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A manifesto is bigger than fitness. It is bigger than your career. Instead, it is a written declaration of your values and intentions in life and I’d like to share mine with you and finally help you to create your own.
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But first a little backstory…

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A couple months ago I came across a post on the internet about creating a personal manifesto and the concept totally resonated with me.  All too often we get busy with life and it is easy to lose sight of what really matters to us.  Instead we find ourselves driven by different things on different days and we don’t have a predetermined course through life. We get lazy, complacent, and generally end up wasting our lives away with things that truly don’t matter to us. We become subject to the control of our ever-changing thoughts and feelings.  Having a clearly defined set of values gives us the ability to reflect on them and assess if we’re on track in our lives.  As a result, I set aside a couple of hours over a few days and pulled together my own personal manifesto.

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Note:  Below is MY personal manifesto and it represents MY beliefs and values. While the specifics of these are very relevant to me personally, they may not be YOUR beliefs and values. I have shared them here to give you an example of what a manifesto looks like. I don’t intend to entertain any discussion about whether or not you agree with my beliefs and values. My hope, instead, is that taking a look at mine will inspire you to create your own.
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My Personal Manifesto

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I am a man of God.
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I will spend time with him daily by reading his word, and through worship, and prayer. I will allow HIS love to flow through me to all those around me. I will act in faith and believe in his promises. I will behave at all times in a way that is pure and holy. I will make God a priority in our home. I will seek to serve others with a joyful and willing heart.
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I am a family man.
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I will put the needs of my family above my own.  I will lead my family in faith and finance and be strong in times of trial. I will actively love my wife unconditionally, respect her feelings, and work in partnership with her to build a lasting relationship of trust, intimacy, and happiness.
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I will be a patient and kind father and love my daughter unconditionally. I will make time to play when I’m tired and teach her through example and instruction about faith, love, relationships, health, and effort.  I value my family and I put my phone aside when I am with them.
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I value my health.

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I will nourish my body only with nutrients and limit consumption of foods and beverages that jeopardize my health. I will not be a slave to any substance. I will exercise at a challenging intensity no less than two times per week and seek opportunities to be active. I will limit sedentary behavior.

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I always do my best.

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I will seek excellence in all that I do. My time will be spent on things that I value and I will limit time spent on things that serve as distractions.

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I care about my planet.

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I will consider impact to the earth in my decisions about food and products on which I spend my money. I will seek used before new. I will reduce waste, reuse items when possible, and recycle what can be recycled. I will limit accumulation of unnecessary things.

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My life will be an example for others to follow.

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Creating YOUR Personal Manifesto

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Step 1 – Create a List

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The first step in creating a manifesto is to list all of the things that you value in your life.  At this point you don’t need to spend a lot of time figuring out which are the most important, just get them all out on paper (or on the screen if you’re a computer junkie like me).  Take some time to do this.  Ask yourself what you’d like to accomplish before you die.  Think about what you’d like for your family, friends, and colleagues to say about you at your funeral.  Decide what kind of legacy you want to leave.  Make the list as big as you can.

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Step 2 – Pick Your Top 5

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At some point you’re going to need to cut down the list of all the things you’ve listed to the top 5 or 6 things you truly value.  I’d suggest beginning by crossing out the stuff that obviously doesn’t make your top 5 first.  That should narrow things down a bit.  From there, spend some time (even if it takes a few days) to cut away at the list until only the final few remain.

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Step 3 – Expand on Your Values

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Once you’ve narrowed it down to your most important points you’ll want to expand on them so they remind you each time you read them what they really mean to you.  Most importantly, make sure the points tell you what actions you should take or how you should behave to be in line with these values.  And make sure to state everything in the present.  Don’t say “I want to have integrity”.  Say “I have integrity”.

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Step 4 – Read it Every Day

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A personal manifesto is useless if you don’t read it often.  I have mine as a document on my computer desktop and I generally read it the first time I open my computer each day.  I also have a copy in my email so I can read in on my phone and a printed paper copy I can access easily.

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I’ll be the first to admit that I am not even close to being the person I’ve presented in my manifesto, but that is the person I want to become.  And each time I read it and there is some kind of discrepancy between who I am and what I’ve written it highlights for me the changes I need to make in my life.  Most importantly, it keeps me focused on what really matters to me and reminds me when I’ve gotten off track.  I know exactly what my values are so I know exactly where to spend my time.

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I’ve only just begun this process and my life is already beginning to change.  I challenge you to step out and create your own personal manifesto.

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Define and become the person you are meant to be.

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Last week the video below titled “Is Sugar Toxic?” spread around the internet.  To date the video has been shared on Facebook over 4000 times and on Twitter almost 1000 times.

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If you don’t feel like watching entire 15 minute segment I’ll sum it up for you by saying that the video suggests that sugar (with an emphasis on high fructose corn syrup) is responsible for all things evil including obesity, heart disease, strokes, Cancer, and the creation of the Twilight saga.

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In light of the fact that I probably consumed my body weight in Easter chocolate last weekend, the real question that results from watching this clip is whether or not sugar is, in fact, truly toxic.

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So Is Sugar Toxic?

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A key element of toxicology is that the risks of any such substance are dependent on the dose.  Even water (yes, water) can even be toxic if consumed in excess.  With psychiatric disorders like psychogenic polydipsia patients can consume so much water that they dilute the sodium levels in their blood so much they can actually die.

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Toxic substances are generally assigned something called an LD50 (median lethal dose) which is the amount required to kill half the members of a tested population after a specified test duration.  Fortunately for me (after my weekend festivities), the LD50 for sugar is about 30 grams per kilogram of body mass.  For a 200 pound man that would require the consumption of just over 6 pounds of sugar for them to be at risk of acute sugar toxicity.  That probably isn’t very likely.

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Of course, I’m just messing around here and showing off my relatively poor understanding of toxicology.  The risks presented in the video above are mostly discussing the chronic risks of sugar consumption.  However, I still believe that this largely still related to dose more than the fact that sugar is inherently some kind of special substance to be demonized.

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And putting the blame on high fructose corn syrup really isn’t fair either since a recent meta-analysis has demonstrated that “fructose does not seem to cause weight gain when it is substituted for other carbohydrates in diets providing similar calories”.  Another meta-analysis also found that “fructose intake in isocaloric exchange for other carbohydrates significantly decreased diastolic  and mean arterial pressure. There was no significant effect of fructose on systolic blood pressure. The hypercaloric fructose feeding trials found no significant overall mean arterial blood pressure effect of fructose in comparison with other carbohydrates.”

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In short, high fructose corn syrup doesn’t seem to be any worse than other forms of carbohydrates for obesity or blood pressure.  That doesn’t mean it is good for you either and there is still some concern/debate about other issues, but I really think it comes down to how much people are really consuming.

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Further to all these points above though, is the very real fact that telling people sugar is toxic (which I’m not totally in agreement with if the amount consumed is reasonable) probably isn’t going to change anyone’s behavior anyway.  As I’ve stated before, education is only a small part of the solution to most weight/health problems anyway.  Most people eating too much sugar are generally aware of the fact that it isn’t considered a health food.  Blasting them with this information is probably a waste of time when we need to focus on ways of actually getting people to take action on what they already know instead.  Therein lies the solution (and also the problem).

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In Conclusion

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Having a little bit of sugar isn’t going to make your pancreas explode and turn you into an instant diabetic.  A healthy diet combined with exercise can do with a little room for some indulgences once in a while.  If you eat junk all day every day like Snoop Dogg smokes pot then you’ll be in trouble.  But otherwise you don’t need to worry about a few Easter treats.  Don’t let some silly internet video tell you otherwise.

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My regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of assessing my clients so today’s post will come as a little bit of a treat to geeks like me.

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Next week industry experts Mike Robertson, Eric Cressey, BJ Gaddour, and Dave Schmitz are going to be launching a virtual mentorship program for trainers and coaches.  As a teaser they’ve released a video to show a sample of the type of content they’ll be providing.  It is literally a 37 minute information packed staff training talk given by Eric Cressey on lower body assessment filmed live at Cressey performance.  I just finished watching it and thought it was excellent.

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I really liked the fact that Eric discussed the need to use both general AND specific assessments and he’s goes to great lengths to cover almost every lower body assessment you might need.  He also talks about the several possible reasons for the  failure of various tests like the Thomas test and the active straight leg raise and what each of these mean with respect to programming.

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If you want to watch the video for free you can check it out HERE.

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I should say that you’re going to need to enter your email to acquire access to the video, but I think the video is worth it.  The audio is also a little difficult to hear in some parts due to some background noise so I’d recommend using earphones or turning up the sound a little bit to hear it clearly.  I’m actually going to shoot them a note to see if this can be improved in the future for the mentorship program by having the presenters wear microphones.  Regardless, the video is totally worth checking out.

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Complete Lower Body Assessment Video by Eric Cressey

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In addition to this video, a former intern at Cressey Performance named Eric Oetter has written a great guest blog post HERE on one further test that wasn’t covered in the video.  Combined, I think the information here is very valuable and you should definitely check it out.

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Enjoy!

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If you’re a personal trainer you’ve undoubtedly heard (or probably said) the following sentence:

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“Man…if I could only get clients that followed everything I told them to do they would all get incredible results.  Why can’t they just listen to me?!?  Why don’t they just do what I tell them?”

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After all, they are paying you good money to tell them what to do, right?  Your job is to seek out the best training and nutrition information and convey it to them and their job is simply to follow it!

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Of course, regular readers of this blog know that I don’t agree with this position and that I believe most times it isn’t knowledge that limits the success of our clients, but the application knowledge.  And while can debate the relative importance 6 meals per day versus 2 meals per day (probably nothing in my opinion), the reality is that this doesn’t make a lick of difference to our clients because they’re just struggling to put anything we say into action.

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I’ve said before that I think psychology trumps physiology for fat loss and muscle gain in most of our clients.  I have also discussed the concept of creating behavior change being one of the biggest missing elements in the skill sets of most trainers.  Well…recently my colleague Dr. John Berardi, owner of one of the world’s largest body transformation companies, put out 4 incredible (and free) videos that illustrate the importance of this area and provide insight on how it should be done.

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If you are a personal trainer, strength coach, or even someone who is seeking to create change in their own life, these videos are an absolute MUST.  If I had to hire and train a trainer to work for me right now, these would honestly be some of the first videos I would have them watch (they are THAT good).

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Of course, embedding has been disabled for these videos so I can’t add them right here in this post, but I’d highly recommend you check out each of the links below to see the videos.

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The Compliance Solution – Part 1

The Compliance Solution – Part 2

The Compliance Solution – Part 3

The Compliance Solution – Part 4

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In the interest of transparency, these videos are a lead in to the sign up for of Precision Nutrition’s Personal Training Certification, but this is only mentioned briefly in the 4th video.  You do not have to enter your email to view the videos and I make no money if you do decide to sign up.  I honestly just think these are some of the best videos I’ve seen in regards to personal training that I’ve seen in years.

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For those who are personal trainers (and are considering launching an information product in the future), this video series is a shining example of how to launch a product while not selling your soul and making audacious claims about total nonsense.  JB is a class act and the information he provides here is top notch.

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Enjoy!

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I have written numerous times in the past that, in many cases, it isn’t necessarily the magic of a specific program that brings about results, but the consistency with which a person is able to stick to that program.  If the program is reasonable and the person follows it relatively closely, results should follow.

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So to me, getting results is just as often about overcoming barriers that get in the way of sticking to a program as it is about having the “right” program.   When a barrier gets in the path of any plan and that barrier is not addressed, consistency can fall off and results immediately begin to suffer.

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Dealing With Pain

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I recently wrote about the fact that I’ve moved to a new facility in a different city and have begun establishing a brand new personal training clientele.  Of the first 7 people I started training 4 reported having a history of some sort of back pain and one even had an acute bout as a result of a yoga class preventing him from training for over a week (it turns out that he was having a lot of discogenic pain and is very intolerant to flexion).  This means that 57% of my new clients have some experience or history with back pain!!!

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Now some would argue that it is not a trainer’s job to diagnose and treat back pain, and I generally agree.  I most often refer clients out to professionals who are more suited to deal with such problems.  However, I do feel very strongly that a fitness professional should be able to work around pain and, more importantly, be able to prevent such pain from recurring as much as is possible.

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When a client is in pain their workouts suffer, their results suffer, often they deviate from their nutritional guidelines out of frustration, and if they miss workouts, you could potentially lose the money you would have earned during that training spot.  And if they’re not getting results, you’re not getting referrals either!  Back pain robs your clients of results and can rob your wallet.

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That said, my friend John Izzo has recently rereleased his Shatterproof Spine product as a downloadable video and I think that this is an excellent resource for trainers to learn how to manage low back pain and prevent future occurrences in their clients.  John has (like me) been training clients for over a decade and he’s gone a ton of experience dealing with clients of all kinds.

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Attached to this are two fantastic bonuses.  The first an ebook that will help you identify at-risk back pain sufferers with 5 simple drills and the second is a 30 minute downloadable video titled “Eye of the Trainer” that covers the art assessing 7 specific exercises as they relate to back pain.  I really enjoyed this one actually.

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If you’d like to be able to crush this barrier for your clients, keep them out of pain, get them results, and maintain your income then this product is definitely worth viewing and I highly recommend it.

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Shatterproof Spine <== Check it out here!

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A little while back I posted the following video on my Facebook because it got me pretty fired up and I wanted to stimulate some discussion.

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Literally within the first minute fitness guru Paul Chek states that “cardiovascular exercise is one of the most dangerous things you can do”.  He then goes on to suggest that the cortisol response from cardio is going to be detrimental to your health while lifting heavy weights repeatedly is somehow not going to have a similar response (hint: cortisol also rises after resistance training).  He later concludes that your body will adjust to cardiovascular exercise and that the number of calories you can burn will ultimately go down over time and prevent you from being able to lose fat.

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Of course, I find this interesting because I know a few endurance cyclists (and have seen data from cyclists in various labs) and it appears to me that these people are able to generate HUGE wattages on their bikes and burn through far more calories in an hour of cycling than and a novice rider.  Interestingly, I am betting these people are possibly healthier than the novice riders too, but I’m just speculating here.

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Then…to make matters worse, Dr. Mecola goes on to post this article that appeared on Facebook with the title “New Study Shows Cardio Workout May Damage Your Heart”.  The title on the actual page is “One of the Worst Forms of Exercise There is”.  Of course, they’re actually talking about this study which ultimately shows that there are some minor right ventricular changes in athletes who have completed endurance races between 3 and 11 hours.

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Are these really dangerous?  Maybe.  But the reality is that Mercola and his gang are using these changes (and all the stuff from other studies they citied) as surrogate markers for risk of death or cardiac issues which isn’t really a well established relationship.  In fact, part of the conclusion states (with reference to the right ventricular changes) “that the long-term clinical significance of which warrants further study.”

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Further to that, these are people who ran for 3-11 hours straight!  I couldn’t run for 11 hours if I was being chased by Freddy Krueger.  And if I did, you could probably bet that my heart wouldn’t like it.  As with most things in physiology, there is usually some kind of inverted U pattern for improvement.  No stimulus or a very low stimulus provides very little rests.  A mid-range (optimal) stimulus provides better results.  And going too far and really pushing the envelope can result in some sort of decrease in results.  In this case, the type of training for the races might be optimal for performance, but not health.  Truth be told, I’m not sure the results really even tell us that.

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What I do know is that I’ve never seen cardiovascular exercise listed as one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular death.  In fact, a new paper detailing the leading LIFETIME risk factors for cardiovascular disease listed hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes, hypercholesterolemia (high cholesterol), and smoking as the 4 most major risk factors.  Nowhere on that list did I see “doing cardio will kill you” or “cardio will esplode your adrenalzzz”.

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Going a little further down the rabbit hole, there has been plenty of research showing that exercise (including steady state cardio via activities as easy as walking) can improve health.  Heck, you could even do it on a treadmill…in running shoes!  (Yes…I know…blasphemy).  If you have the time I’d suggest you watch Dr. Robert Ross talk about it HERE.  He’s a great speaker with a ton of knowledge and I’d highly suggest you bookmark it if you don’t have time to watch it right now.

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Does this mean I think steady state exercise is incredible for weight/fat loss?  Not necessarily, but there is some evidence to suggest that cardio alone can contribute to weight loss with around 200 minutes per week making a pretty meaningful difference in some studies.  But if you’re familiar with my blog you’ll know (via the link in the previous sentence) that when combined with diet I don’t think what type of exercise you choose (steady state, metabolic workouts, intervals) really makes a difference in terms of fat loss anyway.

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I am not personally a fan of long term steady state activity, as I prefer higher paced superset type workouts in the interest of time and preserving muscle mass during fat loss (with the calorie deficit coming mostly from diet).  However, if you know someone who wants to hop on a treadmill for their 30 minutes of steady state cardio they probably aren’t going to die.  In fact, it might just improve their health.

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Don’t let any internet fearmonger tell you otherwise!

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PS: If you’ve found this useful or are just plain old fed up with people making up stories about the dangers of cardio, please share this post.

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PPS: Using studies that only support your pet theories without examining the entire body of scientific evidence (as was done with the article on the dangers of cardio) is called “cherry picking”.  If you’d like to learn more about how to properly read fitness research you can check out my product HERE.

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As I alluded to in my post yesterday, the past couple of years have resulted in huge perspective shifts for me.  Well…far be it for me to stop the trend of change.  As of mid-December I gave up my position in bariatric medicine and decided to take a big step and move my personal training practice to Toronto.

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I am now part of the personal training team at Medcan which is Canada’s leading preventive healthcare clinic, with over 60 physicians, 240 staff and a 50,000 square foot, state-of-the-art facility, located in the heart of Toronto’s financial district.  They offer a comprehensive health assessment, genetic testing, links with Johns Hopkins Medicine, and a whole host of other incredible services.  The personal training area is complete with turfed areas for drills, sleds for pushing, battle ropes, treatment tables, and even a Bod Pod for body composition testing.  In short, this clinic is AWESOME and I’m ready to kick it into 2012 working with one of the best teams in the country.

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Of course, this means for me that I’ll be commuting on the train or bus back and forth for up to a few hours every day so I’ll have plenty of time to read, write content for the blog, and finally pull together one or two of the projects that have been on my mind for a while.  So if you’re in Toronto and you’re in need of training please contact me at admin@markyoungtrainingsystems.com for pricing and availability.

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Alternatively, if you’re a fitness professional and you’re interested in buying me lunch chatting over coffee shoot me a note and perhaps we can connect.

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Just over two years ago I thought I had it all figured out.  I had a degree in kinesiology, I’d been in the fitness industry for over a decade, trained clients for tens of thousands of hours, and had co-owned a training facility with my incredible wife, and I was up on almost every single fitness and nutrition happening on the planet.  I felt at that time I was ready to finally break out and publish my first articles in major online publications as well as starting to blog on a larger scale (rather than just for my clients).  So I did and this blog was the result of that decision.  I published a few articles, connected with some big names in the industry, starting writing posts, and had a rapidly growing readership.

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Then something happened.

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My wife and I decided to close our training facility so that we could focus a lot less on running a business and more on having a family.  I took a half time position with a Bariatric Medical Program to help treat people with obesity and continued to train some of my personal training clients out of a friend’s facility (as well as maintaining a small group of online training clients).

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I Lost My Voice

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The whole process of becoming a dad, learning more about obesity, getting more in touch with the research I’d been neglecting, and working with clients whose lives had been markedly impacted by their weight created a major perspective shift for me.  I kept trying to write the “same old stuff”, but it became harder and harder to talk about counting calories, carb cycling, and the detailed intricacies of physiology that improve body composition when I was coming to realize more and more that few of these things really matter for the vast majority of the population.  I love them.  They are important.  But not as important as some people would have us believe.  They are the details…and for a lot of people…the details won’t matter a lot until they take care of the bigger issues preventing them from succeeding.

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But when I started to talk about “less sexy” concepts like behavior change, obesity, general health, and slow (rather than idiotically fast resulting in regain) weight loss my readership dropped.  And further to that, I felt like my joking and fun loving personality didn’t really come through in these posts as I was trying to force content on an industry that wasn’t really interested in what I was saying…or at least I thought they weren’t.  In the blog writing world we talk about the way we write as our “voice” and I felt like I had lost mine.

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Getting My Voice Back

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As a result of the perspective change I’d had and the difficulty writing content people wanted to read I slowly decreased my writing to the point where I wasn’t really putting out much at all.  I felt like it wasn’t really reaching people and it certainly wasn’t fun anymore either.  But over the last several months I’ve been thinking a lot about the impact I want to have on this world and this industry and my vision for what I’d like to become is slowly forming.  I feel a passion burning and I KNOW that whether the industry is ready for it or not, it is on me to create a change in whatever way I can for whoever might be listening.  I’ve got my voice back, I know what I’m going to say, and I am going to bring it in 2012.

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I want to thank all of my readers for supporting me (and also making me laugh on Facebook and Twitter in the meantime).  In the coming year I hope to provide you with a steady stream of content to make you think, challenge you, and help you.  I appreciate whatever help you can give me by sharing my stuff along the way so I can reach as many people as possible.

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Let’s get after it!

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The answers ranged from 400 calories to 1200 calories, all the way up to “GET THAT IN MA BELLEH” (with my wife also being a smartass and suggesting that it was 4500 calories – Love you baby).  After taking guesses a dietitian colleague of mine and I independently totalled up the plate using online calorie software.  And interestingly enough, we got totally different answers!

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Her total was 1500 calories whereas mine was closer to 1000.  But when we looked at the reason for the differences they were largely attributable to differences in the estimated sizes of the portions on the plate (we both agreed that the meat was probably pork).  However, the big point here is that whichever estimate you agree with the fact remains that the food on that plate represents far more calories than most people should be consuming in a single meal.  It also means that even trained professionals have a hard time agreeing on quantities when looking at a plate like this.

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With the Christmas season upon us and the number of parties, dinners, and potluck events that will inevitably be a part of it, I think that this plate would actually even be a conservative estimate of intake for a lot of people.  There are almost always pre-dinner treats like veggie trays, hummus, and chocolates kicking around.  An even then a single plate of food might be less than most people eat (you know…try a little of everything and then go back for a second helping of the stuff you really like).  Combine that with the calories from wine, beer, and desserts (you know you HAVE to try at least one slice of each kind of pie right?) and you’ll be consuming a boatload energy that will ultimately be stored as fat.

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Doing this task made me think back to previous holiday seasons where I hadn’t paid much attention at events like these.  This year I think I’ll be a little more attentive to what I’m eating.  If nothing else, when you’re making up your plate this holiday season I hope this task inspires you to be a little more cautious with your consumption to0.  After all, the best way to lose weight in January is not to have gained it in the first place.

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Have a great weekend!

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PS: Today is the last day to save $100 on the Peak Diet and Training Summit and (due to popular demand) there is now a 2 pay option for those who prefer to pay in installments.  This package is a true beast with 15 DVDs, 2 info packed manuals, 2.0 NSCA continuing education credits, and a bunch of other bonuses available only this week.  There is no risk as the product is fully refundable so go and pick it up before the deal disappears.  Order your copy HERE.

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