Using Your other 23 Hours to Your Advantage Part 4

Sorry for the delay, my computer crashed right before Thanksgiving making it a pain to recover all that was on it to transfer to my new one

13.    Bulk it up

Get things you use the most in bulk and keep an organized pantry or freezer. Even if you have little storage space for food having your staples on hand will allow you to be prepared when run out of an ingredient and if you stock up when the items are on sale, it can save you a lot of money over the long haul.

14. Sit up Straight!

You posture imbalances won’t get fixed by doing your mobility work and warm up alone. You need to focus on having good postural habits throughout the day to help reinforce good postural habits. For example, if you are a person who is kyphotic and has to sit at a desk all day prop your computer up on a few books to get it to a better height to decrease your forward head posture. ( I started doing this a few years ago when I was having neck issues and it improved them drastically)

15.   Bag your supplements

Go out and buy a pack of snack size plastic bags and lay them out to your supplements for the week. If you take your supplements three times a day lay out 21 bags. Then count out everything you take daily and stuff them in the bag. This lets you have everything in one place when you go to take them and it allows for you to grab a bag when you are in a hurry or late to work, instead of trying to bag it at the last minute or skipping them.
16.   Time out

Set specific days of the week for certain household chores such as laundry or cleaning the house. This helps make sure you will have the things you need or that your home looks well all the time instead of getting to be a danger zone during the times when you don’t have much time.

Keep on keeping on in and out of the gym I will be back soon with the next update!

Using Your Other 23 Hours to Your Advantage Part 3

9. Get on a regular sleep cycle

• Keeping yourself on a regular sleep cycle will keep your body balanced and help you develop good habits to help keep you healthy and in the gym. I’m no scientist but there is plenty of research out there to support it so… check it out. Set a time for you to go to bed and get up each day, try and make it the same every day ( try and make it 7-8 hrs). After a few weeks you won’t regret it.

10. Organize your web information

• In the age of take advantage every second and instant media, the internet can slowly suck away a lot of the time you have.  Therefore use a web organizer to help follow all of the blogs and news stories that are important to you. I use Google Reader to organize the blog posts of the people I follow. I check it at least once a week which allows me to stay current with the information but not have to worry about missing a good article.

11. Get accountable

• Get a partner or multiple people to help you keep your goals a reality. Talk about your goals therefore when you might be slipping away from eating healthy or getting yourself to the gym (don’t let that happen) you have plenty of people to get yourself in check. They may be telling you something you don’t want to hear all the time but some tough love from the right person will help you get back on the horse.

  

12.  Find a new place to concentrate

• I find when I really need to concentrate on a project or a study session I am unable to do so at my desk because there will always be some distraction that comes along drawing my attention away from what I am doing. I find going to a coffee shop or library helps me concentrate on my work to eliminate the distractions of the house.

Using Your Other 23 hours to Your Advantage Part 2

Here is part 2 (tips 5-8) of using your other 23 hours of your day to help keep your life from interfering with your precious time in the gym.

  

 5. Get your nutrition in order

I will admit when it comes to nutrition I am not an authority figure.  However I take any opportunity I can to learn from those that are to keep my nutrition on the up and up. Take this guest blog from Chris Howard the nutrition specialist at Cressey Performance talk about getting your nutrition in order.  

 

6. Foam roll while watching Televsion

Chances are even in your busiest weeks you have a few favorite television shows that you watch every week, for me it is How I Met Your Mother and Parks and Recreation. However I hate wasting time so within those 22 minutes (from the DVR). I try and be efficient by getting on the floor and foam roll while watching them. I hit all the major muscle groups and go a little longer on the sore spots to help improve tissue quality. Be honest with yourself you can always have better tissue quality.

7. Delegate out

No matter how much control over your life you have you can not do everything yourself. Use your resources to your advantage and delegate out some aspects of your life. If you have trouble planning your workouts hire a personal trainer. It could be an online trainer, look to see if they are a good fit for you, or use one at your gym if you feel you need more hands on instruction. Giving this little bit of control to another individual will help decrease your stress levels because it will be one less thing you have to worry about.

 

 8. Meal lists are your best friend

Having all of your meals planned out for the week is the best way to hold yourself accountable for eating well to help your gym time throughout the week. Take a few minutes and look to see what is in the cabinets and refrigerator that you can build your meals around for the week then check the specials at your grocery store and make a menu for the week. Go to the grocery store to get the necessary items and start cooking! Sticking to this menu will help you save money from eating out and will help you plan out calories based on your nutrition needs. 

Using Your Other 23 hours to Your Advantage Part 1

You are a working parent to 2.2 kids, a dog, and suburban house with a white picket fence that juggles everything from homework to work. Or you are a 40+ hour a week desk jockey that can’t ever seem to put their phone down. Whatever the scenario you only have 1 hour as little as 3-4 times a week to get your foam rolling, mobility, strength training and cardio in.

It may seem like an impossible task to manage all of the responsibilities of life and get work in. In this series I hope to shed some light on using the other 23 hours of the day to your advantage in 23 tips so that you can get the most out of your time that you do have in the gym.

1.  Plan out your time

If you don’t make room to schedule working out then you can’t get yourself to the gym and workout. Use your google calendar, a sticky note on your mac, an alarm on your phone, whatever organization tool you use to put in your time to go to the gym. Then do not let anything interrupt that time. 

2.       Get your items ready the night before

This goes along with planning. If you are like me in the fall and winter months then when your alarm goes off you want to stay under the warm covers for just a few more minutes (nothing like starting the day with procrastination) then you realize that you can’t find a document you need for work and after spending 5 minutes searching for it you are late for work. Organize what you need the night before (gym bag, briefcase, food etc.) so that you have a fluid morning routine.

 3.       Keep a notepad with you

When you have a thought and say to yourself “ I should write that down” or “don’t forget to go to the dry cleaners” and then you don’t write it down and you get home with no dry cleaning, you end up forgetting a great idea and have to make a special trip to get your clothes. Keep a notepad, (or note app on your phone) and keep the list of ideas thought of at inopportune times so that you can capitalize on them, and write down the things you need to do on the way home from work so you don’t have to make special trips for errands that would  sacrifice the little time to go to the gym you have.

 4.       Keep a tennis ball/lacrosse ball at your desk or around your house

I have lacrosse balls scattered in about every room of my place (luckily my dog doesn’t chew on them). This is beneficial so when I feel some tightness in my feet or upper back I know one is around and I can roll the knot out immediately and quickly helping to improve my tissue quality.Working with the lacrosse ball/tennis ball in short frequent durations will help improve your tissue quality in the long run so you can spend less time on the foam roller or ball during warm up in a training session, maximizing the time you have.

Here are the first few ideas to help you get your life under control to maximize your time to workout. I will be back with tips 5-8 in a few days.

Whole ass

One of my favorite shows on television is NBC’s Parks and Recreation. My favorite character among the mix is Ron Swanson. Other than Ron looking exactly like my uncle, Ron's quick wit, slow delivery and dry humor make me excited all week long for Thursday nights. Recently, when I was watching through last season episodes again on Netflix, one of Ron’s quotes really resonated with me again.

“Never half ass two things, whole ass one thing” –Ron Swanson

No matter how talented a person is at multitasking  work, training, social life, finances, personal time, things will slip through the cracks. The more things that come on to a person’s plate the greater the chance for a half ass job of completion. Until recently I was balancing 3 part time jobs and finishing my masters degree. Needless to say there were times where I had forgotten something or missed out on an opportunity for fun, even with countless sticky notes all over my desk and computer reminding me to do my work. The jobs ended up being half assed.

I have had the luxury of being able to start whole assing jobs due to my new position. I have also made it my top priority. To help ensure that a task is being done whole assed total focus must be done for that task until it reaches a stage of completion. For example when I am lifting, I am lifting. I’m not working, cleaning house or talking on the phone. My undivided attention is at the task at hand. When I truly study I shut down the distractions around me (turn my phone off and don’t have facebook open on the computer) so I can whole ass the material in front of me.

A person may have a billion things to do on their to do list and if they all try to get done at the same time they might not turn out as well as hoped. But if those tasked were checked of singularly with full attention to them they would be done completely and well.

A few options to whole ass life.

• Make a list of big projects and complete one item entirely before going on to the next
• Shut yourself out from the outside world for the duration of time for a task (the world will keep spinning if you aren’t connected to your twitter, promise).
• Get away from your normal surroundings to get a task done (go to a coffee shop or park or library or where you can focus on the task fully).
•  Don’t take your cell phone into the gym to lift (or in any area of the gym for that matter)
• Stick to a plan of getting stronger in the gym instead of trying to bulk/cut weight/ gain running endurance at the same time
• If you have multiple jobs devote certain days and times to one of them and don’t allow the other to interfere.

Whole ass jobs of one item provide much better results than half ass jobs of multiple things at once.

So does trying to be awesome like Ron Swanson.

Try, Fail, Learn

When you talk to any person about what their goals are they talk to you about what they want to be successful at. However what sometimes gets failed to be mentioned is what that person has failed at along the way to finding that success.

Failure is an integral part of finding success, everyone fails at something, some people fail at things once, some multiple times and some never truly find the success they were looking for. But when used properly failure can be the biggest determining factor in creating success.

What determines failure being the determining factor for success or what the biggest hinderance for success?

The outlook on failure.

If a person fears failure because of social or personal perceptions than it will paralyze them into never finding success. On the other hand if a person tries a task, fails at it, and then looks at the situation to see how they can change it to better set themselves up for success they increase their odds.

So I challenge you to be the person who looks at failure differently as a positive, instead of a paralyzing fear. You might even find that failing can be rewarding as finding success.

Try, Fail, Learn.

Wait for it...

I have spent most of this calendar year in a waiting phase. With every hurdle that has been thrown my way while waiting it tested my patience but I knew each experience that was presented was there to help me grow. However after months of waiting the payoff has finally begun. I am currently interning at Cressey Performance for the fall. My nerd out levels of how much I am excited to learn from everyone hear is through the roof.

On my way cross country and getting settled in I went on a few small adventures.

First off I am lucky enough to have the greatest family in the world and my mom was kind enough to drive with me to Massachusetts, which was a huge help for the long drive.

We spent a night in Buffalo and even though we were tired from 2 days of driving we made a point to see Niagara Falls. A word of advice to anyone who hasn’t been there, GO! It is every superlative that I can think of and some that I could make up just for it. I can see why a lot of people propose there, hell I almost did, except for that whole part about being in a relationship, and I don’t think one it would have the same effect with a girl I would have met there that day. Kidding aside, it was a great sight to see, and if you are up for it you can even go visit our neighbors to the north and listen to the Beibs in his native country in Toronto.

Over the weekend we met up with family and some friends and got to see a view of Boston from rooftop decks and observational decks. Let’s just say this Midwest boy hasn’t ever seen so many people/cars/buildings all piled on top of each other. Random note, while seeing Boston from the skyscraper I had the revelation that I have drawn part of the Boston skyline while I was in high school, this was of course when I thought I would be designing buildings these days instead of working with people. But it was an interesting revelation nonetheless.

While the thought of moving halfway across the country was a bit intimidating it has been already worth it from everything I have learned in my first week and the adventures I have already gotten to do. Adventures are needed to keep life exciting, otherwise it gets boring and bland, and it shouldn’t be that way.

Go find adventures to make your life exciting both personally and professionally, whether it is visiting a city you haven’t been to, taking a semester abroad, or taking a new job a different city. Whatever the adventure is it will help you become better and more awesome.