Day 35 - A New Perspective?

So, As Michelle Bridges (#mishbridges) told me, consistency is key. Everyday I use her words as motivation; JFDI Gaffa...JFDI and get your butt out of bed! JFDI - you can and will make time, because you have time.

What Motivates Us?

Well, today I started off with that, and bounced out of bed. My bouncing was literal. It actually made me smile, so I did a couple more times to make sure...I started spontaneous laughter in my inner dialogue... which just seemed to motivate me further!

Not sure how that works, but for some reason I felt oddly attached to going to the gym today, as I bounced down the steps and out into the cold, dark of Monday morning. I arrived at the gym, with my mind reeling all over the place, thinking ahead about what I'd be writing in this blog. I wanted to start week 6 with something inspiring and motivational...

Which got me to thinking, as I pushed through my workout, about motivation. Its like a bus, when you need motivation its not there, its late or you just missed it...but you still need it, right? Well, what if we could self-motivate? Is that too hard? Well, looking at today, and some of my previous posts about what has motivated me out of my warm and cosy bed: Sunrises, Rain drops, Ocean sounds, Bouncing in my bedroom....the list is growing. What motivates me later in the day - Movies I'm emotionally bound to (Rocky, Never Back Down, Karate Kid, Man Of Steel...another huge list)... so is motivation about being pushed by others to inspire us, or is it us taking something we feel emotionally attached to and using it to push us?

I'm gonna roll with it here, stay with me. So, bouncing this morning made me chuckle, it made me feel good about myself - I'm here in my cabin, missing my amazing wife but still I conjure the spirit to get up and do stuff....Well here it is, I attached the "getting up and bouncing" and laughing at myself with going to the gym. I used that situation to motivate me. I use images and video of Rocky to make me train harder. But what am I really doing? It feels a lot like I'm attaching my emotions to something I love and that makes me feel good, and then I seem to attach that feeling to what I need to do, the thing I need inspiration for....and it works!

So, right now, give it a try. Do something, watch something, say something that makes YOU feel good about yourself, then immediately attach that feeling to something you need to achieve. See if you jump onto your own motivation bus. JFDI and see what happens!

Consistency in Just Freaking Doing It..

As I said, I am getting really consistent and I do it. I'm loving being healthy and training 7 days a week. I love pushing my body and seeing little tweaks to it every week. I love the feeling of muscles burning from use, and not soreness from being idle. I'm feeling strong - inside and out. I'm standing taller, it feels like, with a new air of confidence... YAY!

Monday Morning Back

So my gym today was a normal workout, with crazy thought processes and inspired activity always means I add to my routine. Today was Back from 0600-0700h and I was really in the 'zone', so when I threw in additional abdominal work and then raced back to get ready 20minutes later than normal I realised I had missed the time flying!

Cardio Blitz

After a full day in class, and a later than normal finish time, I was faced with two options:

1. Go to the gym and face potentially missing dinner
2. Go to dinner and miss a training session

I opted to train, and risk dinner. I actually made it to dinner, for a measly meal...but still.

I headed back to the gym, cobbled together quite piece of gym floor space and warmup with grid sprints and stretches. I then did a little circuit that lasted 25 minutes and combined high intensity skipping, 2 different med-ball workouts, and abdominals on the Bosu ball. The med-ball workout were the arm blowout I've recently started doing, in 2 minute intervals, and the wall bounce drills I've been doing in the boxing room (low fast bounces, high over head bounces). The bosu was inverted and my core stability training (abs) was to do sets of 10 bicycle crunches, and 10 full knee in crunches...rest and repeat to failure... My abdomnals throbbing, I headed into the gym to add more abdominal work - farmers walks with 27.5kg dumbbells (in each hand), standing overhead barbell lift and holds (using 35kg bar), then hanging leg raise crunches, kneeling cable weight pull down crunches, abdominal burnouts on the inclined bench and some side crunches.... My 60 minute workout done, I headed to the pool to swim 500m. I did the swim in 14 minutes, but changed a few parameters... I swam 25m breast stroke (low intensity), then continued into fast, full power freestyle for the remaining 25m of the length, tumble turned and repeated. 10 laps of this new swim interval had me pooped!

Now, I'm ready for bed....