The Deliberate Thinker
Want to learn how to think like a Champion? I can tell you exactly how I became a World Champion Bodybuilder. I became one first in the way I think. There were many elements that went into this and over time I will begin to explain exactly what to do. So stay tuned!
I have mentored many in how to think like a Champion by phone and Skype. Distance doesn't have to limit your success.
My Concept of "The Experiment of One"
What is the experiment of one?
It is the journey that begins with the statement that Dr. Franco Colombu made many years ago. He said, and I quote,
“Each man is a rule unto himself”.
That said, what lies ahead of all of us is the quest to discover what works for us.
So why do we ask others questions that only we can truly answer?
Because we are looking for answers, and we think that someone else has them. Someone who is an expert.
It is however, important to know the basics. We should first know how to exercise. After that, what’s the best workout? The best rep range? The best meal plan? The best anything?
Carlos Talks About The Experiment of One
The answers to those questions are what you and I will discover as we conduct the experiment of one.
This may be hard to believe right now, but I’m going to show you how this applies in every other part of our lives, most of us just didn’t realize it.
Not one of you reading this post has any problem with going to a clothier picking out a suit from a rack then having a tailor custom fit it to your body. Not one of you would have a problem going to a shoe store and finding a pair of shoes that fit your feet. Would you buy a pair that doesn’t fit you? Of course not. But you would purchase an exercise course that works for someone else.
It took me about one set to realize back in the 70’s that the then “state of the art” equipment that was the last word in exercise was made for someone but it wasn’t made for me. I couldn’t use them. The equipment was awkward and painful to my joints. I tried to find a way to use these machines but they just weren’t made for my body type. What was I to do? I built my own, and the ones I built- they worked!
If I would have had a mentor it would have cut years off of my “experiment”. I didn’t so I learned by trial and error what worked for me.
Who are you physically? Where are you physically? What works for you? What do you respond to (at this point in your life?) How often should you exercise?
This is what we will discover together.
Why do well intentioned, goal oriented hard working people fail in their attempts at fitness?
Did you know that fewer than 10% of people who make New Year’s Resolutions actually achieve them?
It is one thing to have a “goal” in mind, or something that we truly desire and would like very much to achieve, yet it is another thing to actually realize that goal. More often than not these desires usually go unfulfilled and unachieved.
Why?
Was it because we really didn’t want them?
Was it because we lacked discipline?
Was it a question of true commitment?
Usually the real reasons are:
We don’t always know how to get to where we want to go from where we are. Or what that encompasses in terms of time resources and effort.
Our Focus. If we don’t know what it takes to make our desires appear it is easy to lose our focus and interest.
The “End Result” is what we want to achieve.
As a result our primary focus needs to be the daily involvement in that process that brings our desires closer to us. Otherwise chasing the “goal” may become an elusive undertaking.
We may not be familiar with the stages of the process that is needed – and as a result we can become discouraged
Usually there is a need for more information. Failure causes discouragement and lack of confidence.
Clearly Identify Your End Result
What do you actually want?
Preparation
How do you get ready?
The Road Map
How do you get there? And what are the land marks that let me know I’m on the right track?
Action To Take – Primary Focus
The actual activity or daily assignment
End Result Realized
What you desired has been drawn to yourself by putting into action 1 to 4. What you want will come to you as you continue to be involved in the daily process!
Together we will discover the best way for you to 1) Identify, 2) Prepare, 3) Map, 4) Act on your end result.
So that what you desire can come to you.
My Concept of "The Larger Engine"
When it comes to illustrating how Strength Training works the best picture I can give is that of comparing a bus to a car. It is a fact that a larger muscle is a stronger muscle when it is on the same person, on the same frame. Those same larger muscles also consume more calories when in use, while exercising, and even at rest.
A parallel example is the bus and the car illustrated here. The larger engine of the bus is more powerful than the smaller engine of the car, and it uses more fuel while in use and even when idling.
The parallel looks like this:
• The larger engine is stronger = the larger muscles are stronger.
• The larger engine burns more fuel in use than a smaller engine = a larger muscle burns more calories in use than a smaller muscle.
• The larger engine burns more fuel even while idling = a larger muscle burns more calories at rest than a smaller muscle.
Realistically that means that if one increases muscle size, the muscle size increase alone can actually burn more fuel, more body fat even at rest!
We know that the smaller engine of the car will not transform itself into the larger engine of the bus, so how can we transform our smaller muscles into larger muscles?
The most effective means of increasing muscle mass and strength is the proper application of progressive resistance. As we exercise with weights and other different forms of resistance, our muscles adapt from the use, once they adapt we gradually increase the resistance and with proper rest, nourishment, and recovery we increase the strength and as a result the size of our muscles. We can do what the car cannot do. We can change our strength, size and even appearance with the proper application of progressive resistance.
This is why it’s a good thing when we welcome the increase in resistance because what it really means is that we have mastered the present exercise and are now moving on to greater gains in strength, size or appearance- whatever the end result is that we have set. The process whereby we accomplish our end result is to continue to do what produces the results that we desire.
So while cardiovascular or aerobic type exercise is excellent for endurance and health, the addition of strength training can actually help burn even more body fat.
Writing an Affirmation Journal
Affirmation Journal – Getting Started
Saved by a PPA. What’s a PPA? Stay with me, don’t go away.
This blog comes at the request of past and present clients. I have not taken this upon myself. I have been asked to write and to share my philosophy, beginning with an Affirmation Journal.
Here’s the thing we all face.
We are tooling along because we have made our PRW’s, (Powerful Reasons Why) and we all know that this is great—it’s what grounds us, gives us direction, courage, fortitude, and structure so that we can have an emotional link to our goals.
So here we are and my PRW is on my computer, and that’s good. And so I write about it, I blog about it and I tell others about it, and I’m highly motivated by it (them).
Then I step outside and I meet something I didn’t think I was going to encounter. And no one has prepared me for this.
It’s something that is threatening to take me off course. A total surprise. Wasn’t I just SO motivated a moment ago?
What does it really look like to “expect the unexpected”? What does that mean? This saying is really a platitude. Empty words don’t really help us in the moment that we really need help and a remedy.
It’s in these moments that what we need to know is how to think on our feet. Can someone teach us how to do that? Can someone actually teach us how to think when were faced with a situation where we really don’t know what to do? I say,
YES!
That’s what a mentor does. A mentor is going to teach us how to think when we don’t know what to do.
There’s the answer.
So now you can say:
“Before my mentor spoke to me I didn’t know how to face my next challenge that I didn’t know was coming. But my mind is now framed by,
‘I was taught to slow things down and make an analysis of the situation and ask myself ‘what just happened?’,
what is my challenge and what is my response or remedy?”
These are the two things we need to determine.
1. What just showed up- what is my challenge?
2. How do I remedy that?
Because the words of that remedy will be my next Personal Powerful Affirmation (PPA). I have a whole book full of them, maybe 90 hand-written and type written pages. These PPA’s kept me motivated, kept me on track with my goals and dreams, and taught me how to respond to the surprises of life that (always) come.
So now I know how to think.
I know how to take cover or duck when “life” throws me a curve ball. I know what to do! I am no longer a victim, no longer held hostage to lack of knowledge- I’ve got a plan. That’s what’s going to help me and it’s also going to help me write my next PPA.
This will help keep me on track with my PRW.
So we really need to be taught how to think, we don’t need a long list of rules, we don’t need platitudes, we need to know how to think when we don’t know what to do.
We need to know how to think so that our minds can be conditioned to know what to do with that situation I didn’t expect, so that I can survive what just happened to me rather than reeling from that last hit I took- now that’s powerful!
Why is it powerful?
It’s powerful because it addresses my most recent challenge, distraction, hindrance, fear.
It’s powerful because it’s the truth.
It’s powerful because it’s personal.
It’s personal because it happened to me. You see it’s OK to use some one else’s affirmation- but this one is personal, this one just happened to me.
And I have been taught now how to write a remedy.
And it’s an affirmation!
af-fir-ma-tion 1 the act of affirming 2 something affirmed; positive declaration; assertion 3 Law a solemn declaration, but not under oath
So I will write this in my journal and I will read it out loud and repeat it over and over, because now I know how to think.
Instead of giving in to an impulse, or letting circumstances beat me up. I now know how to fight back and I have found out that it works!
And the repetition of reading it out loud on a daily basis, or many times a day, until I internalized it, helped me to overcome my fears, my doubts, and my failings. That’s why I have so many of them—there are lots of things that can challenge us. But one by one I was able to overcome them because these affirmations changed me. They helped me change how I thought. I became a different person because of them.
It helped me to have an idea of how to re-frame how I think about what just showed up.
I now know how to think when I don’t know what to do.
Oh, man that’s powerful. This meant that I experienced a measure of success, and I am a changed person going into my next challenge, and I didn’t look back on a series of defeats, I began to look back on a series of triumphs and successes!
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. This affirmation came about when I was faced with the question of the value of my nutrition. I wrote this to myself and read it over and over and over again. When I believed it, how I made food choices became automatic. But every now and again I would go back and read it again to reinforce this truth into my life. This PPA reinforced and enhanced my goals or PRWs as we call them today.
It does not take the place of a PRW, it reinforces our PRW’s.
“Think!”
Think your ideal physique into being! Think nourishment to the body when eating, SEE the body transform because of the food and exercise. Set in motion the chemical reaction that will cause change to take place in your body, through the mind by thought. Positive thought (faith) has the power to change even the body chemistry! To affect the total outcome of the evolution of your physique!—Carlos
I’ve shared with you how to think. Now I encourage you to take each challenge and offer a remedy (PPA) and write it down in your Affirmation Journal. Now take this PPA with you everywhere you go, for as long as it takes to make this remedy a working truth in your life. This process will change who you are so that you can realize your dreams, because now you know how to think like a champion.
One More:
“Transformation”
It’s happening right NOW! It’s going to keep happening! CHANGE, newness. Every day every minute you are changing. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, as a caterpillar as he enters the cocoon and waits patiently for his transformation into a butterfly. Still the same being but DRAMATICALLY changed into a beautiful creature. A new CREATION yet the same being. Its happening, you are changing constantly. A little here, a little there, until finally you emerge with a completely different appearance. The same person yet transformed; more beautiful, more refined, more complete, better perfected. A new physique! Out of the mass comes shape and form and detail, and a newness of development. It’s happening right NOW! – Carlos
Metamorphosis Gr meta, denoting change, and morph, form, shape. Change of form shape or structure; transformation, the alterations which an animal undergoes after its exclusion from the egg, and which ALTER extensively the general life of the individual; such changes as those from the caterpillar to the perfect butterfly. !! – Webster
Is Losing Weight What You Really Want To Do?
Weight Loss?
Why the question mark? Because weight loss does not truly identify an authentic “end result”. Everything we weigh is weight. Water has weight. Muscle has weight. Body fat has weight. We certainly don’t want to lose valuable muscle tissue, but sometimes that happens on a “weight loss” program. Ideally what we want is to lose as much body fat as possible while still maintaining functional muscle tissue, or even gaining some new muscle.
Here’s what doesn’t happen…
More often than not if you see someone you find attractive, chances are you don’t say to your buddy, “Wow I bet she must weigh like 125 pounds”. My guess is most of us would say, “Wow she really looks good”. Good or not we look at the appearance. As a physique judge I can tell you that bodybuilders are judged by their appearance. And most of the time we are shocked to know what the body weight is and what the measurements are.
Better stated the real end result that most of us would want is to decrease body fat. When we decrease body fat we will lose weight as a result. But more importantly we will change our body composition (and as a result our appearance) to less fat and more functional muscle.
Muscle is functional because it contracts and moves and the more muscle we have the stronger we are and the more we can move. Fat does not flex or contract so it does not add to function