Category: motivation

Having coached a LOT of all level of players in sport at Juniors/seniors/elite level, these are important observations I feel I have to share.

Most parents want their kids to do well in sport, and often share their frustrations when their child, who becomes an adult doesn’t get to the level they have hoped for them. 

They complain about “favouritism”, “lack of game time”, and “the team is rubbish”, “the coach doesn’t give my child a chance”. That can happen of course but let’s throw this back at the parent.

Do you take your child down the park to practice their skills at their chosen sport? I’m down the park a lot, I hardly see any parents down there, way too often I NEVER see anyone there. If you don’t have “time”, get to bed earlier and get up earlier, then you create time.

Is your child working on their speed, agility and reaction time?

This can all be taught through practice, which will improve the child/adult’s game immeasurably over time-fact. 

I know through coaching and getting your child to run with better technique, your child/adult WILL get faster, they will perform better in the game, if they see that ball a bit earlier, they will have more time on the ball, if they are fitter full stop they will ENJOY the game more.

Is your child/adult eating well? You can NEVER out-train a bad diet, it WILL catch up with you, footballers/rugby/netball players used to get away with it decades ago, now your diet is ultra-important IF you want to perform at a much higher level. 

Nothing worse than parents saying “if they lost a few pounds they would be SO good”. The parent and household needs to eat well too as the child will be looking at them for not only guidance but a good example too. They won’t do its without you.

Is your child working on their strength? Have they been taught HOW to get stronger? I’m not talking about messing around unsupervised in a “gym” where nobody cares what you do, even if you hurt yourself. 

If you get stronger over time, you WILL get faster, you will become more explosive and powerful on the field, more resistant to injury and no doubt a BETTER PLAYER who performs on another level.

This is a BRIEF description of what is possible, and before you carry on complaining why your child doesn’t get a fair chance, look at the steps you can immediately transform your child’s/adults’s chances of raising their performance dramatically, which leads ultimately to more ENJOYMENT.

I guarantee you will prove your coach WRONG and they will ask “what the heck have they being doing to get so good”!!

The only guaranteed way to keep your standards up for your health, both body and mind is to stay consistent with your habits.

How’s monday looking for you?

If your mondays tend to be haphazard (maybe because of work shifts or a variety of reasons), your moods, performances are likely to be haphazard too.Go to bed late on a monday and tuesday will already be a struggle, you will be more irritable and very likely to put your tuesday workout off.Have a drink in the week and this go all over the place, motivation goes down, and soon enough the week gets written off.

Weekends feel a lot beter when you “earn them”, and it starts with your daily habits, patterns emerge and you being successful with your health is no accident.

We all have RE-INVENT to ourselves and we all have different seasons of our lives because one thing is certain, life will continue to change rapidly for most of us.

Some of you have became grandparents, some launched businesses, some are thriving in retirement, some become parents for the first times, and some of you have your children doing very well with us at the gym.

All of thesee things can give you (and your family) a fresh purpose in lifeBUT, we know life can often be FAR from perfect.Change though is scary for many, and taking yourself out of your comfort zone is uncomfortable too, many of us avoid doing so because it’s a hard to thing to do, but it is absolutely necessary if we are continue to thrive in the most uncertain of times in the world right now.

We as adults want our kids to do well in school and sport, but we often too scared/unwiling to make that effort ourselves, even though we know it will make us feel better, give us more energy, confidence and self-esteem, just as mental health problems are seemingly taking over a LOT of people we know very well.

Life is calling us to lead, to act on our thoughts of doing something different we may have put off for years, and any big decision we make in life can be rewarded or broken by the state on our health.

Some people can make a lot of money but you can’t sustain or enjoy it if you don’t have good healthSome can have new additions to their family but you can’t keep up with them unless your look after YOU too.Your hopes, those closest to you hopes and dreams depend on you all being fit and well or it all falls apart and despair can come thick and fast once you let it slide.

Change is happening ALL around you, never hide from the fact that you MUST move more, eat well and continue to work on your health not only for a fully functioning body but for great mental health too.

Here’s a lesson in life.

First RAINY morning in a while this morning, less numbers but tremendous character shown.

Scorching last friday morning, 15 there. The way it is.

When we had the gym shut down and we had to do several outside classes a day, we often had 28 people on occasions, and there were a couple of times when I literally turned people away, even in our vast outside area. I never mentioned that, but lots of you witnessed it.

We trained in monsoons, not many but we did it, they felt rewarding because we did it against the odds and we still did tremendous sessions.

When I started personal training all those years ago, many told me “it will never take off”, when eventually after a LOT of hard work I had a sold out schedule, I knew it upset some people, but that’s the fun part of life, proving people wrong through hard work.

When we opened the gym, people said they would never go there, we built it up and got great results one body and mind at a time, until so many did, they happily put up with a wait to start, just as long as they could start.

Whatever field you are in, you need to stay the course no matter what, keep getting better, keep staying positive and keep serving your people as well as you can-NO DROP OFF in performance.

In the gym, if there are too many people there, some are not happy. If there’s not many, some aren’t happy with that too, you can’t please everyone, but I know often the less you have, the better session you can deliver and you as a member can get even more attention and do even better.

Through experience, I have learned to laugh at opinions because everyone has one, good or bad and just concentrate on getting better all the time, seasons will come, seasons will go. We are blessed to have so many hard working members who support us through everything. Our attitude is do our BEST for everyone, ONE body and mind at a time!!

Following on from my piece this morning on the perils of overeating, eating the wrong stuff, drinking more than we should, and not exercising, it’s important to expand on it.

Eating too much is clearly an addiction for so many people. Drinking too much is an addiction, and when you too much of both or just one, the thought of exercising is often the least thing on your mind because you are wiped out and have no energy.

There’s an author called Gabor Mate who has wrote many great books on addiction and its causes. 

This doctor who is now world famous in his field, deals with the drug users/homeless phenomenon within a couple of square miles in downtown Vancouver. 

His research shows that most addictions stem from a trauma in life that has never been properly dealt with or talked about, and drugs, alcohol, food end up the big emotional crutches that people hide behind instead of dealing with the previous trauma in their life.

It’s easy to see how presents events in life can stop us doing good things for ourselves. I don’t believe anyone wants to overeat all day and have terrible health and the ravages that will eventually come from it.

I don’t believe anyone is happy drinking all day every day and have that kind of life and side effects that you never see behind the scenes.

I believe most people would love to be out and about with good ability and movement, have strength and be able to do what they wanted to do, instead of being imprisoned by a life of pain by their continued lack of exercise, overeating or drinking or all three.

It’s usually a mask that some people wear very well.

I urge you to get out of it, however hard it may be right now. Start small, try 5 mins of exercise, buy a little bit more good food, drink a bit more water, and cut down a little bit on the stuff you know will kill you over time.

I’m no expert on this subject, but I know some of you are in a very tough situation, but not trying to get out of it is the very worst thing you can do. You have our support.