BOSTON UNITE!

"You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. ... This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."

Above is the passage by Patton Oswalt, a very funny comedian that has shown that he's not just good at words to make you laugh. It was originally posted on Facebook  but since has gone more viral than that, I figured I probably wasn't going to beat it in this post so I'd give the best foot forward here.

To state it, I'm OK (clearly) and was not bodily hurt nor was Catherine. Nobody directly in my life has been hurt in the events of yesterday. To those that have been impacted directly or even indirectly I send you my thoughts and prayers. I will come out and say I myself am rattled, but at the same time I am also inspired by those first responders yesterday. We've heard some great heroing tales and I know there will be many more, deservedly so. Those stories can inspire us to be stronger people and make us better.

I was not born here and only moved here last January, but I am a Bostonian in my heart. Growing up in Maine Boston wasn't all too far away and I still felt it to be a part of me, now I call this my home. Those of you that have had your faith in humanity put into question, please just look all over the media and social networking sites to see the support that Boston is getting. I saw the picture above and it was the first thing that brought a good smile to my face, besides when Catherine walked through the doors here at the club, her work place is above Copley Mall, LITERALLY RIGHT THERE. One of her coworkers wasn't more than throwing distance from one of the blasts and the kid was quite shaken. Made me super happy to see her walking through the doors and I was put a little at ease even before that when I heard she had bumped into one of my teammates on her way here and he took care of her while she walked her, thanks Ben!

Despite all of this senseless, mindless, pointless lunacy, I know it will bring us to be stronger and keep those we hold close, tight to us, in mind and body, and be sure to tell the ones we care about we love them. Stand together everyone, this shit can not stray us, it's tough to get past, but this is a damn tough town and it can be done. I am, hell we are, forever Boston and damn proud of it!

Take care today folks, be safe and if you are with someone you care about right now, tell them so.

Just STOP, Trust Me

Who wants some more snow? Yeah I didn't think there would be too many hands raised for that one. Even if you are someone that enjoys the mountains and spring skiing, let's keep it in the mountains shall we? It's April so time for some warmer weather so I can stop packing gloves and a winter hat in my bag when I get on the train for work.

I'm a little disappointed in Monday night's NCAA Basketball Championships results as well. Anyone that's read this blog for longer than 2 days should know I am a big Michigan fan. As big of a fan I am, my heart sank pretty deep Monday, but life goes on, and apparently so does half of Michigan's starting lineup to the NBA. The great games that were from that weekend did get marred by evidence of some pretty shit coaching at Rutgers. Those of you that have been under a rock, Rutgers basketball got waist deep in shit because of a coach that couldn't contain his tantrums or his language. All leading him to ball hurling and f-bomb dropping his way to a termination, and more dominoes fell. Sometimes coaches just try a little too hard to get through and well, it back fires clearly.

The same can happen when coaching clients and athletes with exercises. Trainers and coaches, especially relatively new ones, can care a bit too much and over coach someone on an exercise. I speak from experience because I am absolutely guilty of doing this. I've learned to just take a breath and concentrate on the main points and move from there. I can give them every little detail or focus on the big picture and get the shittner done.

When coaching someone on one of the core exercises, ie squats, deadlifts, puhsups and so on, don't be a technique freak. People in general can only handle so much information at one time, once they hit that point they are now tuning you out. Big problem lies therein obviously once a client has tuned you out you've lost them and they will take some winning back over, whether it's in an hour or a month you're gonna have to put some work in to get them back to listening to you. Avoid sounding like Charlie Brown's teacher and focus on the main points that you need accomplished, if you still aren't feeling too good about how it's going, take a step back. I know some of you are thinking it's only for their safety, well if they switch off their listening, and they really start to mess up, they can't hear you and will hurt themselves anyway...hopefully that just made sense.

Some people are different and can inhale every bit of information like Fat Bastard inhales chicken, and not have panic attack or not get lost which is great, go nuts. I lean towards the simpler side, and if I know they can handle more then I'll give it to them. One thing I've found helpful is to have a solid base of progressions and regressions, with this tool in the kit I don't stand there and brain fart my way through the session. I said fart hehehe, OK not the point, being able to have an effective backup plan if things start to go wrong when learning new stuff can be the difference between losing a session and keeping things on track. Every so often, just STOP, inhale, relax and focus on the big picture and get to the small details later on.

That's all I got today folks, any questions, comments or suggestions let me know. Have a good weekend all, go out there and get after it!

Double F-K

Writing this post today in hopes that I can inspire someone out there that is or even formally was in the situation I once was in. I got myself out of that hole when it eventually became a determent to my rugby performance and starting and progressing my career.

Double F-K or FFK is former fat kid, yeah no one likes to hear it but I was exactly that, the fat kid. Of course my family and friends always did their best to affirm the "you're not fat you're just a big guy" thought. All moms think their kid is beautiful, whether or not it's true. Cartman probably put it the best, but even still I knew better. The weight went up badly and down to points where it wasn't too bad. Eventually after taking a year off from rugby because of issues where my body, mostly my knees, was just going to give in on itself, I hit my low point. I was a very large guy trying to get into the fitness industry, but no one is going to take that sort of advice from a fat guy with no strength and the mobility of an M1 Abrams.

Along came UMaine's Strength and Conditioning department, probably not too highly heralded as an athletics school, except for hockey and an OK football team every so often. What they gave me was more than a start, they really have given me my career. Otherwise I was not convincing anyone of anything fitness wise. Coach Dan Nichol and the staff got me to make a commitment to myself and to the lifestyle. My weight dropped 50 lbs in a few months and I kept it off, on top of my mobility getting better, yes it was worse than before I entered into the mobility special program. Overall I'm damn glad that I got my act together because this process of getting to be a name in this industry would have more difficult 10 fold had I not.

Moral of this quick blurb today is that you do not have to be the fat kid if you don't want to be. I've been there and it sucks, I also know though that it won't happen over night. Those of you out there that think you are just going to buy a 6 pack of sessions from your trainer, skip a couple sessions, never come in outside of that 1 session a week and then never have to stick to it again, ummm rethink? Unless you are doing lypo (not wise unless you have actually reached that point) you won't see 50, 30 or even 20 lbs come off that fast, in most cases at least.

That's all today folks, more coming this week, go out there today and get after it!