Motivation

How to Balance Your Skill Practice and Regular Workouts

For those of you with a lot of fitness goals, knowing how and when to work on skills on top of your regular HIIT training or other workouts can definitely be a challenge.

Because while it’s awesome to include exercises like pull ups, pistols, and handstand push ups into your regular HIIT, AMRAP, or time challenge workouts, if you really want to build up a new skill, you’re going to have to commit some extra time and focus in order to really master it.

For example, here are some of the skills I’m working on right now:

  • Front and back walkovers
  • Handstand presses
  • Human flags
  • Tumbling (front + back handsprings, front + back tucks, headsprings)

These days, I continue to keep my regular workouts short, yet I commit extra time several days a week to working on these and other skills solely because I find it fun and rewarding to go after new challenges.

So what’s the best way to work on new skills without adding too much more time to your workout schedule and putting yourself at risk for overtraining? Here are the tips that have helped me the most over my fitness journey:

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Five Powerful Quotes To Level Up Your Life

They may seem cheesy at times, but quotes and affirmations can hold incredible power to help you unlock your full potential and get your mindset right.

And once your mindset is right, it won’t take long for you realize that you’re capable of nearly anything you put your mind to.

So many of the obstacles holding us back are just in our own minds. This means we can only reach our full potential if we let go of our fears and insecurities and replace them with positive—and powerful—thoughts to help us go after our goals.

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Three Important Lessons I’ve Learned From Failing

I’ve failed a lot in my life.

And as much as I tell you guys to never give up, I’ve given up—a lot.

I’ve tried things that I was so bad at I never gave them another chance. And I used to be so afraid of failing that I wouldn’t even try new things (not something I’m especially proud to admit).

Here’s a short list of things I’ve failed at:

  • Fencing: I was semi-obsessed with the movie The Princess Bride in high school and romanticized the idea of being a master fencer. My parents agreed to sign me up for a four class intro, but I sucked so bad the first class I walked out in total shame and never went back.
  • Learning to play the guitar: Starting in third grade, I tried to learn to play the guitar with zero success. I took lessons at different times in my life for months at a time, but just couldn’t ever convince myself that I actually enjoyed it. I couldn’t even play you Happy Birthday (my third grade specialty) today if I tried my best.
  • An endless list of careers: I’ve failed at and given up on countless careers since high school, ranging from a photographer to a radio journalist to working in politics.
  • Gymnastics: I’ve failed over and over in my recent pursuit of adult gymnastics, and have been working on back handsprings for so long now that any person in their right mind would have given up and moved on by now.
  • Handstands: I’ve fallen thousands of times trying to do handstands, and failed pretty much constantly for the first year attempting to be upside down (Read more about my handstand journey here).
  • Speaking a second (or third, or fourth) language: Ever since I discovered my love of traveling as a kid I’ve dreamed of speaking multiple languages. Living in Europe only furthered this desire. Yet although I’ve taken lessons in both Spanish and Dutch, I’m a long way from being able to speak either.
  • Muscle ups: Despite kind of working on them for maybe two years now, I’ve failed at these again and again.
  • An unending list of fitness skills: Despite trying, I still can’t do a muscle up without a band or assistance. I’ve yet to successfully do a full range of motion freestanding handstand push up, can’t do a handstand press for the life of me, and topple over every time I attempt a shrimp squat.

And although I definitely get discouraged at times, I know deep down that these failures (and my many others) have helped me grow and become the person and athlete I am today.

Here are three important lessons I’ve learned from failing a lot in life:

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When Depression or Anxiety Hits, Badass Up

Although nearly 10% of the US population struggles with anxiety or depression, the stigma around it keeps a lot of people silent.

Yet if anyone knows how to help people with depression and anxiety, it’s my friend, Amy Clover from Strong Inside Out. She’s been through it all and come out stronger for it with help from therapy, fitness, and mindfulness.

Her last article on how to work out even if you’re depressed or anxious really hit home for a lot of people, and is something I wish I read back when I used to struggle with depression as well.

So I’m really happy to have Amy back with this motivational post on how to bring out your inner badass—even when depression hits. Here’s Amy on how to badass up:

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7 Practical Tips to Help You Stay Motivated After the New Year

It may be almost February already, but it feels like it wasn’t very long ago when we said goodbye to the last year and welcomed the new one.

It was time to analyze the last year and set some goals for the upcoming one. I hope you made your goals challenging, but still achievable, so that you are able to actually keep them.

The New Year usually comes with resolutions that call for some sort of habit change. You may have heard that it takes about four weeks to form a new habit. Right now is the critical time—it’s been four weeks after making your resolutions. That’s why we wanted to check in and see how you are doing.

So if you’re already struggling with motivation post-New Year’s, and if keeping a consistent workout or heathy eating regimen is getting a bit hard, don’t give up!

Here are seven practical tips that you can use to stay on top of your goals and keep going:

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7 Ways Working Out Makes You More Awesome (Aside From Making You Look Good)

It drives me absolutely crazy when people tell me that if they weren’t worried about gaining weight, they would never work out again.

Sure, there’s no harm in admitting that part of the reason you work out is to look good. We all want to feel confident about how we look, and feeling good about your appearance undoubtedly helps you feel better and more confident about yourself in general.

Yet working out and eating healthy just for the sake of your appearance is never going to be very motivating, and should never be the main (or at least the only) reason you take care of your body. There are so many better reasons to keep yourself fit and healthy—reasons that will keep you motivated to keep exercising long after beach season ends.

Here are 7 ways working out makes you more awesome (aside from making you look good):

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The 2 Minute Benchmark Workout Challenge (+ Get Your Workout Featured!)

I first got the idea for this workout from Steve, a reader and fitness enthusiast from Colorado.

Steve mentioned that he’d been doing a Navy SEAL-style drill workout to see how many reps of different exercises he could perform in two minute intervals, and as soon as he told me about his workout, I immediately thought: that sounds like fun!

So the next day, I created my own mini workout challenge sequence with the idea of sharing it with you guys.

In case you hadn’t guessed, two minutes straight of all out effort isn’t easy at all—it’s pretty brutal. But setting benchmarks like this one and like the 100 burpee challenge is a great way to measure your progress, so I’d encourage you to try it out and see how many reps you can get in.

Just as with the 100 burpee challenge, you’re best off trying to do this challenge every month or so to compare your numbers and see how you’re improving in different areas of your fitness. Give it a shot:

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How to Set Goals You’ll Actually Keep This Year

I know, I know, you’ve probably heard how to set goals and New Year’s resolutions with hundreds of times over the years.

But if you’re anything like me, it never hurts to have a reminder every once in a while. And this time of year is the perfect time to set new goals since it really does feel like a fresh start. The holidays are over, the days are (slowly) getting longer, and it’s time to kick some serious ass at life!

Here are 5 simple yet effective ways to set goals you’ll actually keep this year, whether they’re fitness, career, or life-oriented:

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Get Ready For the Last 100 Burpee Challenge of 2014!

It’s official: this weekend will be the last 100 burpee challenge of 2014!

You guys have really blown me away this year at how hard you’ve worked at these monthly challenges. Because really, doing 100 burpees in a row is hard. So hard, in fact, that most people think it’s impossible (I often get laughed at when I tell people about the challenge).

But you guys do it month after month, just like the rockstar athletes you are.

We’ve got one more challenge to go this year, and I know you guys are going to ROCK at it.

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How to Deal With Plateaus (And What to Do When You Hit One)

We’ve all been there.

You’re kicking ass at your goals, feeling so much stronger, hitting new PRs every week, noticing how much looser your jeans are starting to feel…

And then one day, it all just stops. The number of push ups you can do stays the same, for a long time. All of a sudden, after months of continuous progress, your 100 burpees time refuses to budge. Or maybe you just can’t seem to lose those last five pounds, even though the first 10 seemed to go pretty quickly.

And bam, seemingly out of nowhere, you’ve hit a plateau.

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