Many of the habits I strive to help people create are something or someone they have never been before. Although I can’t always relate directly to their particular struggle of health and fitness, I can relate indirectly to creating a new identity.

I’ve always been an exerciser. I’ve performed physical activity essentially everyday since I was 7 years old. I’ve also always been conscious of food. I started tracking my protein around 15 years old and now subconsciously eat enough protein daily. These things have been ingrained in my identity. There are things that we all need to change in our identity to reach their goals. It might be fitness for you. And it might be something completely different for someone else. 

When I began creating my 2020 goals a year ago I realized two things to achieve my goals were not currently part of my identity. I needed to become a learner and I needed to be more present with my family.

To become a learner, I needed to become a reader.

To be more present, I decided to take up daily journaling and meditation.

The latter was fairly easy. I used Jame Clear’s (see below) 2 minute rule, intention implementation, and habit stacking to create this habit. I journal and mediate for at least two minutes (usually that’s it) and do it in every morning after I brush my teeth (intention implementation and habit stacking on top of a previously formed habit). No matter what, I wake up earlier and leave 10 minutes to complete this practice. Tired, hungover, going for a run, it doesn’t matter.

The former, was a huge task for me to accomplish. In school, a book project was via spark notes and recreational reading wasn’t a thing for me. And I believed (incorrectly), that I was not a reader.

Luckily, the first book I picked up was Atomic Habits by James Clear. This set me up for success in these changes. The biggest take away was I needed to change my identity. I needed to go from being a non-reader to a reader and believe that identity change. So, by reading for 2 minutes every night before bed, I told myself I am now a reader. Readers don’t skip days because they are tired. Readers don’t skip days because they would rather watch TV. Readers read. So every night before bed after I brushed my teeth (habit stacking, intention implementation) I read for at least two minutes. Sometimes it’s longer. Often it’s not. Readers have a habit of reading, not in a specific duration or number of pages.

Not only did Clear’s identity change idea help create this habit, but as you read above, three concepts really helped me: the 2 minute rule (do something for 2 minutes a day), intention implementation (I will do [fill in the black] at (time), and habit stacking (creating a new habit after one that is already formed).

I am now getting 1% closer daily to the person I want to be, the identity I want to create, and the goals I strive to achieve. Based on my goals for 2021, I know I need to continue with these habits, but I need to become more organized and experiment more. The next habit I am working on is constant notetaking, so I can remember my ideas and try them out, constantly experimenting. To be better organized, I have begun indexing my books on the front page to reference ideas quickly and using Evernote to organize all of my digital thoughts, notes, and information.

I share this because many of you have goals. You want to become something, build something, or achieve something that our identity isn’t currently aligned with. To be honest, I haven’t wanted to share my journey of becoming a reader or being more present. I’m not sure why. But in moving my 2020 books from atop my dresser to their new home, I felt really proud for the fact I went from reading nothing, to all of these and more in a year. When I first did the math of the 2 minute rule, I realized in 10 years I could have read and digested so much in just two minutes a day. These books are just one representation of the identity that I sought to change in 2020.

I definitely am no expert in life, achieving your goals, or becoming who you wish to become. I am on the right track which is why I decided to share the above. Essentially, I believe that we are all capable of much more. We just need to create the behaviors that our desired identity requires.

Are you ready to be the person you want to be? To change your identity and cast a vote for that person on a daily basis?

I know I am. Let’s continue on this journey together.

If you think lifting is dangerous, try being weak. Being weak is dangerous.’
— Bret Contreras, Sports Scientist

Beginning next week, Aspire classes will be embarking on our next strength cycle. Consisting of 10 weeks of prescribed lifting, culminating with a test week during the week of December 7th. Not only are we looking to continue the amazing progress we’ve made during the last strength cycle, but also in preparation for the 2021 CrossFit Open, which will begin in February 2021. Being stronger isn’t just about putting big numbers up on SugarWOD. The benefits to a strength program are numerous: from building healthier tendons and ligaments, increasing bone density, preventing sarcopenia (naturally occurring muscle loss as we age), increasing fat loss, and proper hormone homeostasis. Though we still don’t mind the obvious benefit of better performance on workouts and crushing life overall.
During these 10 weeks, our weekly schedule will consist of the following:
(these are not rules, but general patterns)
Monday
Strength: Squats, focusing on the Front Squat
Conditioning: 8-12 minutes of CrossFit Conditioning
Tuesday
Strength: Pressing, focusing on Jerks
Conditioning: 12-15 minutes of CrossFit Conditioning
Wednesday
Strength: Pulling, focusing on Olympic Lifts and Deadlifts
Conditioning: 6-10 minutes of CrossFit Conditioning
Thursday
Strength: Squats, focusing on squat variations
Conditioning: 15-20 minutes of CrossFit Conditioning
Friday
Strength: Pulling, focusing on Olympic Lifts and Deadlifts
Conditioning: Variable CrossFit Conditioning
Saturday
Strength: No prescribed strength, but could be heavy in the MetCon
Conditioning: 30-60 minutes of CrossFit Conditioning
Sunday
Rest or Sunday Runday
Our strength training will consist of warm-up lifts, these lifts start light and become progressively heavier, increasing the load to our “working set.” These will be the heavy sets for the day and the correlating percentages will be programmed. Stick to these percentages as accurately as possible and seek a coach’s guidance if you are unclear of the loads you should be lifting. We are there to help! These percentages are written with scientific backing for a safe, progressive overload to increase everyone’s strength. More load on a given lift will not necessarily yield better results in the long run. A rest period of two minutes will be taken between lifts, giving ourselves the opportunity to recover, accurately load the bar according to the percentages prescribed, and chat a bit with your classmates (this should be fun after all!).
To best find these numbers while lifting, reference your previous results on SugarWOD by clicking the “PREPARE” button and/or reference the lifting calculator found on the app as well.
The strength program will be written for the intermediate athlete with 3 working sets. More advanced athletes should include more warm-up sets in order to complete 4-5 working sets. Novice athletes can build throughout the 5 sets programmed, increasing by 5-10% per set up to 1-2 sets at “working load.”
As in CrossFit tradition, our daily conditioning workouts are constantly varied functional movements performed at high intensity. All CrossFit workouts are based on functional movements, and these movements reflect the best aspects of gymnastics, weightlifting, running, rowing and more. These are the core movements of life.
We are excited for the results these next 10 weeks will bring not only to our tests that we will repeat in December, but to all aspects of health and fitness.
See you in the gym!\
Do you have body composition goals or are interested in our program’s inevitable positive change over the next 10 weeks? Book an InBody assessment with a coach today and see how much your body fat can go down and your lean muscle mass go up!
Click here to book your InBody Appointment Today!

Today via text and social media, I challenged a bunch of our gym members to write 3 positive things while you’ve been self-isolated that you would like to carry into your daily life once we resume life after COVID-19.

​Personally, I’ve taken a lot of things that I want to carry back to my “normal life.” Here are three of them:

1.Take things slower and appreciate the moment.
I’ve realized I am happy with very little during this period of self-isolation. By taking a step back and appreciating life on a much slower time scale, I have began to enjoy this slower pace and the little moments of joy that are all around us. If we have our health, safety, and family, what more do we really need?

2.My appreciation for social contact.
I too often take for granted the ability to have connection with others. Occasionally, I will say I am going to be somewhere, but end up just not showing up. What’s worse is sometimes when I am in social settings, I am not nearly as present and appreciative as I should be. I look forward to putting my phone away when I am with friends and purely enjoying their company, conversation, and interaction.

3.It’s okay to wake up at 7 am and have a relaxed start to your day.
Since I was 12 years old, I have woken up between 4-6 am. I used to think that only slackers got up after the sun was up and relaxed in the morning. Currently, I wake up at 7 am and although this will be a novelty when normal life resumes, I will make an effort for 7 am days with fresh coffee, music playing, and a book in my hand.

What have you taken from this time in self-quarantine what you want to continue when normal life resumes?

​It’s February and that means 80% of you have already failed your New Year’s Resolutions. Maybe the goal was a shitty one and not that important anyway. More likely, it was something you really wanted to achieve, you just didn’t prioritize it properly and create the correct habits required for progress.

So, you are already off track 6 weeks into the New Year. What should you do? Wait until a few weeks before summer then go hardcore into your fitness program? Push eating right until next year, then finally make that change? Wrong and wrong! Get back on it now!

Remember, we are after long term, compounded progress when it comes to bettering ourselves. What we do today to improve is far more important than how far we are from a goal. As James Clear states in Atomic Habits, “You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.” It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday or the day before. What matters is what happens today, tomorrow, the following day, and so on. Clear also states that goals are fantastic to set the direction, but “the systems we put into our lives are where real progress lies.”

What happens if we get off track one day, after a few weeks, or never even get started at all? Have a short term memory. The past doesn’t need to foreshadow our future. Move on and make the changes you need to do today. If you miss a day of your habit or the system you’ve implemented to achieve your goals, that’s okay. Move on and get back to them the next day.

Many have the issue of wanting to create systems that align with their goals, but (fill in the blank excuse) keeps getting in the way. Ask yourself, what is more important to you and is this going to lead you closer to your goal? If it’s not, then it needs to leave your life to allow for an open slot for a positive habit. In Essentialism, author Greg McKeown states, “You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.” In other words, your day is likely filled with a whole lot of shit that doesn’t truly matter. If being a healthy weight is important to you, then name all the things you do on a daily basis that either (1) get in the way of that goal or (2) are taking up time needed to work towards that goal.

Here’s a simple test for many of us who don’t have enough time to cook for ourselves and/or exercise daily. For one day, log every minute spent aimlessly on social media, browsing the internet, or watching TV. The vast majority of you will come up with a number large enough to fill in a number of healthy activities each day. Yes, a CrossFit class takes an hour, but doing as many squats, pushups, and situps you can do in 10 minutes takes only 10 minutes. You have time to exercise. You have time to cook. You need to prioritize and create positive habits over the bad, immediate reward habits that you’ve already created.

Constantly question the habits and actions you take daily. Ask yourself if this aligns with your goals and the person you want to be. “If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no “ McKeown states. “There should be no shame in admitting to a mistake; after all, we really are only admitting that we are now wiser than we once were.” Whether your bad habits, actions, or failures were in the past or the inevitable mistakes to come, never give up on yourself.
Remember, as stated above, we are after our trajectory, not immediate results.

Remember winners and losers have the same goals. Simply worry about today. What will you do today to put you on a path to your goals? Will you win the day or be a loser?
 


(1) Luciani, Joseph. “Why 80 Percent of New Year’s Resolutions Fail.” US News. Dec. 29, 2015. https://health.usnews.com/health-news/blogs/eat-run/articles/2015-12-29/why-80-percent-of-new-years-resolutions-fail
(2) Clear, James. “Atomic Habits.”
(3) McKeown, Greg. “Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.”

In Atomic Habits we encounter a story about a university photography class that was divided into two groups – one would be graded based on the number of pictures they took, and the other half graded based on one picture. The question was this – which students would take a better picture? The ones who took as many pictures as they could or the ones that focused solely on one amazing image? Ultimately, the students who were graded on their volume of photos ended up taking better overall photos. The shear reps they took produced better results. The same goes with everything in life, how often you do something directly correlates with your chances of success. You need reps.

Now if we are looking to achieve success at the gym, we need reps. To get reps, we need to show up and attend workouts. We did a little analysis of our members who had Unlimited Memberships last month and frankly, we were pretty disappointed by the results. Here’s what we found:

Average Daily Class Attendance: 49.1% of Unlimited Members
Committed Club Members (20+ classes/month): 23% of Unlimited Members

Those two metrics for us are huge. Just under 50% of all of our Unlimited Members showed up daily. To get results, this NEEDS to be higher. We want to create a goal of 60%+ daily attendance for the month of February. Additionally, 23% of our members came 20 or more times a month. We would like to see this number at over 30% in February.

As a gym, we are 100% going to dive into these metrics to see if there are any gaps we can fill to increase attendance. Our business model is not based on people not showing up like many other gyms, rather we want members to show up and get results. We also however want our members to look introspectively at themselves – Are you attending enough workouts to obtain the results you desire?
​
Whether you attend our CrossFit classes or not, do a similar analysis for yourself. How much are you showing up? How many reps are you getting in? Don’t seek that one amazing workout like the folks in the photography class study did, instead do like their counterparts and seek volume. Reps are where the results are.

I’ve been around fitness my entire life. Growing up a swimmer, I’ve been around greatness – competing alongside Olympic legends like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. I’ve also witnessed individuals with amazing potential fall short of their capacity and trained alongside less than genetic gifted athletes that surpass what any of their coaches thought they could do. I then entered a career of health and fitness and been part of amazing results, failures, and everything in between.

​As with most things, there is a common theme to succeed in fitness: achievement is directly proportional to the effort you put into it. You need to show up.

It all starts with showing up. James Clear states in his book Atomic Habits, that “every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.” To begin to make any changes in fitness, you need to begin casting votes for the individual you want to become. That means you’ve got to start being active every day. It needs to become engrained in your identity that activity is not a task you do every once in a while, rather it’s a task you do daily.

Creating the habit of being active daily doesn’t have to be extreme. As Clear states, even exercising for 2 minutes a day is a perfect start. It could be a 2-minute plank at home, a short walk around your block, a short run, or as intense as a CrossFit class.

Your focus also needs to be on the task at hand which is not obtaining a certain number on the scale, rather the process of beginning to be active daily.  Being far less concerned with the results and more concerned on your trajectory, as Atomic Habits suggests, is vital. Results don’t come overnight. They come with identity change and a creation of a new habit. They come with systems. They come in the long haul. Setting goals is important, but the path which leads us to those goals are so much more important in long term success.

Throughout my time as a competitive swimmer, I also noticed the most successful swimmers were not the ones who solely focused on winning, rather it was the love of training. “When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy. You can be satisfied anytime your system is running,” Clear states. Over time, you will fall in love with your new habit of activity and your new identity. Be mindful that this process will not come overnight, but remember we are in this life for the long haul. Adjust your mindset and remember we don’t HAVE TO be active – we GET TO be active. Be grateful for your abilities to move and to lift – be it slow or fast, light or heavy. Cherish and love that fact.

Now that my swimming career is over, my desires to exercise have changed drastically. Rather than solely chasing performance-based results, I am chasing my identity to constantly improve myself and my community. Sometimes pushing to be the best me isn’t quite enough some days – but the love for my fitness community is. I show up for myself, but I also show up to support them. The statement, “One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior,” in Atomic Habits feels like it’s talking to my Aspire Community directly. I see, support, and sweat with my closest friends on a daily basis. People outside of this community might not get why I enjoy running a marathon, doing a heavy clean, or completing Murph. But my Aspire Community does. Yes, I enjoy pursuing the fittest individual I can be, but I more enjoy the community that supports each other in every aspect of life from fitness, to family, to overall wellbeing.

It all starts with one thing – showing up. Nothing can be accomplished by doing nothing. Too often we daydream of things yet fail to put them into action. Being 1% better daily compound yields incredible interest as we are constantly casting votes for the individual we want to be. By trusting the process and observing our trajectory, not just results, beginning to be active daily, and finding a community that supports these values, you can take your health and fitness into your own hands. You just need to start showing up.

What truly is fitness? Encompassing ten skills, fitness encompasses a combination these ten attributes. Focusing solely on one, or a combination of a few, creates specialization that is required for elite athletics. However, for those looking to simply improve their lives and be healthier, all ten should be included in your overall fitness program.
 

1. Cardiovascular/respiratory endurance – The ability of body systems to gather, process, and deliver oxygen.
2. Stamina – The ability of body systems to process, deliver, store, and utilize energy.
3. Strength – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply force.
4. Flexibility – the ability to maximize the range of motion at a given joint.
5. Power – The ability of a muscular unit, or combination of muscular units, to apply maximum force in minimum time.
6. Speed – The ability to minimize the time cycle of a repeated movement.
7. Coordination – The ability to combine several distinct movement patterns into a singular distinct movement.
8. Agility – The ability to minimize transition time from one movement pattern to another.
9. Balance – The ability to control the placement of the bodies center of gravity in relation to its support base.
10. Accuracy – The ability to control movement in a given direction or at a given intensity.

 
(Thanks to Jim Crawley and Bruce Evans of Dynamax and The CrossFit Journal)

HIIT, an acronymic for High Intensity Interval Training, has been around for decades, it is at an all-time peak of popularity. And for good reason, it’s the best way for the vast majority of people to exercise. It’s time efficient and works. Boutique fitness facilities, globo gyms, and everything in between have popped up on every corner, each with “their” own style of HIIT. In CrossFit, we typically call this portion of our training “conditioning.”
You might feel like you are getting an incredible workout as you are drenched with sweat and tired. For most, this will yield initial results. Unfortunately, some problems can arise in these workouts that can lead to a plateau because of lack of variety in duration, light loads, and doing too many movements in one class.

Lack of Variety in Duration
When you are only training in one energy system, such as a consistent pace for 30 minutes to an hour, you are only training the body metabolically one way. Your energy systems and body easily adapt to this time frame and intensity, thus becoming super-efficient. If we are looking for changes in our fitness or body composition, this isn’t a good – it means less calories burned, adapted muscles, and fewer results.

The Solution: ensure your workouts vary in duration and intensity. Some workouts should be at a moderate heart rate (50-70%) for long durations (30 minutes to an hour). Other workouts however should be short and extremely intense (working at 90%+ for 3-8 minutes) and others with moderate duration and intensity (70-90% effort and 8-25 minutes in length).

The Catch: A three-minute workout should completely suck. If you aren’t giving an all-out effort, your results are going to be extremely subpar.

Not enough load to make muscular change
Muscles need to be loaded to make change. Light weight for huge volumes don’t always cut it. The body needs to be challenged via relatively high loads. Muscles should be tired after a workout and need recovery in order to make change. Strength specific days are also vital to get stronger and improve muscular definition. This will enable you to burn more calories daily, prevent muscle land bone density loss over time, and improve physique.

The Solution: Challenge yourself not only via repetitions, but also through load. Sore muscles aren’t necessary after every workout, but if you are never sore, the muscles probably aren’t making any change.

The Catch: Gradually increase the load over time and don’t always stick to the same weights. If you’ve been swinging a 25-lb KB for 6 months now, it might be time to step it up to the next weight.

Too little purposeful movements, too many fillers
In order to make change, we need quality over quantity. Too often we see HIIT classes with tons of movements and lack of emphasis on a certain lift, muscle group, or metabolic demand. You can’t do everything in an hour workout, results come through the process of exercising, not one workout. Focus needs to be achieved on particular movements, muscular recruitment, and energy systems. Moving from station to station often forces the coach to throw exercises in there, trying to do too much in one workout to be able to see long term results. Full body workouts are great, but shouldn’t be happening daily.

The Solution: Most workouts should be focusing on 1-3 movements/body parts and one energy system.

The Catch: One hard workout a week doesn’t get you results. You need to be consistent with your exercise.

Hormonal Stress on the Body
As with any exercise program, how our body responds to the increase in physical stress is vital. We need to be considerate of the load the endocrine system is taking. The body responds to mental and physical stress in the same way – an increase in the catabolic hormone cortisol. This fight or flight hormone elevates when we are stressed and tells the body to preserve fat and not build muscle. Ancestrally, it helped us conserve as we ran from predators. Currently, it blocks out ability to burn fat and build lean muscle.
Your exercise program needs to ensure that you are recovering properly to keep cortisol levels low. Too many 60-minute interval classes per week put a huge level of unwanted stress on the body.

The Solution: Have variety in your workouts, especially in length, intensity, and load. Some days should be long while others quick. Some will focus on high heart rate and others on low heart rate. And some days should be hard and others easy.

The Catch: For most individual’s goals, 2-4 strength biased (weightlifting low heart rate and rest) workouts and 2-4 conditioning biased (HIIT) workouts per week are all they need.

Below is a typical 5 Day (Monday-Friday) Schedule at Aspire, featuring two strength bias days and 3 conditioning biased days, in addition to an array of physical and metabolic demands.

Monday – Strength + 12-minute conditioning
Tuesday – 20-minute conditioning
Wednesday – Strength + 16-minute conditioning
Thursday – 8-minute conditioning
Friday – 25-minute conditioning
 
In closing, don’t get fooled by the “more is vital” approach when it comes to your HIIT training. It often leads to quick results, then the body plateaus as it adjusts to the duration, light loads, and filler movements as it creates a huge hormonal load on the body. Fix these issues, pay attention to your body and its progress, and you’ll be on your road to results once again.

This is going to start off a bit morbid, but this past week as I was running from a hotel to a seminar I was attending, I passed a cemetery. Having plenty of time to get to the event, I decided to walk into the old New England cemetery, freshly covered in white powder with fresh snow still falling. Strolling through the graveyard, one tombstone particularly caught my eye. It was so old that the name was now unclear, but I could see their birth year and death year still clearly; born 1799, died 1824, 25 years old. Currently sitting at 30 years old, this particular grave was a gentle reminder that anything can happen in life. We need to make every year, every month, and everyday count. If we focus with the end in mind as Stephen Covey states in his best seller, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, we will ensure that what we really want to get accomplished in life is fulfilled.

While I can’t sit next to you on a daily basis and ensure you are getting the most out of every day, I can push you to create some goals. Previously, I’ve written about how to make a kick ass goal. Today however, we want you to really think big. I want each of you to write three goals. Being that we are a gym, we can be most supportive of your athletic goals. These are the ones we are going to ask you about in the gym, write down, and do everything in our power to help you accomplish. You can print more copies however if you want to also create business or personal goals as well.

Here are the rules:

Create three HUGE goals.

One of them is your AWESOME GOAL.
Here we want to see something like get your first pull-up, lose 10 lbs, or run a 5k. This goal should be big, but something that is attainable without changing your life too much.

The next one is your CRAZY AWESOME GOAL.
This goal should have a life changing habit associated with it. Maybe it means you have to commit to working out 5 days a week, changing how you eat, sleep, recover, and more. These goals should be like PR your half marathon, ride your bike in the local charity ride, eat 800 g of fruits and vegetables a day, or get down to 15% body fat.

And the last one is your CRAZY EPIC AWESOME GOAL.
This one is going to be life-long dream stuff. This one should take huge commitment and life change for. If you’ve ever wanted to rock climb Half Dome, it goes here. Hike the Appalachian Trail, write it down. Or if you’ve ever wanted to cross an Ironman finish line, this is where that goal belongs.

Once you’ve brainstormed your goals, you will meet with an Aspire coach and fill out your goal sheet with them. We will send it back with you with check in dates for each goal to see where you are with that particular goal. If you are on track at your check in, KEEP IT UP! If not, we will iron out a plan for you to get back on track. You will also get your ASPIRE – COMMIT – ACHIEVE bracelet once your goals are set to remind you daily to hold yourself accountable to accomplish what you set out to do.

Let your coach know if you would also like to be held accountable with your business or personal goals. We would love to help you achieve those as well!

​Remember, everyday is an opportunity to get better. A 1% increase over time yields incredible results while a 1% decrease or maintenance of the status quo, can have huge consequences. To finish off the way we started, one day you will be dead – what do you want to get accomplished before that day comes?

Need a CRAZY EPIC AWESOME GOAL SHEET?

DOWNLOAD HERE!