Living your life day to day, its easy to become complacent, accept the hand youve been dealt

and continue on with a monotonous routine that will bring you no closer to reaching any of your goals. Or perhaps your routine will bring you closer to a goal, but that goal no longer holds the value it once did and needs to be reevaluated. Have you lost sight of what is truly important to you? Have you even taken the time to figure out what that is? If youve determined that change is necessary, what is holding you back? Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks. Warren Buffett To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform. Theodore H. White Courage is the power to let go of the familiar. Raymond Lindquist I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacation with better care than they do their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change. Jim Rohn Sometimes just realizing that you need a change is harder than actually implementing it. Surround yourself with people who love and support you, regardless of your decisions. Get rid of the toxicity in your life. Immerse yourself in your passions. Discover what makes you tick, and actively seek it out. Try not to let your overarching goals get lost in the shuffle of the everyday. If your day-to-day actions dont support your vision for the futureCHANGE!

Weve all been there: after months of diligent effort, sweat, and dedication we start to see our progress in the gym stagnate. Whether your strength gains have stalled or the physique changes you had been making have slowed to a crawl, the likely culprit is adaptation. Your body will adapt to meet to demands of any stress placed upon it, and in order to continue seeing results you need to utilize the principle of progressive overload. Simply put: you must continually increase the demands placed on

your musculoskeletal system in order to progress. There are a multitude of ways to implement progressive overload, the simplest of which is to increase the resistance or load you are lifting. Of course, once you crossover from newbie to intermediate or advanced lifter, adding to the load every week becomes exponentially more difficult and may be downright impossible. So how else can you avoid stagnation?
1. Increase the volume, either through an increase in sets, an increase in repetitions, or a combination of both. Try not to get too hung up on some magical set/rep scheme. If you can surpass your goal by at least 2 repetitions while maintaining proper form, its time to increase the load. If youre already incorporating high volume training, try varying your training to include some heavier set/rep schemes, perhaps 5 sets of 5 or even some heavy triples. Oh, and P.S., ditch the standard three sets of 10 reps. That might work as a beginner (heck, doing anythingwill work for most beginners), but if you want to make gains in strength and/or size you need to start pushing your limits. 2. Increase the frequency with which you train a given lift or lagging body part. Remember that some muscle groups respond better to higher frequency than others. Just be sure you listen to your body to ensure ample recovery time between training sessions to avoid over-training. 3. Decrease your rest intervals. Try bringing an interval timer or stopwatch along to your next workout and timing the amount of rest you take in between sets. Decreasing this time will force your body to adapt, becoming faster and more efficient over time. Just a word of caution: bring a towel. Your fellow gym-goers will appreciate it. 4. Increase or vary the exercises you perform for a given body part. Often times simply changing an exercise by varying foot placement, grip width, or grip pronation (pronated, supinated, or neutral) will enable you to target different aspects of a muscle group with multiple heads (thinktriceps, quadriceps, etc.). Of course, you want to use this method with moderation as adding too many exercises may lead to over-training and can actually hinder your progress. 5. Increase the intensity of your sessions. Remain focused on the task at hand and push yourself harder on every set. If youre lacking in the internal motivation department, utilizing a spotter or workout partner may enable you to use a heavier weight, help you eek out the last few reps, and keep you focused through a tough workout. Find a suitable partner who will be able to push you harder than you could push yourself, with goals and fitness levels that parallel your own.

[Note: These final two suggestions aren't really approaches to progressive overload, but they're important to keep in mind regardless.]
6. Do not underestimate the importance of rest and recovery. Remember that your muscles do not grow in the gym, they grow while they recover. Fatigue will mask your

true strength in the gym, so be sure to give your body ample time between workouts. More advanced lifters may even consider adding a structured de-load week into their program wherein they decrease resistance, decrease the number of sets and/or reps, decrease the number of exercises performed, or omit exercises that directly load the spine. 7. Provide your body with the fuel it deserves for optimal performance. Assess your goals, whether they be performance or physique based, and determine whether your nutritional needs are being met. While you can get bigger/stronger/leaner/etc. on a diet consisting of utter crap (and there are plenty of powerlifters out there that will argue that you should), you can do so more effectively, not to mention look and feel better, if you optimize your nutrition. Remember:garbage in, garbage out.

Just a word of caution: try not to run to the gym, guns blazing, ready to implement all of these approaches at once. Take a step back and analyze your current program, abilities, and goals and determine which, if any, of these methods will help you progress. You may want to incorporate one at a time to assess how your body responds and what will work best for you. Listen to your body and dont bite off more than you can chew.

Winners compare their achievements with their goals, while losers compare their achievements with those of other people. Nido Qubein To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting. E.E. Cummings Be yourself, dont take anyones shit, and never let them take you alive. Gerard Way Your time is limited, so dont waste it living someone elses life. Dont be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other peoples thinking. Dont let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs

A lot of people still buy into the misguided logic that exercise alone is enough to reach your physique goals. To put it plainly, nutrition should be your first line of defense when it comes to fat loss. Consider the amount of time it would take you to expend the calories you ingest in a measly tablespoon of nut butter (or scoop of mint chocolate chip for those not yet on the clean eating bandwagon) every day. How much easier would it be to simply NOT EAT that extra spoonful of nut butter? Clearly your time is better spent planning your meals for the day than slogging it out on the treadmill trying to make up for your nutritional transgressions. Another trap a lot of gym-goers fall prey to is the idea that a calorie is a calorie, and that as long as they stay within an allotted caloric intake they will see their body composition and health improve. But the flaw in that logic is that a calorie is not

simply a calorie: it is a product of three macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate, and fat). Protein and carbohydrate both contribute 4 calories per gram, while fat provides 9 calories per gram. For you math minded folks out there its a simple formula: Total calories = (Grams of Protein X 4) + (Grams of Carbohydrate X 4) + (Grams of Fat X 9) Your body processes each macronutrient differently and they have different implications for your health, energy level, and weight management depending on when and in what ratio they are consumed. You should aim for a proper balance of all three macronutrients, ideally coming from quality food sources. It doesnt take a registered dietitian to recognize that a diet consisting of nothing but Twinkies is going to have a very different effect on the body than the same number of calories coming from lean proteins, fresh produce, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. So it really isnt as simple is calories in, calories out as many would have you believe. A few words to help steer you in the right direction To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art. Francois La Rochefoucauld The wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings. Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food. Hippocrates He that takes medicine and neglects diet, wastes the skill of the physician. Chinese Proverb We never repent of having eaten too little. Thomas Jefferson Gluttony is an emotional escape, a sign something is eating us. Peter De Vries Bottom line: Before you eat something, ask what, if anything, its going to do for your body. If youre at a loss, or if you know the food in question is less than ideal for your health, well-being, and/or waistline, try replacing it with a more optimal option. And please, dont try to justify something you know is junk by lying to yourself about what it provides you. Garbage in, garbage out.

When it comes to exercising and eating right, a lot of people overlook the importance ofcommitment and consistency. Its easy for most people to be consistent for a week, a month, even a year. But when you feel youve started to stagnate, your commitment to your goals is called into question. Maybe the fast clip at which the scale had been dropping has slowed to a crawl. Maybe your deadlift numbers have stalled for months on end. Maybe spending Sunday afternoons prepping food in an effort to eat clean throughout the week is starting to feel like a chore. It becomes imperative at times like this to remember exactly what it is youre striving for and why youre striving for it. A few words to keep you on track Do not lose hold of your dreams or asprirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live. Henry David Thoreau Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. Gail Devers Experience has taught me that there is one chief reason why some people succeed and others fail. The difference is not one of knowing, but of doing. The successful man is not so superior in ability as in action. So far as success can be reduced to a formula, it consists of this: doing what you know you should do. Roger Babson You must have long term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short term failures. Charles C. Noble Most of us serve our ideals by fits and starts. The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication. Cecil B. De Mille Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. Dale Carnegie

Bottom line: Having a clear vision of your goal and why its important that you achieve it will make staying consistent more manageable and, hopefully, enjoyable. You need the what and the why to commit to the how. Take a moment today to reflect on your goals, why they are important to you, and what youre willing to do in the present to make them a reality in your future
So be honesthow many times did you hit the snooze button this morning? Need a little kick in the pants to get yourself back into the gym? Trying to find the right time to start cleaning up your eating habits?

A few motivating words to kick start your week There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truthnot going all the way, and not starting. Buddha A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault. John Henry Newman The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

Sally Berger If we wait until our lives are free from sorrow or difficulty, then we wait forever. And miss the entire point. Dirk Benedict Dont wait. The time will never be just right. Napoleon Hill

[source] Bottom line: stop looking for the right time to start a healthy habit, youll be waiting forever. Stop talking about your fitness goalsmake them a reality!