“If you are the smartest, healthiest, wealthiest, or
happiest person in the room, you are in the wrong room.”
This quote takes last weeks’ quote and takes it to a whole other level! If last week’s quote appealed to you, this will crank that up a notch and create the pursuit for success. Since this challenge is about health, we will focus on that, but this can be applied in any aspect of your life. If you want to become a truly healthier person, as we said before you need to start being around people who are also interested in health. The next step to that is being aware of what you are comparing yourself to. Hopefully the day will come when you are one of the healthiest people around and it is difficult to find someone more persistent than you, but for the time being, you need to constantly push yourself and make sure you do not become complacent. If you are the wealthiest person in the room, that must make you feel good, right? But what if everyone else in the room is broke. Even though they are “interested” in wealth, they are not good at it! Now put yourself in a room with millionaires. You are not only associating with people who have similar interests, but people who are successful at them! Therefore, if you are interested in become healthy, do not always be the most knowledgeable person around. Find people who know more than you so you can constantly continue to learn and become better! Constantly try to get better until, to your knowledge, there is no one smarter in that field. Imagine where you will end up! With fitness have the same approach. It feels great to be the best built in the gym, but what if your gym is made up of seniors and little children? I know that is a stretch but you understand my point. Once you have found the right group to associate with, constantly strive for greatness to make sure you do not get left behind. Do not ever stop learning.
Exercise of the Week – Pull Down
If you remember, week 3 we mentioned how complex the back was when referring to performing rows. The pull down has the same concept, except in a vertical plane rather than horizontal. The main muscles worked during the pull down are your lats; the biggest muscles in your upper body. Just as the shoulders are so often neglected at the extremes of the range of motion, so too are the lats during a pull down. As always, keep those traps down and concentrate on flexing those massive muscles on both sides of your back.
The important things to note about performing a pull down correctly are:
- Keep your core engaged, while disengaging your traps (shoulders down)
- Use your back muscles to pull the weight, not just your arm
- Engage different muscles in order to strengthen and build your entire back.
- Drop the weight to gain strength through the entire range of motion
- Keep the lats engaged at the top of the rep; do not like them “rest” (below, left)
More on the Pull Down: Some sort of lat pull down or cable machine is needed to perform the exercise. When you have built enough strength to lift your own body weight, a pull up (right) is a great way to advance. Make sure that your form stays strict and you bring the bar as close to your chest as possible, as shown. If you are still too week to maximize your range of motion, used an assisted pull up machine or the pull down machine until you are strong enough to keep good form. There are other ways to use your legs as momentum to help perform a pull up (known as a kip up) but they are more specific to particular types of training.
Nutritional Tip:
Do not join animal protein and flour-based products.
Our bodies are so complex, many times it is difficult to realize why we feel the way we do. The days of simply eating whatever we want and not knowing why we feel crappy are over. The knowledge is out there if you are willing to look. One of the most interesting theories that has helped so many people feel better after they eat is food combinations. We are not going to get into the actual science of why, but certain foods do not mix well with others when they enter your body. I will agree that a fat hamburger on a huge bun with all of the fixins tastes “good”. (I have good in parentheses because we hope your mind changes over the course of the challenge). However, enjoying a meal should not only be the three and a half minutes it takes you to devour the burger. Being able to enjoy a meal and walk away not feeling absolutely bloating and tired, in my opinion, is a much more enjoyable meal; especially if you are out somewhere and will be enjoying the rest of the afternoon. So instead of completely cutting out something from your diet, just trying to split things up so you can enjoy both sides on their own.
“What does your ALTERA Life look like?”
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www.alteralife.com
cforce@alteralife.com