2 Skills for Better Fitness

In this article I want to talk about 2 things that you can do that can really help your fitness. Recently, I came across a book called The Little Book of Talent and in this book the author went to several "hot beds" of talent. He went to swim clubs, tennis clubs, music academies, and other hot beds of talent where they were producing many students who ended up performing at a very high level. When the author sums up the book he says that the difference between these hotbeds of talent and other places is that the hotbeds have a different relationship with practice. Practice is something that they emphasize and look forward to but they also specifically do 2 things.

1) They practice the basics or fundamentals every day. Even the high level performers like Michael Phelps practice the basics every day, but they find ways to make them fun and even make games out of them. In your fitness this would be practicing things like squats pushups, situps, and pullups on a daily basis. Spending time working on these things and mastering them can have tremendous benefits for your overall health and fitness.

2) Challenge yourself with new skills. The other thing these places emphasized was in getting out of your comfort zone and trying to learn new things. In your fitness this could be learning gymnastics like handstands, cartwheels, or muscle ups or it could be learning Olympic weightlifting or strongman training. Learning new skills is challenging but it keeps you improving and it makes things fun as you try new things.

One of the things we have done in our gym is implement what we call the Yearly Cycle. On this yearly cycle we have a time every year where we go back and put some extra emphasis on the foundations. If you would like to see the 50 day plan we use then click here to download the plan.