Battle Ready

 Core values, Fitness  Comments Off on Battle Ready
Jun 052012
 

Planning for a physical engagement requires much from your body and mind. Here are a few pointers for getting battle ready for a host of real life or sports related challenges:

1. Train your body for the specific physical demands of your event or engagement. If you are trying to pass a military, police, or fire department physical entrance test like an obstacle course, running eight miles won’t help you improve your anaerobic strength capacity or speed, agility and quickness, but progressively intense total body resistance and reactive training will help you get the results you need. Conversely, spending a majority of your physical training time lifting heavy weights won’t help you improve your time in endurance sports. It is OK to cross train in other sports and incorporate various levels of physical intensity, but keep your main focus on preparing your body for the specific demands it will face.

2. Situational Awareness. Doesn’t matter if you are in a field of play or field of fire, mental acuity is paramount for success. Having strong internal discipline and razor sharp focus will only enhance your performance. Wayne Gretzky understood the importance of situational awareness in the hockey rink; he attributed his success for knowing, “where the puck was going to be.”

3. Tapering the intensity before a big event. Going all out in training is good, just make sure it is not days before your body and mind will be put to the test. The central nervous system (CNS) regulates the body’s functions, if you don’t give the CNS enough time to recover from the accumulated physical and mental stress, you will not be at your best when you need it most.

Use these tips in preparing for your next sporting event or physical fitness test and be battle ready.

Taking Care of Business

 Core values  Comments Off on Taking Care of Business
May 142012
 

 

 

 

The killer instinct, the edge, the hunger, the “eye of the tiger” (Ok, its corny). Motivation and attitude dictate so much of our actions. What motivates one may not motivate another when it comes to engaging in a particular action. Sometimes people excel at sports or competitions because their ego demands that they be the best, some people excel to please others, others do so because they have no alternative – (getting a college scholarship or signing a professional sports contract versus a bleak future). Believing that you have no alternative but to succeed, is a powerful motivator and one that can result in success provided that you have the right vision, put in the work, and simply “take care of business.”

Desperation can lead some people to make wrong decisions and act impetuously, but other people may find within themselves a “grace under pressure”, and with their backs to the wall, overcome obstacles and achieve their goals. In battle, you find ways to overcome threats that can result in your demise, because you have “no alternative” but to engage in actions to ensure that your mission is completed and that you and your comrades are safe.

Battle Tested. If under extreme conditions one can survive or excel, other challenges seem trivial. By projecting a “no alternative” mindset, you will see that the level of performance of daily tasks, work outs, drills, and exercises, start to improve.