Call us at 254-247-4999 today!

Posts Tagged ‘character’

I wasn’t smart enough to write this, but still thought that it applied well to our Fitness Boot Campers…

Five Reasons Why Strong Women Are Sexy

By Josh Hanagarne
1. Strength implies dedication. When I see a woman who values strength, I see someone who knows the value of perseverance and commitment.

2. Strength implies a healthy sense of priorities. The current portrayal of how women’s bodies should look is pure poison. I’m hearing more about sexy “clavicles” these days, of all things! Take a look at some female kettlebellers and you’ll know what I mean.

3. Strength defies society’s portrayal of how women should be. Society does not value physical strength in women. The women in vogue are emaciated and bug-eyed, without any muscle tone. They are bony clothes hangers and I don’t know how that appeals to anyone. The physically strong woman resists the siren song of the anorexic crackhead look and makes her body do what feels good. And again, if you give your body what it needs, it’s going to look good.

4. Strength leads to confidence. When you choose to do something as difficult as real strength training with demonstrable results, it changes your body and your mind at the same time. Confidence is very attractive.

5. Strength training helps you age gracefully. Weak young women become weak old women. Strong young women become elegant, strong, confident women. In short, there’s no downside to being strong. People that are attracted to weakness are normally attracted to vulnerability and there’s not much potential upside to that.

I would like to welcome Becky Honer to our Boot Camp family!!!

NE Womens Sectional Competition

Check this out. If it doesn’t make you wanna hit the gym, I don’t know what will!

Amazing what a little paint, 200 sf more of mats, some lumber and a free weekend can do!

Hey Everybody! I want to welcome two new Athletes to our Boot Camp family. They are:

Lindsey Lee

Neenah Saucedo

When you see them in the gym tomorrow, help them warm up!

My son Jacob demonstrating how to “walk the clock”…

Transition drill 1

harker heights bjj

hhbjj.com

An Ex-Marine, Coming Back From Severe Injuries, Follows an Intense Regime He Calls a ‘Livelihood’

By JAMES WAGNER, Wall Street Journal. Please visit WSJ for full accounting of the article.

In April 2003, corporal Hector Delgado lay in an induced coma on a Navy ship in the Persian Gulf. His pelvis had been crushed into six pieces and his legs and nerves were mangled after a fuel tank fell on him while he was with the Marines in Iraq.

The accident kept him in a hospital for a year. His right foot was paralyzed and his left foot was partially damaged. Mr. Delgado, who often has to use a wheelchair, fell into what he calls a three-year “funk.” His weight ballooned to 230 pounds, his cholesterol shot up, and he was smoking and going to bars every night.

“When I got out of the hospital, I could care less,” says Mr. Delgado, 30. The accident left him three inches shorter than what he was before deployment.

But in 2008, a friend mentioned a vigorous cross-training routine, CrossFit, often used by military special forces. Mr. Delgado was enticed by the workout’s intensity and variety, and liked the camaraderie of the exercisers.

He now works out five times a week and keeps a strict eating regime. His 5-foot-6 frame is down to 149 pounds, and he now has the strength to walk short distances unassisted.

At this point, [working out] is more of a livelihood than anything,” says Mr. Delgado, who lives in North Patchogue, N.Y.

Mr. Delgado is an outreach worker at the Queens Vet Center in New York, where he educates other veteran organizations and service members about military benefits and support programs. He is also earning his Bachelor’s degree in education and psychology at St. Joseph’s College.

Want to read the rest of the article? Go to the WSJ.

Write to James Wagner at james.wagner@wsj.com

Hey! I want to welcome another Boot Camp athlete to our family. Please welcome Molly White to our athletic family. When you see her next week, say Hello and introduce yourself.

The word of the day is motivation. Everyone is motivated in some way to do something. If the motivation is not yielding an action that has a positive, healthy impact on your life it is time to shift some thoughts and actions. It sounds simple enough. If you read this blog regularly, it probably sounds a little familiar too. That is because goals need motivation. Here are a couple basic things to think about when evaluating motivation.

Motivation goes by two names. The first, and the one most people have, is called extrinsic. It represents all external motivations. Money, status, physical beauty, etc. are all examples of external motivators. The second, and most effective in the long term, is intrinsic. This includes all things internal. Thoughts, feelings, health, safety, etc. are all intrinsic. Sometimes, the same result can be achieved through either type of motivation. It is also possible to start off in one mindset and shift to the other during and still attain the same outcome.

For example, Sally wants to lose 50 lbs. She believes that weight loss will make her more attractive to the world. So, her initial motivation is extrinsic because she is anticipating her “reward” to be outside the actual completion of the task itself. Sally begins a regular exercise routine and adjusts her diet. Over the next couple of weeks Sally loses 5 lbs. She also begins to have more confidence in herself because she has learned that she is capable of doing more than she anticipated.

Now, Sally exercises because she wants to challenge herself. This is a shift in motivation. The intrinsic motivation here is Sally’s increased desire to complete a specific task. Therefore, her “reward” can only come from the task itself. Either way, she will reap the reward of the exercise. One reward of exercise and healthy diet can be weight loss. Since her motivation is now intrinsic she will, most likely, continue on with diet and exercise long after she reaches her initial 50 lb goal.

Take some time to look at what gets you going. What and how are you motivated? Compare your set goals with what motivated or motivates you to achieve them. Then get out there and make it happen!!

Hey! This is not my writing. I poached it off of CrossFit Generation’s (Barry and Jocelyn Weidner) website and I am attempting to give them proper credit. I read this today and it echoes what I always preach about hard training and mental toughness.  If you like it, please go to their website and read more about them and their training. Anyway, here is the article.

Hard training definitely has a tremendous physical effect on your body. It makes you stronger, faster, balanced, agile, and builds a lean and strong physique. The physical aspects are obvious when you try on new clothes and you need a smaller size or when you look in the mirror and notice the changes yourself or to others when they ask you what are you doing to get into the shape you are in. All those things are great.

There is, however, another aspect of training that sometimes is not realized and maybe even overlooked. This aspect is about the mental side of training and what it does for your life. I firmly believe that hard training and what it does for you physically has a direct correlation with your mind and how you feel about yourself. Just take a moment and think about how great it feels when you get a new personal record in a max effort lift or you take over a minute off of your last benchmark workout. I bet it feels pretty darn good. You leave CFG feeling tough and confident in what you just accomplished. You get home and feel unstoppable. That feeling can carry over into the other areas of your life. The next day you head into work more confident, you are energized and pumped about how you perform in your workouts and what hard training is doing for your life. That is confidence.

Let’s take this from another perspective. Let’s say you do not get a PR or your time increases because of other factors that are going on in your life. Some things we just cannot control. You leave CFG defeated and a bit perturbed at yourself knowing that you can do better. Guess what? Sometimes you will lose. Coming back in the next day, forgetting about the day before and ready to tackle another challenge is all about character. Losing a battle (a workout) and winning the war (a lifetime of great health) is what builds character.

Mental toughness is what happens inside of CFG. It is built during the workout. When you feel like stopping and giving up, when you feel the words “I can’t” start to creep into your head, and when you feel like you will not win, that is when you dig deep into your soul, find that inner strength, the mental toughness that I know everyone has, and go harder. We all have more inside of us than we realize. When the body wants to stop, it is the mind that keeps us going. You always hear me say to you (especially during burpees) “Next Rep, Next Rep”. I do that for a reason, to motivate you to keep going no matter what. It will only make you better. Just keep battling through the workouts and find that mental toughness that is inside of you. Get that last pullup, explode through that last thruster, and sprint that last 200m like your life depended on it.

All of these 3 aspects, confidence, character, and mental toughness, go hand in hand and build off of each other. Be confident in your abilities and accomplishments, build character through the ups and downs of training, and always believe in yourself during the workouts and find the strength and mental toughness that is within you.