Laser Guided Workouts

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There are times in a workout schedule when we just don’t ‘feel it’ and times when we just don’t want to work out. It happens to everyone and is usually a sign of something else going on.

Most of us have been there, ready to hit the gym then an overwhelming feeling of despair hits and you just don’t want to work out. It happens. Particularly for those that suffer from any kind of mental health or body conscious issues.

Often this comes about because we are just going through the motions, we have no real clear plan, no real destination. We go to the gym, we do a bunch of exercises then go home. It is one of the most common things that I see when I do a walk around in the gym. People on their phones, taking selfies, working out whilst on the phone, people chatting for long periods of time. They have lost their focus.

As a person who works in this industry I would tell them to get themselves a personal trainer and get on to a program to get them towards their goals. One of the things I have noticed when I have orientated people into the gym is the real lack of clear reason for being their. Most just say that they want to drop a few pounds or just work on overall fitness. I can tell straight away that unfortunately they are going to ultimately fail.

Our mindset determines what we do. Our subconscious controls our direction. If you are thinking ‘I just wanna work on my fitness’ then you will do that, you just won’t achieve anything. If you are going to spend that money on a gym membership, maybe on a personal trainer then you want that money to be well spent, and you should invest that money in yourself.

Wanting to work on fitness means nothing to me, I’m not sure I really understand what that means. When you break it down it is really just a bullshit reason that you use to justify something that you think you want.

Getting in shape, getting fit, getting healthy, they are headlines, they are not goals. Losing 30 pounds in 3 months through a cardio and heavy lifting program is a goal that has direction, it has a purpose, it has a timeline and gives you direction. Your subconscious can work with that and will find you the things that will help you become laser guided on that goal.

And that is what you need when hitting the gym. To be laser focused on what you need. You get in there and you do what is needed and get out. I love working out, it gives me a sense of freedom and power that I don’t get from anywhere else. I do love it. But I don’t won’t to be workout all the time. 45 minutes is the max I want to be working out for, unless suddenly bodybuilding becomes my goal, at which point my focus would change.

When I am on a power program I know what I want to do, I go in and get it done, control my time and leave knowing I have done what I needed to do. I absolutely hate leaving a gym feeling like I could have done more. My eye is very much on the goal that I am striving towards.

Your time is precious and should never be wasted. If you are sitting in the gym between sets on your phone you have lost your focus. If you are chatting and your break times are blowing out, you have lost your focus. Know exactly what you want out of every session you go into, know your end game goal, and use that session as a step towards it.

We end up skipping sessions when our focus is loose. By that I mean you have not clearly defined your goal, it is not personal to you, maybe it is not even what you want. Your workout goal needs to be something personal to you, something that excites you, and most importantly something that motivates you.

Becoming laser guided in your workout is absolute key to achieving your fitness goals. Don’t let another session go to waste, get help if you need it, but know this, your goal has to come from you, not someone else. Know it, believe in it and work towards it. Be sure that you invest in yourself, don’t just pay a membership and not make the most of it, because if that is what you are doing then you are just investing in a gym and getting no return. Invest in you.

Rob McQueen is a lifestyle coach who guides you through the weight loss process with guided trainings, nutrition understanding, and keeping you on track to maintain your results. He teaches from his experiences, he has lived it and experienced what he coaches. Visit us today on Facebook or contact us today to see how we can help you.

Using Addiction to battle Mental Health

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Addictions have been there for as long as we have lived. Life can be hard and sometimes we turn to certain lifestyle choices which in time become habit. Not all these choices are good, and those that aren’t can really hurt us mentally.

Addiction issues range from all manner of things and aren’t just restricted to the things we here about in the media. The definition of addiction is something that you feel you cannot go with out and have no control over when confronted with it.

Addiction it isn’t just alcohol or drugs or gambling. Smoking is an addiction, over eating is an addiction, reliance on sugary drinks is an addiction, chocolate is an addiction! We can be addicted to things and not even know it. Being a bully is an addiction, controlling people (another term for a bully) is an addiction, being a jackass is also an addiction!

How I see it is that there 3 types of addictions. Positive addictions, Negative addictions and Neutral addictions. We want to use Positive addictions to propel ourselves to better lives, and use negative addiction to build our will power and create resolve. The neutral addictions are those addictions that don’t hurt us one way or the other but we need to keep them in check, sitting down and eating a packet of chocolate biscuits does not help us but isn’t something we should allow to make us feel bad or guilty unless it is something we are doing on a daily basis, two or three times. Losing control is the issue, we have to look at what it is that makes us lose that control in order to move forward.

We can use our negative addictions to fuel us, to create a burning desire if we learn to look at them for what they are, a distraction from living the life that we want. I personally haven’t had an alcoholic drink in well over 10 years now, and it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s that I choose not to. Alcohol was my drug, and I abused it to the point where if I hadn’t stopped when I did (in 2008) I was going to have some serious health issues and more.

What worked for me was find something to replace that addictive process with something else, distract the mind so to speak. For me, I bought a dog and I walked the dog religiously at the times that I would drink, and not just a short walk, long walks, an hour plus, and these walks would tire me out, I wasn’t a particularly healthy person in those days so it was challenging for me to walk, but I had dog there who loved his walks and was waiting for me for us to head out and walk and play ball, it became our thing that we still do to this day. If you don’t think you have the time for something like this ask yourself this, what do I do for an hour a day that I could replace? For me it was drinking, I would drink for hours, 6 plus probably depending on when I passed out. So I had the time, lots of it really, 6 hours is a long time and you can do a lot during that time.

Now I’m not going to sit here and write how easy it is, because it isn’t. The best things in life are the things you have to work for, it will mean something to you. I look at my dog sitting by my feet as I write this and value the bond that we have, he is my life saver as without him I’m not sure I could have done it. I swore when I got him that he would never see my drunk, and he never has.

What is it for you? An animal? A child? A lover? A friend? A book? It really doesn’t what it is, but choose something and replace the negative action you took with whatever the ‘thing’ is. And continue to do it, have the mindset of that no matter what, you are going to replace the negative habit and turn that time in to something positive and life changing. To this day I still walk my dog (now dogs), they are older and don’t need to be walked as much, or at least they can’t, but it is the habit that I have formed. When I walk my dogs I am at my most peaceful as I remember what I use to do when I wasn’t walking my dog.

And for me that is where my fitness journey started. A simple walk, then it became a hike, then it turned into a new challenge, HIIT training, the weight lifting. And now fitness is a big part of my life, the main part in fact.

The mind is a powerful tool, if we can just learn how to use it to better our lives and those around us then equality in life and quality of life would become a much healthier balance. Hunger, crime, hate…these things would all disappear. But we can’t change the world, we can change our world though.

That was how it started for me. Today I have developed a fitness habit where I work out daily and have got myself into incredible shape compared to where I was. It all started on a cool Friday night after work walking my young puppy. We formed a bond that is one of the most precious thing to me today. But it started with something so simple that I could easily accomplish. And it built from there and I looked for new challengers in the fitness sphere to be today a fitness business owner and someone who helps people achieve things they didn’t think were possible.

I still have negative addiction issues and I work hard at them, but I do so much good for myself now that I can carry those other addictions knowing that I will overcome them when I am ready to. My will power, of which I never really knew I had, today is my strongest muscle. When I decide on something I get it done, be it lift 300 pounds on a deadlift or not have that energy drink my mind tells me I need.

How? You start with something simple and you build from there. For me, it takes 60 days to build a strong habit. Experts will tell you it takes from 20-30 days, I know for that is not true, I keep at for a full 60 days and by the end of that time I have the control, and control is important when you use it in a positive way.

Addictions aren’t always a bad thing, how control them is key. A fitness addiction for example is not a bad thing, it can be taken to far, but I much prefer to use my addictive personality to do good things. By doing so I am bettering myself and mentally healing myself by removing the negative and turning that time into something positive. Try it, be strong and commit to something that you want. You will know what that is when you are ready.

Rob McQueen is a lifestyle coach who guides you through the weight loss process with guided trainings, nutrition understanding, and keeping you on track to maintain your results. He teaches from experience, he has lived it and experienced what he coaches. Visit us today on Facebook or contact us today to see how we can help you.

A Brave New World

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What a strange world we woke up to back in March. Who could’ve predicted this Covid-19 thing becoming such a big deal that it would shut down the entire world.

I first heard about Covid-19 back in November 2019 and remember thinking ‘Man, if that thing gets out it could cause something pretty bad.’ I had no idea just where we would be in a few short months.

I’m sure the blame game will start soon, though personally I don’t think we have seen the absolute worst of this virus yet. Personally I don’t think it matters how, where or why it all started. But I don’t much care for the blame game. I care for the future and about how we come out of this better for the experience.

As a society, community and a world we became complacent. We took things for granted. We expected that the world will be as we left it the night before and got on with doing our daily thing. Covid-19 has shown me just how irrelevant a lot of things we considered to be important are.

For two months our lives have been greatly effected by complacency. Even when we knew how bad things were people still just went about things like nothing bad was going on. People were falling victim to this illness in their thousands and world authorities were trying to tell us that everything is fine.

Everything wasn’t fine. The UK at one point decided that it would be fine to just go about normal life and that it would be fine to get infected so that we became immune to that. USA thought it would be an idea to inject disinfectant to kill off the disease. Both notions were utterly ridiculous. Fortunately the UK back tracked their stance, but the damage was done. As for the US, well, sadly we are seeing the very dire effect that no action can have.

China shut down, we didn’t learn. Italy shut down, we still didn’t learn. Then Spain happened. I personally had never become so invested in news reports. I generally just ignored the world events up until that point. But this was big. Really big. And everyday it got worse.

I feel fortunate to live in New Zealand. Even though we had a very small amount of cases in comparison to the rest of the world it was clear that we were entering a dangerous curve at which point our Government decided to be proactive and we became one of the first countries to shut down before it became an epidemic. And it worked. We have no new cases and by in large things are under control. Of course our borders are shut and when they get reopened will be a new challenge.

But all of that is something I can’t control. I work in the fitness industry and I have been shut down for nearly 3 months. I haven’t earned a cent in that time. But I have been OK with that. I had something tucked away for a rainy day, I didn’t expect that rainy day to last for 3 months but what can you do?!

What I have learnt through all this is just how fragile life really is. A virus transferred from one animal to another and with in a few short months the entire world was in lock down. That is a very fragile state to live in.

Now more than ever our health and fitness is our greatest asset. Not the big over priced houses, not the flash cars, not business, not money. Our health is our greatest asset and should be our absolute Number 1 priority in life.

Our focus must change, we need to take care off ourselves however that may look for each person. What works for me would be torture for someone else. Running for me is torture whilst others love it. Whatever it is for you, it must be a priority. And not because we should all have amazing bodies and so on. But we need to protect ourselves against all manner of viruses out there. Covid-19 is thankfully a rare thing but it has been so devastating with death rates so insanely high.

Now, not for a moment am I suggesting that the fit and healthy will overcome any illness, it won’t. But it won’t hurt either. Whatever it is for you, find a way to improve your health and fitness, improve yourself and challenge yourself through health and fitness.

But now is the time to treat our health as the asset it should have always been. If that means joining a gym, or finding an online coach to help you work towards bettering yourself through fitness then it it should be something that you do. Honestly, now is the time, you are the most important person to you, if you take care of you then you will be in a position to help those you love.

Rob McQueen is a lifestyle coach for Inspired Lifestyle who guides you through the weight loss process with guided trainings, nutrition understanding, and keeping you on track to maintain your results. He teaches from his experiences, he has lived it and experienced what he coaches. Visit us today on Facebook or contact us today to see how we can help you.

The Art of the Lie

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We alive in some pretty crazy times. A worldwide lockdown has happened because of a killer virus which has shown us just how vulnerable we and our businesses are. That’s why I personally find it particularly annoying that there are people out their scamming us daily with made up promises that have absolutely no validity and barely hold on ounce of honesty.

The fitness industry is unfortunately one of the worst for it. I hate that that is a fact as I work in the fitness industry. What Covid-19 taught me is that a single stream of income in the fitness industry is suicide for my business.

Having not made a dime during the lockdown I have seen my business fall flat on its face and slowly die. I’m not alone, and it’s not just the fitness industry. Here alone in New Zealand we have seen many casualties, and not just the ‘Mom and Pop’ stores that were already on life support. Companies have had to close down parts of their business, shut down stores permanently and sadly some will be lost forever.

It has not been a pleasant time. And we have only just scratched the surface when it comes to Covid-19…sadly, it isn’t over.

Governments around the world are having to pour money that they do not have back into the economy to refloat it, to get some life back into it. There have been so many job losses already it is hard to feel sorry for someone because a moment late there is another hard luck story.

For many years now in the fitness industry in particular we have seen Personal Trainers become certified and head out into the fitness world to ‘train’ people with no idea how to how to actually do this. I was one of them. I got my certification at which point I became very aware how hard it was to get anywhere in this industry without a serious amount of money behind you to start with.

This is not the industry to go into if you expect to be rich and driving flash cars whilst working out 2-3 people a week. It doesn’t happen like that. And sadly, there is so much advertising out there that tells us exactly how to do this. And the majority of it is lies based on extraordinary results of a few people yet the majority of people fail and were always going to fail.

It is sad. It is sad that in a time when we should be looking after people out there that scam artists are popping their heads up and targeting those who are already struggling with their lies and deceit.

But it isn’t anything new. Watch a You Tube video and you will soon see a video about something that you have been thinking about and it uses smart language to entice you in to thinking it is possible, even probably you can do it.

E-Commerce is the big one right now. Everybody has the perfect ‘course’ for you that if you follow it you will be guaranteed success. They will start up ‘review’ websites that critique their own course, as well as other courses that clearly shows their course to be the best, where as option B or C are just scamming you. If someone needs to write an article or blog or drop a video, the new ‘in’ thing to do to tell you are being scammed by everyone else and that they have the secret, well, they too are scamming you. What is worse, they will sell you this and once you are in they will say something along the lines of

‘Hey, great that you signed up. Did you know that I have this other ‘secret’ that will lift the lid of you earning potential? That’s right, I do and you can sign up for that course here…’

And it goes on. And on. And sadly forever on. I have seen scams from people who I thought were trustworthy. You buy a book that you like the sound of and on the sales page, they are pushing something else at you then act disappointed in you that you didn’t sign up.

One of my favorites is this one:

‘Hey there, hope the course is going well for you. I just wanted to let you know that I have this new thing that is even better but I only want to here from people who are truly committed to this to get in touch. If that is you, then great email me here…’

That reverse psychology rubbish sadly works. Before you have even gotten benefit from the initial thing that you signed up for you are being promised something newer and better, if it doesn’t make you pause for a moment it should.

But it has always been there. Remember Network Marketing? Or Multi-level Marketing otherwise known as Pyramid schemes? They all did the same thing, promised a lot of dollars for little work. They would say we only want to hear from the really serious people who will put up $3000 for the 3 levels of courses which will teach you how to to see the same thing to someone else, and so on…before you know it you knee deep in a pyramid scheme that only then you find out that the CEO has been jailed for starting.

E-Com and Click Funnels are the now thing. And people are trying to scam you with ridiculous promises that are so bad that it needs to have some kind of legislation introduced.

Sadly here, E-com is actually a really good thing, I personally can’t talk on click funneling as I don’t know much about it but from my limited understanding it can work but for me falls on the side of scam or at least shady as it is promising so much for so little effort.

But E-com websites are a vital part of our future, just not in the way that thousands of people seem to think. If you are buying a product from one website and marking it up by 100% then it is a scam, you are taking advantage of people who are none the wiser. That has been my issue with how it is introduced to us in those You Tube videos. And Covid-19 has put a massive whole in those people that use E-Com for that purpose. There are very valid ways to make great money through E-Com and maybe one day I will write about that, but for the purpose of this just know that if it sounds to good to be true then it is.

And so I bring it back to fitness. My passion in life is to help people better themselves and those around them through health and fitness. There are no shortcuts here, none. To get the reward you have to put in the effort and that effort is not easy, but it is so very rewarding. Nothing in life worth having should ever be free or not have an element of hard work and/or sacrifice attached to it. The chase is very much the fun part of goal. I have personally come from a very bad place with my health to where I am today, and it has taken so much hard work. It is not for everyone and it is easy to give up on.

So, in summary to this rant, be careful out there. The Art of the Lie is in almost everything that we see online at the moment. People are profiting of your own weakness. Be bold by all means, but be willing to put the work in, a six pack can not be done in 6 days or less, nor can it be obtained by doing whatever you want. It takes hard work and there will never be a sacrifice for hard work. What you put in you will most certainly get out.

Rob McQueen is a lifestyle coach who guides you through the weight loss process with guided trainings, nutrition understanding, and keeping you on track to maintain your results. He teaches from his experiences, he has lived it and experienced what he coaches. Visit us today on Facebook or contact us today to see how we can help you.

5/3/1 Training System

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The 5/3/1 Training program is a program created by Jim Wendler in his E-Book 5/3/1: The Simplest and Most Effective Training System to Increase Raw Strength. It is a no bullshit and simple system that works.

Jim Wendler is himself a power lifter who is well known in that circle, I had personally never heard of him, I’m not a power lifter. But I started to realise that a lot of programs out there are based very much around this 5/3/1 system, mine included. Why? Because the best programs are the simple programs that get the job done.

In Michael Matthews Bigger, Leaner, Stronger book, the book that pretty much set him up for life, is very much based of this program, he even says so himself (that is how I learned about Jim Wendler!) and Bigger, Leaner, Stronger was the book that I first started with when I was learning to lift.

And now that I understand the system I can see it’s imprint in just about any program. The idea behind it is to sequentially lift more for small reps in 4 core compound moves over a period of time. If you do this consistently you will get stronger, probably bigger, but you will get results.

My own programs have very much followed the same outline, only I would usually do more reps, I would squat out my heaviest weight I could for as many as I could sometimes doing up to 10 sets and lifting challenging numbers for myself. I have got very strong using the base of this system.

For any startling lifter this is a great place to start. For any intermediate level lifter, the 5/3/1 works for you. For an advanced lifter, the system works for you too. Why? Because it is simple and no bullshit.

I love to work out, it hasn’t always been that way, but these days I really have to force myself to not do a workout. It is addicting especially once you start seeing and feeling those results. What I don’t love to do is stupidly long sessions. I use to have this theory that you had to workout for 1-2 hours 4-5 times a week.

You don’t!

45 minutes on a given day is enough for me. I am in the position where I have access to a gym, be it my own or the Gym I am a personal trainer at, everyday. So I can do a different body part every day. For some getting to the gym twice a week is all they can manage, and in that instance, you will work out a bit longer. It’s not hard to make working out a part of your daily routine, but that is another story altogether.

What I like about this system and this E-book is that it is simple, no bullshit, and gets the job done in the time I like to work out. I go to the gym to work out, I’m not there to play on my phone and take selfies of myself telling all my friends I am at the gym, albeit being completely useless taking selfies on my phone, or there to socialise. Seriously, don’t be that person. Get in, get the work done and go on with your day.

The reason so many people fail at training is that they make it to hard. Who wants to do something that is to hard? If there is an easy way to do something then do it, so long as it does the job. You could just come to the gym 4 times a week and do 1 move per day for 3 sets of low numbers and probably be better off than a lot of the posers that are in the gym every day.

Look at a guy like John Cena. He has always had an amazing looking physique, but he hates to spend a long time in the gym. You can bet you ass that he is getting in and out in the shortest time possible, from all accounts he’s a busy guy.

So in summary, the 5/3/1 way of working out is a great starting or resting place. It should always be your go to. The assistance training that you do with it is important, and that is where having a personal trainer can help. What ever your goals are at the gym, if lifting is something you intend on doing long term, then the 5/3/1 system is for you.

Rob McQueen is a lifestyle coach who guides you through the weight loss process with guided trainings, nutrition understanding, and keeping you on track to maintain your results. He teaches from experience, he has lived it and experienced what he coaches. Visit us today on Facebook or contact us today to see how we can help you.