The Power of Art: The Fun and Cutting Edge Secret to Accomplish Your Fitness Goal

The Fun and Cutting Edge Secret to Accomplish Your Fitness Goal

“The key ingredient for success in life is the discipline of mind and body. Setting goals and making sure they are accomplished builds discipline. Whatever goal I set for myself, I will first get a mental image in my mind of exactly what it is I want to achieve, then I will be determined and persistent enough to overcome all obstacles that get in my way toward that goal. Finally, I will train or study accordingly until that goal [fitness goal] is accomplished.”  – Chuck Norris

Goal setting often falls short because of a lack of action.

In a world where living’s evolved into a constant stream of to-do list tasks, goals, and “if-only’s” – we are expected to prioritize our time, handle information, maintain focus, allocate resources, and constantly increase performance…and goals are the answer. How can we ditch the distractions and get things done? 

A fitness goal serves to fuel motivation and have been found to improve performance. A previously frowned upon and distracting activity has now emerged as the cutting edge of neuroscience and behavioral psychology.

The lack of action in fitness goal – setting is caused by a stall resulting from the constant data and stimulus overloading our brain and stealing our focus. BUT, when you draw a picture of what you desire…your chances of remembering it improve by 65%! Add in the body chemistry from imagining and drawing – a serotonin/oxytocin potion that guides your pattern-making brain into focus – and you have yourself a fitness goal – achieving master.

Even better – doodling requires no artistic talent (so don’t say you “can’t” draw!), expensive tools, training, or talent. The science-backed
key to scheduling in that workout, or simply knocking off a line on your to-do list is to physically write it out.

For so long, doodling has been criticized for its useless endeavor, but new research is supporting the clear, tangible effects on outcome and performance – particularly in the power of a tool for active visualization.

Mental imagery can have a very powerful effect on behavior, research found that participants who visualized a task before completing it performed better than those who had actually practiced it. At the deepest levels of the mind, the brain and central nervous system can’t actually distinguish between something vividly imagined and an actual occurrence. We see this utilized in professional athletes and sports settings such as with Michael Phelps who’s well known for applying visualization techniques to gain an edge over the competition and reach peak performance, in the process of healing injuries and managing symptoms, and for increasing actual muscle mass by simply visualizing an exercise routine.

“To doodle is to engage in an intellectual, creative, and physical act that recruits many neurological networks simultaneously. This makes it a strong force for chance and portal for imagining and inviting preferred realities” Sunni Brown, The Doodle Revolution

Not only does imagery create a motivating vision which allows us to take the necessary steps to fulfill it, but it changes the information processing in our brain at the earliest levels. As humans we tend to revise the same neurological pathways we know and get stuck in our comfort zones. Next week we’ll share the multiple and unexpected ways doodling serves as the fitness goal game-changer, allowing us to enhance what’s possible.

The #1 Way to Get Your Child to Workout

The #1 Way to Get Your Child to Workout

“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”   – Socrates

Fact: DID YOU KNOW… many children in the US are way too sedentary…

Unless you are disconnected from the modern world..I promise you hear this shocking fact every day. Research, morning news reporters, doctors, now even our boss…we can’t escape…people are lecturing us left and right in efforts to motivate us into motion.

Shows how much it’s helping…

We all know we need to be more physically active – and we certainly understand how critical it is for child development and of course our personal health – but that doesn’t seem to get our butt off the coach.

Last time I checked  – after reading the latest research, listening to the morning news reporter, or leaving my yearly check-up – I didn’t miraculously levitate and end up on a treadmill (that would be nice though!…someone invent that).

Obviously we’ve become immune to it….

-Maybe you could care less (it’s not worth it)
-You value other things more (*cough cough* that nightly long awaited bowl of ice cream)
-It will never happen to you – (out of the many thousands of subscribers…I guess there’s a chance you could be in the 3.5%…yes 3.5% of adults who do the minimum amount of physical activity (PA) recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services (150 minutes a week of moderate activity))

Let’s look at this differently…

42% of children (6-11 y/o) engage in the recommended 60 minutes of PA most days of the week…ok…at least some of them our moving (I’m sure it’s your kid, right?)

..Hit adolescence (12-19 y/o ) and the percentage significantly drops to 8%!

42% – 8%?! Seriously…what is going on that makes someone stop?

SELF–MOTIVATION

-It’s more than an Monday Motivational newsletter (even though this is great, right?!)
-It’s more than shaming kids on their weight and lack of play time with friends
-And it’s more that yelling at them for spending a stunning 6-8 hours a day on their screens and forcing exercise upon them by taking away their electronics, phones and TV’s

…and don’t even think about using poor sports performance as a motivator to get them out practicing more.

“If Americans know exercise is so good for them, why don’t they take the message to heart as they did the exhortations against smoking? And if exercise makes people feel so good, why don’t they just do it?” – Gina Kolato

Research is beginning to point at something new – the message. Obviously the current ones have no effect on us.

It’s a lot easier on you if you make it so kids WANT to do be active.

How many times do you yell at your kids “go play outside”….”in a minute!”…

You don’t want to yell, they don’t want to be yelled at. Simple.

Make them want to do it. YES..make them want to go play, enjoy themselves and be active. I know..a difficult phenomenan to wrap our heads around.

The key: Giving kids and teens autonomy toward their choice of being active.

A recent study out of UGA discovered teens who don’t feel in control of their exercise choices or who feel pressured by adults to be more active, typically do not engage in physical activity.

The same research found that middle school students were less likely to be physically active if they didn’t feel in control of their exercise choices or if they felt pressured by adults to get more exercise.

“Can we put these children in situations where they come to value and enjoy the act of being physically active?” – Dr. Rod Dishman

Dishman explains just how there are kids that are more drawn to music or art, the same exists for physical activity. So we need to find a way to draw in those kids.

Above all, parents and teachers shouldn’t make children feel guilty for not being physically active.

Dishman’s research studying the Motivation and Behavioral Regulation of Physical Activity found that this developmental period during youth and adolescence was highly critical because physical activity declines without intervention, and self-identities are sensitive to social influences.

The results suggested that motivation for physical activity became more autonomous (i.e. exercising because they enjoyed it, it was a part of their sense of self, or it made them feel good) for some children as they moved through middle school, but introjected regulation (internalized social pressures to be active…like from classmates, parents, news, etc.) also became much more influential.

This is where things could be going wrong. This type of motivation is not effective for long-term adherence…

All these people telling us to be active is actually detrimental “This can result in anxiety, guilt, and shame, which might be detrimental to psychological development and health in some children.” Needless to say, this is not regarded as a desirable target for interventions to increase physical activity.

However, there were strong correlations providing additional evidence on the importance of children’s self-identity for physical activity during a transition period when identities are especially malleable…meaning parents, peers, coaches, and environment play a huge role in establishing a lifelong physically active life…and love it.

Key Points:

• To get your kids moving allow them to find an activity they enjoy.
• Immersing kids in fun, enjoyable activity early on allows them engage in an environment where it is part of how they see and express themselves
• Let them do something they love (whether it be because of friends, the activity, weather…anything!) so they see value, and the enjoyable return they continually receive. The intrinsic motivation will follow.

The most important piece: It’s more than just getting them active, the social component, the life skills, the importance of healthy developments, the learned aspects through team sports..the reason it is so important to have kids enjoy and want to be active at a young age is that you are instilling lifelong habits….

This leads us to part 2 next week – how to get yourself moving.

I love this question by Dishman, “Can we put these children in situations where they come to value and enjoy the act of being physically active?“ – Now apply it to yourself..what are you doing to allow yourself the chance to value and enjoy being active.. how can you share that excitement with others?

A College Student's Mentality to Exercising (that actually got people exercising)

A College Student's Mentality to Exercising

“Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. … It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit…” – Hippocrates

How might we put children in situations where they come to value and enjoy being physically active?

The better question is, how is this different for adults? Is it?

Last week we touched on the importance of getting our children to work out ..and how – but as adults, are we any better?

When kids hit adolescence (12-19 y/o ) the percentage of kids meeting activity recommendations significantly drops to from 42% of kids to 8%!

8% in adolescence…do you think that miraculously improves once they became an adult with a career and kids and school and everything else happening?

“Only 3.5 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 59 do the minimum amount of physical activity recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services (150 minutes a week of moderate activity).

Take a guess…it must get better after 59?

Over age 60, the percentage is even lower…2.5 percent

Children who watch TV for 3+ hours a day have65% higher chance of being obese than children who watch for <1 hour. We give children a hard time for being attached to their screens, but ask yourself how many hours a day you are staring at your computer during work. I challenge you to track yourself this week. You’ll discover the results can be brutally alarming. 

It’s easy it is to sit back and kick in on the couch after a long day. Moving is exerting. As a recently retired collegiate athlete, I now have the option to set my schedule like the average college student.

So what did I do last week – I put this to the test.

Playing. 

Three college roommates took it upon themselves to conduct a personal experiment. Each evening would end as it would circa 2000. The activity varied by day – kickball in the street, biking, going to the park, rip-sticking (all for the sake of science, right?). They played outside after school under dark.

The Results: We need to change the focus of where we find pleasure in the experience. 

I had the honor of speaking and listening to one of the leading researchers in the topic of the exercising brain this week, Dr. Rod Dishman, to better understand the interaction between physiology and psychology.

With over 200 publications of research on the effects and interactions between the brain and exercise, he’s discovering support of exercise in more ways than we once realized – but what good does knowing these benefits do unless we can apply it to making changes in our health?

I had the chance to ask Dr. Dishman how we can take the ground breaking neuroscience of exercise and apply it to public health through motivation. His unique experience applying the science to behavior through motivation is game-changing.

We forgot how to ‘play’. 

‘Play’ get’s lost as we grow old – we forget the enjoyment in a game of kickball with our neighbors, or rollerblading on a nice spring afternoon.

“Exercise is like hitting our hand with a hammer, it feels good once you stop” – Dr. Dishman

What does it all come down to? Our experience. 

We need to figure out how we can change our perception and interpret “feeling good”….via the exercise experience we have and the enjoyment we take from it.

It’s our nature to seek beneficial experiences. Of course, we know there are many benefits to exercise – but we can’t feel our bone density increasing, BDNF releasing from our brain, new blood vessels forming, our blood lipid levels changing.

Let’s use one of the best examples in science – fatigue. Of course your first reaction when tired isn’t “Wow! I should go run…maybe I’ll have more energy!”…that’s nuts. Why would running GIVE you energy…it’s exerting.

The act of exerting ourselves seems counterintuitive. However, people who exercise regularly can attest to the differences in energy level and know when they feel sluggish, while it might be hard to get off the couch – it increases feelings of energy and decreases feelings of fatigue.

This is how we need to look at exercise.

We can notice adjustments in our sleep, our mental clarity, our behavior – these are obvious changes if we become mindful of them.

We must find ways to enjoy the experience and further find pleasure in the results – such as feeling good after a workout or improved productivity. As we become aware of these benefits, we will soon anticipate that pleasure and associate it with activity.

HOW:

“Broaden the menu” – Reintroduce ‘play’. Surround yourself with an energizing community through a fitness class. Associate activity with a ‘break’ not exertion. Take the dog on run, or the kids for a bike ride. Make activity your solution for a long day that leaves you ready for bed, clears your head, and maybe energizes your brain to get out that last email before you decide to call it a night…even more – see the long-term benefits. Play.

How are you finding ways to incorporate breaks of activity in your day? Do something this week to bring back play

COR Team Stability Ball Challenge

COR Team Stability Ball Challenge

When programming exercise, just as life, everything must have a purpose. You need to go about it with deliberate intentions –

1. What is the goal/focus
2. What did we accomplish
3. What did we learn.

The focus:

Our last day of Kids Athletic Development Program was focused on three things

1. Stability/Balance

Balance is a component of fitness that is often overlooked. For a skill so critical to athletic development as well as everyday activities, it’s necessarywe educate its importance and role in proper functioning. This was the topic of Thursday’s lesson during our Kids Athletic Development Program. Many associate balance with wimpy exercises forcing you to stand on one leg and close your eyes. While yes, this is balance, it is far more extensive.

2. Teamwork

Kids need to be challenged. Actually, we all need to be challenged. Of course, I hoped to push their body to it’s limit, but more importantly I wanted to show them that the only way to do so is as a cohesive unit – as a team. This requires communication, constant feedback, and engagement at all times. The kids weren’t only challenged physically, they were also challenged mentally (#3).

3. Creativity

If we are creating a foundation of a life-long, healthy lifestyle it is necessary to be creative. We must teach kids to always challenge themselves to find a way, and then take it a step further.

We fished off our last workout at KADP with a challenge.

If we are creating a foundation of a life-long, healthy lifestyle it is necessary to be creative. We must teach kids to always challenge themselves to find a way, and then take it a step further.

There will be times when these kids can’t afford gym memberships. Five years from now school work will pile up. Put a job and social life on top of that – how are they going to find a way to still incorporate physical activity? Then there’s family and balancing a career, will they have the time to fit in a workout?

YES, they will.

In a world where we always seem to find excuses, we want them to see a way.

What we accomplished:

One piece of equipment. Two hours. Four kids.

While they discovered that a workout doesn’t have to mean running laps on a treadmill or lifting weights, they took away much more.

They were forced to maintain engagement and constant communication for two hours. However, it wasn’t myself forcing them. They saw the challenge at hand and discovered for themselves what was required to accomplish it. In order to challenge each other as a cohesive unit they were forced to use their imagination. Once instructed on the proper form and biomechanics, it was up to them to figure out how to work together to make the exercise work.

The moment I knew we accomplished the task at hand wasn’t when they started sweating, or even when they worked together. It was in the last 10 minutes of the workout.

We were running out of time and I told the kids we weren’t going to have enough time to finish. Without a second of hesitation the kids collectively grouped together and teamed up to find a way to finish the workout! Now, I gave them full permission to skip the last round…and they wanted to finish? Together they found a way to partner up on the piece of equipment for the last strength component round and combine the exercises

…this meant that they had no rest between sets.

As a unit these kids teamed together, used their imagination, and were intrinsically driven to find a way to challenge themselves. This exemplified everything that I hoped for them to gain. That is definition of accomplishment.

What we ALL can learn from this:

One of my favorite quotes comes from Mihaly Csiskzentmihalyi, he says –

“The pursuit of a goal brings order in awareness because a person must concentrate attention on the task at hand and momentarily forget everything else. These periods of struggling to overcome challenges are what people find to be the most enjoyable times of their lives” and “By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual.”

They knew three things going into this:

1. The task (the focus)
2. They possessed the skills and potential to accomplish this (this was emphasized!)
3. The challenge presented (…this wasn’t going to be easy!)

• I cannot emphasize more that these kids are the highlight and a perfect example of growing through conquering clear goals and tackling any challenge presented. However, I had my own goals and challenges when presented this opportunity to run the camp for the first time. There were goals I had for them and the structure, challenges in creativity and programing, and skills I had to employ. Not only were they accomplishing so much, but through them I was as well. We can all take learn something from any experience, even when we aren’t the ones directly involved.*