Category: Fitness

Earlier this week, I was (sort of) watching "Dragons' Den" on the TV. It's a Canadian show--precursor to "Shark Tank" but much more pleasant. One of the many perks of living here is getting to see Canadian shows like this, "Hockey Night in Canada" and "Rick Mercer Report". In case you're not familiar, "Dragons' Den" features budding entrepreneurs pitching their businesses to a wealthy panel (the "Dragons") to try to get them to invest in their venture.

On this episode, all the pitchers were students. A six-year-old girl (who got money) was followed by a couple of twenty-something guys who were pitching their online personal training website (and did not get money). I honestly don't remember the name of the site, but it's not important. The show brought up some of the things that stink about this business.

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The last post, Be Consistent: Three Chances to Win, offered a plan for people who have trouble sticking with a fitness program.  The plan was to "pick three (and only three) workouts you can choose from: an easy one, a challenging one, and a 'medium' one in between" and then be sure to do one of them six days a week. Since the easy one is excuse-proof, sticking with this plan is pretty easy. But as promised, here's a way you can spice it up.

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A very common challenge people face in the quest for fitness is sticking with it, also known as being consistent. It's all to easy to set lofty goals, fail to meet them, and then give up. But it's also not helpful.

One option is to accept that "failures" are just steps on the road to success. In her book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success", author Carolyn Dweck discusses a "fixed" mindset versus a "growth" mindset. People with the former tend to believe they have a fixed ability in life and trying to do more will lead to failure. People with the "growth" mindset believe they can do new things and that trying-and-failing is the natural path toward improving. (More on all this in a future post.)

One approach is to accept failures as being part of the process: no big deal. Another approach is to try to prevent failures from occurring to build momentum and confidence. So if you have trouble sticking with a fitness routine, read on.

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(This article originally appeared in the 6 November 2012 edition of the StrongFast Planet newsletter.)

 When most people think of training with Resistance Bands, they think of the rubber tubes with handles on the ends that are used by senior citizens and for some rehab work. That's what I thought a while back. But not any more.

For distinction, the above style of resistance tubing is often called a "sport cord." The resistance bands I'm talking about are like giant rubberbands and are sometimes called "superbands" (not to be confused with Queen, U2, or Brainium). Here, I'll just all them "bands."

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A while back, I did a post that mentioned "wearables"--a term that usually refers to devices worn on the wrist to measure steps, heart rate, etc. But recently I got myself an early birthday present that's a different kind of "wearable": a weighted vest.

It's not for everyone, but it does have a variety of uses.

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