovery, stalls any potential training progress that can be made elsewhere due to there not being enough physical resources for your body to draw upon and sends stress levels through the roof. 

Now you’d think doing all the training would have each and ever fitness progressional being a lean mean fitness machine, when in reality it has the opposite effect. 

Many end up piling on excess body fat, losing muscle, strength and suffer a steep decline in performance because of overdoing it. 

Yet even with this knowledge many will answer with something along these lines.

“I feel like I should be doing something, I can’t just stand around and tell people what to do.”

While their attitude is understandable, it’s not a useful one. 

Couple that with poor nutrition, minimal sleep and the general stress that comes with life and you’er got a potent recipe for disaster from a health & fitness sense. 

Sadly though you can warn people of this until you’re blue in the face because they won’t listen. 

Many need to experience it before they will accept it as a reality and take things down a notch.

It’s worth remembering that as a trainer you don’t need to get involved with every thing you do. 

Not if you expect longevity in the fitness industry.

Enjoy,
Ross