About two years, I met up with a friend from high school who I hadn’t seen in a while. His name is Howard Panes. We met up at a health club I was training at called Can Do Fitness in Short Hills NJ.

Howie is the truly passionate owner of How Fit in Livingston NJ, a top notch personal training studio that offers a truly one of a kind training experience. He is is a very successful guy, and is entrepreneurial in fitness.

At the time, he was training a client outside his own facility, with a product called the NRG Ball. This is a product that Howie (as I call him) developed.

I didn’t want to interrupt him, but as friends who go way back, I took an interest in what he was up to. The guy he was training, was having a ball (literally) with this thing and really challenging himself. I notice that his workout was not long yet it was clear he was taking his fitness level to a whole new level in those 15 minutes or so I watched.

Of course, my interest was peaked. I had a lot of experience by then with portable fitness equipment and I was determined to have my NRG Ball experience.

That was before my Flip Camcorder so I didn’t film the experience, but I have to tell you; having been in or around the fitness industry for a long period of time, and experiencing so many different fitness devices, this one was true a good one.
Maybe it was the focus on core, it’s grip, the ability to do anything from a push up to new movements I had never experienced before. Whatever it was, I was both challenged and intrigued.

Today, I am incorporating NRG Ball training into my life, for a variety of reasons.

1. It’s my fried Howie’s product (I’m honest)
2. It’s challenging, from a push up to new movements I’ve never tried.
3. It’s anywhere, anytime! (I love that).

Read about it and try it out.

He’s got a bunch of videos up there that are great; just click on exercises.

We’re going to do an NRG Ball Transformation Challenge pretty soon, so gets some practice and have fun.

~ JAM

Brief, Intense and Consistent

Ironically, most people are simply out of alignment with all three of these concepts and that’s why they are not Fit for Success!

What do they do?

They think they need to exercise for long periods of time, as if more was better. They do "slow boring cardio", and the same exercises as yesterday, at the same weight, for "4 sets of 10 reps"… same thing they did last week. They don’t challenge themselves and things never change, like their body.

This bores the living daylights out of most people and because they over train, they can’t sustain. They get depleted, on top of everything else in their life and naturally they don’t see the results they want.

This combination of over training, feeling depleted and poor results, ultimately means inconsistency.

Sound familiar?

What people forget is that fitness in todays day and age is "mass bodybuilding" and obsessive for a variety of reasons I can’t get into in this post. I am a former bodybuilder and know this obsession. I’ll post a few pictures of old in my next post. Yet still to this day I embody the desire to build my body, but I know the principles at play and they don’t define how I stay fit on a day to day basis.

My goals are different.

See my recent posts on the subject.

Bodybuilders have building their body as a sort of business as their goal.  And athletes too have sport as their occupation! This is not the case for the person who’s business may be marketing, or construction or something else; who sees fitness as something they maintain in their life, not the goal itself. They want high levels of fitness, but still fitness is not the goal itself like it is in bodybuilding and sport.

Now anyone who knows me, knows that I teach athletic principles for healthy goal achievement, in Performance Lifestyle training, and the one thing I do to be succesful at this is, is I change the context.

Fitness principles in the context of goal achievement outside of body building or sporting endeavors are applied similarly, but very different at the same time. Major shifts take place in mode and expectations.

The reason so many people are unsuccessful maintaining their fitness is because they don’t understand fitness in the context of life and lifestyle where the goals are not ripped bodies and sporting success. You can have both, but in order to have both you need the lifestyle that supports the outcomes and this is what most people don’t have!

It’s very difficult to train like a bodybuilder or sports athlete on top of an already full schedule, that is not set up to support the the outcomes these people seek. Your lifestyle has to support in every way, the outcomes you seek, if it doesn’t you will not be able to "stick with it".

You don’t have to stick with stuff in an effortful way, what your lifestyle supports. That will happen naturally.

The reason why brief, intense and consistent are the 3 magic words in fitness, is this… for the people who’s business is outside bodybuilding and sports, it is the only sustainable way train and maintain the levels of fitness you want.

When you don’t understand these 3 magic words, chances are you are struggling with obsessiveness  in an attempt to overcome fatigue, and poor results.

Manage Your Energy Like a Pro!

JAM

John Allen Mollenhauer is the founder the Performance Lifestyle community where every day achievers learn to manage their energy like pro’s, to achieve their goals in life, business and sport in healthier more successful ways. As a former athlete, and worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen Mollenhauer (aka “JAM”) helps you optimize your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results, even if you are not into sports or a fitness enthusiast. He is the creator of Performance Lifestyle Training and Group Coaching. Unleash Your Full Potential, to Perform, Look and Feel Better and Achieve Your Goals!

If anyone ever tells you that working out is all about fat loss or muscle building, they have a very limited scope of thinking on the subject of fitness.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a blast from the past, literally.

I used to be a body builder and they were some of the most incredible times of my life… I love the community, I loved building muscle, I love the comradery amongst my friends at the gym.

I owned Olympia Fitness Center back then and it was a blast!

Then I broadened my horizons and learned all about health and fitness… yes I said fitness, because bodybuilding is about neither. I suppose you could say that you are healthier than a large section of the population as a bodybuilder, which you are, but you are anything but "healthy" and shapely, yes… fit… not quite.

As you may know bodybuilding is about building muscles, it’s not about fitness, at least not the kind of fitness we are talking about when you’re Fit for Success, and engage in the basic training plan for the Performance Lifestyle.

For a while I really got down on bodybuilding because as I learned more about health and fitness and the real purpose in thinking, living and training as a Healthy High Achiever, I saw all the bad things in bodybuilding and really beat it up over the years.

What I forget was all the other great things about body building and the community that I was apart of for so long added to my life. First, I loved the hard core environment and when I left it. I left a piece of me behind.

It was nearly 15 years I let that happen and now I know it really affected me.

While I’m not saying "train at a hardcore bodybuilding gym", I am saying that there is more to training than fat loss and muscle building. Both are great, but there is still more…

Two months ago, I met up with a friend I haven’t seen in years to train at a Diamond Gym in Maplewood NJ and I can’t tell you how much of a full circle experience it was as a 40 year old (birthday, October 5th, 2008) to come back to my roots. It changed my life in a good way. It awakened the hard core part of me, that I had been missing for some time, and it enabled me to experience the comradery, that exists in a gym like this, unlike any other gym type can deliver.

Bodybuilders are really there. They are fully present and loving their gym experience. It’s high intensity training, it’s committed, it’s fully engaged and I love it!

Where and how you train and with whom, all the dynamics involved affect your personal growth, awareness and social life. I really value that and I trust you will too.

When you are Fit for Success, you can train anywhere and build in many types of training into your lifestyle. That’s part of what makes it so exciting, so practical and exciting. I did that that two months ago, by adding in a handful of workouts each month at Diamond Gym.

And yes, I experienced some fat loss, and building building, because when you put on muscle, the after burn affect is incredible. And you feel amazing.

In my next post I will be putting up some photos of my bodybuilding days of old.

Till then,

Live Like a Pro,

~JAM,

John Allen Mollenhauer is the creator of Fit for Success a Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever – Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

As founder of www.MyTrainer.com, I get around to a number of training facilities and because I learn so much about training, I like to try many different forms. For starters, the cross training and social benefits are awesome, and I have always found that various forms of fitness build on each other.

Well, recently, I met up with an old friend and we starting training together at what was at one time a rival gym to one that I owned here in new Jersey; it’s called Diamond Gym; one of the most authentically hard core training facilities in the country.

The exercise machines, I’m not kidding (and to it’s credit) have not been replaced in some 30 years. It’s hard core. Yes they now have a second floor that has everything from cardio equipment to step aerobics, but the main floor is like muscle beach. Just like my old gym with body building pictures everywhere, including Arnold!

I haven’t been in a gym like this in 15 years, at least, maybe more. I used to be a competitive bodybuilder and when I was done, I was DONE!

But never say never, or forget your roots. These are my roots and this is the kind of place where I first learned how to train. And how wonderful it was to train like I used to.

For now, this feels right, because exercise and training is always about much more than exercise and training; it’s about the social, psychological and personal development that comes with it. Always remember this!

This training is right for all those aspects of my life right now, including the full circle experience that comes with it. It has enlivened, awakened a part of me, that can only come out in a place like this. If you’ve never experienced coming into a gym like this, just for the heck of it, try it, even it your conscious mind says "that’s not for me".

The people are wonderful, no matter how big or intimidating (looking) they may be. They are people, and they respect you no matter what you’re experience or size. They will help you I’m sure.

It will also bring something out in you; something you may have never experienced before. Like say… the animal that you are.

Here are a few video’s of my recent training experience. 
 

  Live, and Train, like a Pro!

 John Allen Mollenhauer is the creator of Fit for Success a Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever – Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

Recently I was asked to share my thoughts in an article for SheKnows.com, on the benefits of Super Slow, a method of maximizing the results of your training in the shortest period of time, while improving safety.

The article is titled: Get Super Fit with Super slow Resistance Training. Go Super Slow on Weight Lifting.

Here are some of the highlights:

What if someone told you there was a way you could do a strength-training workout just once a week, for a mere 30 minutes, and look and feel as if you’d been hitting the gym five out of seven days? You would either scoff – or you would be completely on-board to ditch your seemingly endless hours at the gym for an abbreviated – but just as effective – workout protocol.

Read on to learn more about superslow resistance training. ~ Jen Karetnick

David Landau, a HIT trainer in Florida, adds, “This system of physical training is cost effective for those who truly want to benefit. It involves quality over quantity for the exact amount of exercise you require – no more, no less.”

Read more

John Allen Mollenhauer is the creator of Fit for Success a Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever – Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!