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Showing posts from October, 2018

Do you still play?

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I have a four year old son who is a constant ball of energy and adventure.  It's been awesome to see him grow up and develop in his motor skills and physical abilities as he gets older. Currently his favourite activity is jumping.  Mainly jumping between pieces of furniture or off anything that is high enough to be exciting.  Sometimes as a parent this terrifies me - what if he breaks something? But at the same time I understand he is testing his own limitations and capabilities.  Something we all used to do as children. To him this is both play and learning, but he only understands it as having fun.  How high can I jump? how fast can I ride my bike? Can I do a cartwheel? These are all things we have done, and for the most part as adults we stop doing. Some of us still get out on bikes and ride trails for fun, or rock climb, or kayak, or do gymnastics classes, but the number of adults who partake in these activities are few and far between. I follow a self-defence and m

Why 360 Degrees? The story behind the name...

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It may not be apparent to everyone, but I put a lot of thought into what to name my fitness business before I finally decided on 360 Degree Fitness .  It involved many hours of staring blankly at a piece of paper trying to pick names out of thin air before I decided to get a bit smarter about the whole process. I sat down after about a week of being frustrated with not coming up with a decent name and started to go about it in a more structured way.  I asked myself what I wanted the company to represent, what it's aims were for it's clients, the  training/coaching philosophy that I believed in, and then I went to work. I took that blank piece of paper that had been taunting me for a week or so and started writing.  Big ideas rather than detailed things - things like mental health not just physical health, not getting bogged down in the minutia of the fitness industry, meeting people where they are rather than forcing them into boxes, and so on. What eventually starte

Your "why" matters...

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One thing that many people struggle with when it comes to health and fitness is keeping their motivation over the long term. Motivational quotes and inspirational YouTube videos can help, but often only in the short term.  Of course as Zig Ziglar said:  One way to cement some form of long-term motivation is to dig a little deeper into the reasons for wanting to exercise or eat healthier.  You need to ask yourself "why?". And not just once. Keep asking until you dig right down to the root cause or reason for wanting to chase those goals that at times can seem so illusive.   Here's an example that comes from one of my clients and a long-term mentor of mine.  He has been training with me for around 5 years - pretty much since I started 360 Degree Fitness.   We were talking about why he was keen to get up and get to the gym by 6:00 am twice a week to train with me. He said that he wanted to keep fit.  I asked him why he wanted to keep fit.  His respon