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“Here’s a little story ’bout a man who couldn’t quit,
He said ‘Coach J, can I have another hit?
Your newsletter’s dope, and I’m tryin’ to get fit’,
So I said, ‘Read this issue, bro, it’s certified lit…'”
-M.C. Ren (probably)
Happy Friday, Coach J here from Anyman Fitness – and welcome to the latest edition of The N.W.A. Newsletter.
Each Friday’s N.W.A. Newsletter will have 3 parts:
- A Nutritional Tip to help make your diet healthier and easier to stick to.
- A Workout Tip to help make your training sessions more effective and fun.
- An Attitude/Mindset tip to help you strengthen your greatest asset – your mental toughness.
I will also give you my single favorite piece of social media content from AF over the past week and link to it on either Instagram or Twitter.
Without any further ado… let’s get started, shall we?
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N.W.A. Nutrition Tip Of The Week:
I love reading stories about centurions (people who live past 100 years of age).
It find them fascinating – they buck the trends and live much longer than the average person.
If you study centurions, you’ll find a common theme to their diets: They eat with structure and intention, and they tend to eat the same things on rotation on some sort of a time schedule.
While this is a correlation and doesn’t *prove* eating similar foods and having standard meal times is any better than the alternative, success leaves clues for us to look at.
Our bodies love rhythm and consistency.
Any new parent will tell you life gets 100x easier when you stick to a strict bedtime, napping, and feeding schedule for your child/children. There is less crying, less grumpiness, less moodiness, and less temper tantrums. (Granted, you can’t eliminate all of it, but it does help…)
Eating in a regular pattern is key to maintaining a lean and healthy physique over time.
70 years ago, most of us ate ‘breakfast, lunch, and dinner’. If we wanted a snack, our Moms were likely to tell us, “No, you’ll spoil your next meal.” Snacking just wasn’t a ‘thing’ until the last 20-30 years or so.
Not to mention the fact that candy and other junk food used to happen at holidays and birthdays only… but I digress…
One of the best things you can possibly do for your waistline is find a proper eating schedule and stick to it like glue.
Your body will appreciate the consistency and your hunger will be improved over time through a process called ‘hormonal entrainment” (this means your body’s endocrine system begins to anticipate food only at meal times, and your hunger is reduced during the non-feeding times of the day).
Plus, let’s be real – if you stick to a proper eating schedule, you’ll be eliminating snacking and grazing.
Snacking and grazing is arguably the worst habit you can have if you’re attempting to lose weight (unless your snack is a planned, daily part of your schedule).
Always establish a system for your diet – and having appropriate meal times, and refraining from snacking in between meals – is the simple tip that will move the lever big time if you’re struggling in this area.
N.W.A. Training Tip Of The Week:
One of the biggest mistakes I see training in a commercial gym is a lack of progressive overload.
Progressive overload means you’re doing ‘more over time’ in the gym.
It means each time you get into the gym, you repeat your workouts and you play ‘beat my training log’.
Example:
On your Wednesday workout, Coach J has prescribed 4 sets of 6-8 reps of bench press (Monday is international bench press day, just in case you didn’t know…).
You load the bar up with 150 pounds, and you perform:
Set 1: 9 reps of 150 pounds (woah, nice job!)
Set 2: 7 reps of 150 pounds
Set 3: 7 reps of 150 pounds
Set 4: 6 reps of 150 pounds
Since you achieved a minimum of 6 reps, you succeeded this week (remember, the rep range you were aiming for was 6-8)!
Which means, next week, you’ll repeat your workouts and add 5 pounds and try to get your reps with 155 pounds.
Still with me? Good…
Now, here’s where the issue comes into play…
The following week, you look back at your training log and you perform the same 4 sets of bench trying to get 6-8 reps, but this time, you’re benching 155 instead of 150.
And you get:
Set 1: 8 reps of 155 pounds
Set 2: 6 reps of 155 pounds
Set 3: 5 reps of 155 pounds
Set 4: 4 reps of 155 pounds
Quiz! What do you do the following week in this scenario?
Do you stay at 155?
You didn’t get your reps… should you go back down to 150 next week since you didn’t succeed?
Or did you mess up? Maybe you should have backed down to 150 after the 3rd set where you only got 5 reps…
Decisions, decisions!
In reality, the answer is simple:
Don’t move back to 150 pounds. You’ve already beat 150 pounds, there’s no reason to regress here.
Instead, record your reps you got. Next week, repeat the workout again and try to do better. Ideally, you would get all 4 sets in the 6-8 rep range and then move it on up to 160 pounds.
But even if you fail again, keep at it. Don’t move back down to 150. Get a spotter and push like hell. Show good form and don’t get injured, of course, but strength training isn’t supposed to ‘tickle’.
It’s supposed to push your body to the limit to see what you can do, and improve over time.
You should always feel challenged and a bit out of your comfort zone at the gym.
There’s only ONE way to make 150 pounds feel light.
Build your strength up enough so that you can lift 300 pounds, and then, go back and try to lift 150 pounds…
That’ll do it every time… 🙂
N.W.A. Attitude/Mindset Tip Of The Week:
Too many of us view fitness as a chore.
I used to do this myself, too, so I’m guilty of it as well.
If you ever start feeling like you want to skip workouts or cheat on your diet, it may be time to re-frame those negative thoughts.
When I was teaching school, I had a few heartbreaking instances of students losing siblings during my career. It was gut wrenching to witness. From the parents to the siblings, to the friends of the lost loved ones…
One specific instance is permanently etched into my brain forever.
I had a student named Tommy. He was a great kid – a quiet hard worker who was respectful and kind to everyone.
His sister, Lisa, had neuroblastoma and had been fighting it for 2 years by the time Tommy walked into my classroom in 8th grade.
Sadly, she passed in the springtime of that school year, and I attended the wake. I had 2 young daughters of my own at the time, so I knew it would be tough to handle.
But when I walked in and saw a table with hundreds of teddy bears and a sign that read, “Please help us find these teddies a new home – Lisa will be watching you take care of them from heaven”, I lost it.
I just had to leave. I couldn’t stay. It was too much for a new Dad to see and try to process.
It was a few months later – that exact summer – that I rededicated myself to fitness.
Something had snapped inside of me, and I no longer cared if it was ‘too hard’, or I was ‘too tired’, or I was ‘too anything’ to train. It just didn’t matter to me anymore. Bring on the pain and let’s do this.
All of a sudden, all I could think about was how badly those parents wished for their little Lisa to be back in their house. And their arms. And to feel her love or embrace just one more time.
And I’m complaining because I have to lift some weights?
And maybe be a bit hungry? Or avoid some junk food?
Good Lord, what on earth do I really have to complain about if a tough workout or being a bit hungry is a ‘big problem’ for me?
What a great ‘problem’ to have – a First World Problem of the highest order.
We’re all blessed and lucky to be in the situations we’re in. No matter what they are.
A bit of personal sacrifice will do us all some good.
Besides, a tough set of deadlifts is nothing compared to what that family now has to face for the rest of their lives.
I can suck it up, and I’m sure you can, too.
You know?
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
Fitness is the Ultimate Status Symbol.
❌You can’t buy it.
❌You can’t steal it.
❌You can’t take out a loan for it.
❌You can’t hire someone to do it for you.
❌And if you stop, you’ll lose it all in a few, short months.
There is only ONE WAY to have a fit, muscular, and athletic body:
✔️You have to be dedicated to fitness – every day, every week, every month, and every year.
No exceptions.
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I hope you enjoyed this edition of the Anyman Fitness N.W.A. Newsletter.
I’ll be back next week.
Hope you have a wonderful weekend.
Best,
Eazy-Coach-J
Anyman Fitness
The N.W.A. Newsletter Archives
Lil’ Bow Wow was discovered by Snoop Dogg in 1995. Since then, he’s sold over 24 million albums through CD’s and virtual downloads.
His first time on a recorded studio album was on “G’s and Hustlas” on Snoop Dogg’s classic “Doggystyle” album.
He was 3 years old at the time – he’s the kid talking to the ‘substitute teacher’ in this skit. WARNING: NSFW (language)