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“Woke up quick, at about noon,
just thought that I had to be at the gym soon,
I gotta get swole before the day begins,
before the pool party hits and I’m with my friends…”
-Eazy-E (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:
One of the simplest ways to stay on top of your diet is to plan your breakfasts and lunches in advance.
This often frustrates people, as it takes some time, effort, and dedication to be proactive instead of reactive. I can promise you, it’s worth it if you take the time.
The best meals are a combination of the following factors:
- Simple/easy to make
- Healthy
- Tasty ‘enough’ to suffice*
- Repeatable
*A quick note on #3 here – ‘tasty enough to suffice’…
Too often, we view our food as entertainment – as a way to ‘check out’ of reality for 20 minutes as we scarf down a hyper-palatable combination of fat and carbs. This usually comes in the form of dining out for lunch, or grabbing carryout.
While I recommend always eating foods you love, do understand every meal won’t be ‘incredible’. If every meal is the greatest, most delectable thing you’ve ever eaten, odds are good you won’t be keeping a trim figure in the future.
Once you get used to eating whole foods, you’ll be amazed at the flavor profiles in your diet, and you’ll find eating healthy much more enjoyable.
Our most successful clients have 2-3 ‘go to breakfasts’ and 2-3 ‘go to lunches’ on rotation.
Their macros/calories are already accounted for, and they don’t give any thought to their first 2 meals of the day (this is extremely important – our willpower gets tapped easily when we make too many ‘in the moment’ decisions).
This concept is called ‘uniform eating’ – and it works beautifully.
Always automate your diet for the best results.
N.W.A. Training Tip Of The Week:
Do you have shoulder pain when you’re bench pressing or incline pressing?
It’s one of the most common, nagging injuries out there – injured or aggravated rotator cuffs.
Instead of giving you loads of form tips – let me make another suggestion: Start using the dumbbell squeeze press to build your pecs more effectively than the bench press (if benching causes you issues).
The dumbbell squeeze press is a simple movement. You touch the dumbbells together, keep your wrists in a neutral position, and do a press through the full range of motion.
Here is a form tutorial for you to see what I mean (click on the picture to be taken to the instructional video):
With the dumbbell squeeze press, you can focus entirely on putting the weight directly on your pectoralis major (the meaty part of your chest) and eliminate much of the unnecessary tension the bench press puts on your rotator cuffs.
This will guarantee you’re not flaring your elbows – the most common bench pressing mistake which leads to cranky shoulders.
These can be done in a flat position or an incline position – entirely your call.
Start mixing dumbbell squeeze presses into your training sessions immediately and watch your upper body physique take off.
N.W.A. Attitude/Mindset Tip Of The Week:
Your biggest limitation in fitness is your mind.
If you think you can do it, you’ll do it.
And if you don’t think you can do it, you won’t.
That may sound simplistic, but this has been proven time and again in studies.
In 1972, Gideon Ariel and William Saville (2 researchers), came up with a simple experiment for their highly trained weightlifters (each participant had 2+ years of intense weight training, minimum).
They split their subjects into 3 groups for 11 weeks:
- A group that was given anabolic steroids/PED’s to use while training.
- A group that was *told* they were given anabolic steroids to use, but they were actually given sugar pills.
- A group that was given nothing and was told to simply continue as they normally would with their training and diet.
The results were telling.
The steroid group saw significant increases in both strength and lean body mass, as was expected.
The ‘natty’ group saw modest increases in both strength and lean body mass, again, as was expected.
But that 2nd group – the group that was told they were given steroids, but were actually given a sugar pill… here’s where things get *really* interesting…
The ‘sugar pill’ group made significant strength and muscle progress during the 11 weeks. Much moreso than the natural group… and here’s the kicker… they gained almost as much strength and muscle as the steroid group!
You heard that right… just them believing they were on steroids and should have ‘superhuman strength’ actually made it come to reality!
The power of the mind is incredible…
And also – for Kicker #2 – after the 11 weeks was up, they told the subjects the truth. They were given sugar pills and they had been natural the entire time, without any PED assistance.
And as soon as they were told the truth, their strength levels plummeted and they promptly lost the additional muscle mass they had gained. They quickly reverted back to the baseline of their ‘natty’ friends without the psychological boost the fake steroids gave them.
I hope you find this story as motivating as I do.
Think bigger.
Think stronger.
Think faster.
Think better.
And you will be, guaranteed.
One Favorite Social Media Post Of The Week:
It’s as true today as it was in Ancient Greece:
“No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the art of physical training.
What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
-Socrates
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
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A few years after this exchange, Percy ‘Master P’ Miller was worth over $400 million. Always know your true worth.