Let’s talk effort and intensity.
​
Do you think every session has to be done at 100% no matter how you’re feeling?

I’m here to let you know that this is a misconception when it comes to training. 

Some days you just can’t be bothered, sometimes work is grinding you down, sometimes you didn’t sleep well the night before etc...

Still, completing a workout at 50-90 percent is better than no workout at all.

What’s the point if it’s not at 100%? Because consistency trumps intensity. 

Keeping a routine is more important in the long run. So it doesn’t matter if for a short period of time you just ‘going through the motions’ with your workouts.

It’s a lot easier to build your training mojo back if you have been continuously doing something compared to trying to get it back from scratch. 

If you can’t train at 100% intensity don’t stress. Everyone has lulls in their training. It’s normal.

Something is better than nothing.

Consistency trumps intensity.

Play the long game 😊

To get your game in motion, come on down to Jones Brothers where we care about you feeling better, for the long term!

We all know the actors in movies that are ‘that guy’ in every movie. They could be the gangsters, bad guys, ‘losers’, grown-up man-children etc. Being typecast in Hollywood as a certain type of character, has led them to playing that role in almost every movie they’re in.

If you looked at your life as a movie, have you typecast yourself? More importantly, have you typecast yourself as the ‘loser’ in your own movie? This may sound farfetched but how often do you step back and look at how you see yourself?

In many movies the loser is the guy/girl with no self-belief who gets pushed around, does what everyone else says without objection, doesn’t make eye contact, avoids people, has bad posture and is physically weak.

The thing with people in the Hollywood movies and being typecast is because they look a certain way, which allows them to fit the description of that character. If you have typecast yourself in a negative light, then you need to know that it’s possible to break that mould by working on yourself, so that you no longer fit the physical description of your former typecast self.

A wonderful way to break to break character is improve your physical fitness and diet. Put simply; by changing how you physically feel and look you change your perception of the character in your head.
Physical fitness not only builds up your body, it builds your confidence. Achieving small goals set within the gym builds up momentum, creating a snowball effect in the rest of your life, helping to break through your own negative self-image.

Going from never thinking you could go to the gym, to going ‘X’ amount of days a week becomes a win.
Going from thinking you could never perform ‘X’ exercise to being able to complete the exercise and eventually master it, becomes a feeling of mastery over yourself.

From thinking you could never feel confident in ‘X’ type of clothing to feeling fabulous in everything you wear, you are opening yourself to a new confident world of possibilities.

Going from not being able to look yourself in the mirror to being proud of yourself and being able to smile at yourself creates a new, confident, happy character who has stepped away from their negative self-image, and into one of self-acceptance and self-love.
​
Changing how you see yourself won’t happen overnight, especially if you have felt a certain way for a long time. The good news is, it’s a process that you can start anytime, if you’d like to start today, get in touch and we’d love to help you on that journey.

Feeling good about yourself feels good. 

We’re here to tell you that there is nothing wrong with being proud of yourself, and enjoying that smile inducing feeling that runs through your body when you feel the glow of self-love and appreciation.
We want you to recognise that there is a difference between proud of yourself and being arrogant. Some people are so worried about being perceived as arrogant that they never allow themselves feelings of self-pride, and that is a tragedy. 

There is no doubt that we all know someone who is prone to taking a positive comment and turning it into a negative. They downplay their achievements or knock back praise and compliments whenever they hear them. Often this type of person has trouble opening up in their personal relationships; they want someone else to make them feel good, but don’t realise that they get in the way of the good intentions of their loved ones by never allowing themselves to feel positive. We teach others how to love us by how we love ourselves, so if we are always being negative, it teaches others to participate in those negative thoughts too.

Being able to be loved and love yourself requires a change in how you feel/think about yourself and a move away from negative and dismissive frame of mind to an accepting and positive frame of mind.
It may take time but you’re able to start with simple little steps like replying to praise and compliments with a genuine ‘thank you’ instead of replying instantly with a negative rebuttal. Getting moving and active is also a great place to start. The hormonal response your body has post working out with the rush of endorphins it releases into your body, leaves you with the ‘feel good’ feeling throughout your whole body and mind.

Try surrounding yourself with a community that lifts you up, not one that brings you down. This can be your circle of friends or a community of people you work out with at a gym who are there to support you and not only help you but encourage you to feel good about yourself. Having the right people around you to celebrate your progress and success, means you can enjoy the feeling of pride in your achievements and not shy away from them because you think that they will be taken the wrong way.  
​
Feeling good about yourself feels good. Helping others feel good feels good too. If you’d like to join a community of hi-fiving, encouraging, smiling and improving people who are always keen to meet new legends, come on down and say hi!

​Confidence; The feeling or belief that one can have faith or rely on someone or something.
 
Today we’re looking specifically at ‘can rely on someone or something’. Having the confidence that your body will be strong and mobile throughout your life is an often overlooked aspect of ‘mental health’ as we age.
 
Being strong doesn’t mean you have to be a bodybuilder or a powerlifter throwing around huge dumbbells. It’s also having the strength to complete day to day tasks with ease and without restrictions. Strength is not only a physical attribute but a state of mind. Having a strong state of mind is just as powerful, possibly an even more important tool throughout life allowing you to cope with life’s ups and downs.
 
Physical exercise is a fantastic way to build your confidence. The lessons you learn when putting your body through physical stresses can be more valuable than those learnt listening to some person talking at the front of a classroom.

Completing an exercise that has your body under great physical stress, (once you have caught your breath back), gives such a euphoric feeling because when you find yourself of the edge of giving up finding that little bit extra and finishing, shows you’re capable of more than you originally thought!
 
The confidence you gain from those moments spills over to everyday life, you will always find yourself in situations where you’re not sure if you will be able to get that assignment done, have those documents ready for your boss or have your presentation ready in time. You’ll then be able to call on that inner strength you found in the gym and channel that energy towards your day to day tasks.

Finding that extra gear in training and silencing the voices in your head that tell you to quit, is one of the greatest gifts you could ever give yourself. Building physical and mental confidence that then permeates all areas of your life.
 
Find your confidence in the gym, and tackle life with the faith that you can rely on someone – Yourself – at all times.
 

Help yourself so you can better help others

One of the hardest things you can do is to have an honest look at yourself and ask yourself the tough questions. Self-awareness doesn’t just happen, it comes from being able to take a step back, question and answer honestly how you are performing in all areas of life.

Are you taking care of yourself or filling your time up trying to make sure everyone else is alright?
This can be a very confronting question for some people because they have spent so much time ignoring themselves and expending all their energy towards the problems of others. So much so, they don’t realise they aren’t looking after themselves.

This can become so much a part of someone’s identity that they feel like if they spend any time or energy on themselves that people will think they’re being selfish. Thinking that taking time out for yourself is somehow a negative action is not only unhealthy, but can actually hinder your ability to help the people you want to.

Think about it. You are helping everyone else become a better version of themselves so they are able to live happier, healthier lives, but ignoring your own health and happiness. You are helping others feel loved and supported, without loving and supporting yourself. 

Experience is the best teacher in life. If you learn how to take time for yourself and become a healthier and happier version of yourself, than in turn you become better at supporting other people. You become the representation of what you are preaching rather than telling others to do as you say, not as you do.
​
Becoming the best version of yourself mentally and physically isn’t selfish, it’s inspirational!

It’s not about losing Kilograms. It’s about gaining strength and a sense of confidence to love yourself no matter what number is on the scale.

‘I don’t like my body’ is a sentence that we come across every day. In today’s day and age if you ask someone to name 20 things they don’t like about themselves it will be answered with no hesitations. Ask the same person to name 10 things they like about themselves and you’ll be hit with countless ‘umms and ahhs’.

Being insecure about your body is not something only experienced by one person. Even though it may feel like you’re the only person who does experiences it, there is a huge percentage of the population who suffer from these negative self-perceptions.

It affects both men and women. With social media and touched up photos constantly in everyone’s face it’s not hard to see why everyone has no idea what to think about their bodies.

Most of these issues are based around the visual representation of the person’s body. Instead, if you start to look at the functionality and strength of your body it can lead to massive positive changes in your self-perception.

Changing focus from the visual to the functional can help you stop obsessing about instant results on the scales, and in-turn help avoid crash dieting. Instead, it turns your focus towards how your body is performing and feeling.

Noticing your back doesn’t hurt anymore; you can do movements ‘X,Y and Z’ with more freedom; you feel stronger; look healthier (not just skinnier); notice how the food you’re eating affects how you’re feeling and enjoying food again without guilt; are just some of the positive side effects that can occur with a switch in mindset.

The functional perception of yourself also contributes to a healthy and positive mindset because you are focused on making small wins across multiple areas of your life. Just like a wall, you start to rebuild your broken and negative head space brick by brick with positive thoughts collected from your small wins. With increased functionally your confidence starts to build as well.

As your confidence grows you learn to push yourself that little bit harder, set bigger goals, attempt things you previously didn’t think possible and enjoy life more! You worry less about the small things because you’re confident in your own skin.
 

Exercising leads to an ‘I Can attitude’ (I can’t do that + exercise = I can do that)

You see someone lift 100kg.
I see some who started with just the bar. 

You see someone run a marathon.
I see that person starting by just walking around the block. 

You see an amazing weight loss before and after.
I see momentum, built gram-by-gram.

Only seeing the end result of hard work is deceptive. You only see the joy and elation of results or the train of momentum at full speed that makes people look superhuman. You don’t get to see all those little challenges each and every one faces on their fitness journey.

If you take someone who wants to run a marathon but hasn’t run in years. They usually don’t look at that 42.2km distance and go I can do that easy, it’s daunting prospect and on day one they may doubt whether they can achieve their goal or not. What they can do is start by walking around the block. Starting with something they ‘can do’. Then they walk 2 laps, 3 laps, 4 laps… From walking to jogging, from jogging to running further. Building the belief that ‘I Can’ with every step, bit by bit.

This momentum doesn’t happen overnight and doesn’t come without moments of questioning your ‘I can’ do attitude toward each of those mini goals. Being able to look back from where you started to where you are gives you the confidence to keep moving forward through new challenges.

Exercising is about building your capabilities slowly, piece by piece to ensure the risk of injuries is minimized and your body is able to adapt to the gradual increased stresses. The stresses are not only physical, each step forward is a small mental win too, until you build yourself mentally to a point of relentless forward momentum.

Pick an end goal. Break it all the way down to a starting point, a point where you believe ‘I Can’.

Do that and start from there. If you don’t know how to break down your big goal to that starting point. Lets have a chat - Izzy@Jonesbrothersgym.com

The only person you can’t lie to is yourself.
You can lie convincingly enough to anyone and everyone else about things going on in your life, you can tell them;
“I eat well”
“I’m working out hard”
“I don’t usually eat this”
“I only drink on weekends”
And they won’t know they difference.
Some people spend so much energy trying to convince and justify mistruths their actions that they never take responsibility for them. If you’re able to distance yourself from the responsibility of your actions, you are able to blame other people or things for the outcomes because you have no ownership of the what you are actually doing.
We have all met people who said they were going to ‘get in shape’, but because of this reason or that reason it was just ‘impossible’ for them to be able to do it.
Now I get that everybody lives busy lives in today’s day and age, but it’s still amusing to see that you can always find extra hours in the day to do more work or watch that TV show. People who lack the funds to invest into their health even though they money spend money on things that will bring only momentary satisfaction (*cough* multiple days of brunch).
Why? The lie isn’t that getting in shape and getting your health in order is ‘impossible’, it’s people are terrified of getting uncomfortable. People don’t like getting uncomfortable because it shows them up in the most brutally honest way. It’s a chance for people to learn how to understand themselves and how they honestly react in tough situations.
Getting your health in order isn’t just about the physical actions taken. It’s a journey of self-discovery through your mental strength too. This can be more comforting than the physical side of the journey as you learn what you are made of.
You may have this persona of a tough guy but find you break a lot earlier under physical stress than you thought, or alternatively you may think that you can’t do this or there’s no way you could lift that and find out that you are more than capable of completing tasks that at face value scared you.
You can take peace of mind in all of this by acknowledging that the same ups and downs that you encounter are the same ones that everyone else in the gym or classes are experiencing or have experienced. We are all in it together, there are no shortcuts, only hard work.
So stop lying to yourself and join in with all the other people getting uncomfortable to healthier and happier life.

The magic of exercise is that it can make a shitty day disappear.

We all know that life is forever changing. From the weather, to the mood your kids woke up in, to working through a rough patch with your partner etc, you don’t know what each and every day will throw at you. Each day brings with it a new combination of good and bad.
The beauty of weights is a 20kg will always be a 20kg plate, the beauty of kilometres is that 1km is always 1000m. It doesn’t matter if its Monday 5am, Thursday 5pm or Sunday they will always be the same.

Have you ever been on a run and spent the run having a conversation in your head about a particular issue only to finish and feel at ease with yourself because you worked through it? Or gone for a run and been able to switch off completely and just enjoy the world around you?
Have you ever put a heavy barbell on your back and been able to move it without having all your focus on getting it down and back up? Gone into the gym pissed off and angry, moved some heavy weight around and left calm and relaxed?

We could talk about the science behind how exercise makes you feel better, but I won’t. The magic of exercise turning shitty days into good days comes from the simplicity of it channelling your focus for the 15, 30, 45, 60+mins you are moving.

Channelling your focus through your movement allows your mind to switch off from the outside world and deal with the issues you are facing without distraction.

Taking time away from a shitty moment to do exercise will not only help you physically, but mentally. It can change your whole outlook for the day by allowing you to step away from a situation and revaluate it. Achieve some clarity with a clear head without the distractions of the noise of the outside world.
​
All it takes is a change in your state by simply getting your body moving and building up a sweat. The magic of exercise comes to life in its ability to take your mind and body from a negative state to a positive one, giving you space to change your outlook for the whole day!

“I’m not an athlete anymore, I’m too old for that”
Just because you aren’t an athlete anymore doesn’t mean you can’t get still get the same sense of achievement from physical activity that you did in your “Glory days”.
When you played a sport the sense of achievement came from having goals when you played. Usually they came in the form of short term goals – win the quarter, beat your opponent, win the game etc – and long term goals like winning the championship.
That euphoric feeling of accomplishing those goals through the preseason, training and game-day gave you a sense of purpose for being active.
When most people stop playing sports for whatever reason that maybe work, kids etc they usually think they will never recapture those moments and feelings of pure joy of accomplishing those goals that are set within their chosen sport.
But you can get these same feelings of accomplishment in a fitness setting also. Setting goals for your fitness and accomplishing them, mastering new movements, running faster, lifting more weight than you have before. These can all give you the same euphoric sense of achievement that you had on the sporting field.