Boot Camp: The Process
By Leeann Arcaro-King CPT

Building strength shapes you. Building strength changes you. Nothing change your shape better that strength training. But strength training doesn’t work in isolation. Dual meaning: Strength is challenging enough but working out alone compounds the challenge. And strength training has to work out with cardio and proper nutrition.

X Fitness Boot Camp solves the most common problems that block shape-changing. You are guaranteed a structured program that leads to result if the fitness trilogy is followed. The fitness trilogy is a structured program – a process. The program is the same as an academic course – structured curriculum that graduates from one grade to another. One level to the next.

Building strength is the core of the program. Building strength is the fundamental basic of changing your shape but it doesn’t work alone. Cardio and eating are the other two essentials. Building strength is a process. Changing your shape doesn’t just happen. Changing your shape is an outcome of a process, the same as any academic process. The biggest fitness challenge I’ve faced was getting back in shape after my pregnancy. I learned lessons that can only be learned with experience. Being out-of-shape gave me a new perspective for being in-shape. Being out-of-shape gave meaning to being in-shape. And, most importantly, I learned a new perspective about The Process.

The Process is the work that has to be invested. The Process is what it takes to get back in-shape. I learned a long time ago in my own training that your attitude toward The Process is the most important element to building the shape you want. I learned to love the The Process. I look forward to The Process. My own training experience taught me that The Process is one of my best experiences in life,

Here’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned that guarantees you’ll get in shape – Focus on The Process, not the outcome. It works out every time.

September is a great time to start or renew your personal commitment to building a better body. You can register at:
X Fitness, 44 Division St., Welland.

Don’t underestimate yourself. You can find the strength to change your body.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about X Fitness Boot Camp. My contact information is:
Direct email: leeann@xfitness.ca
Direct phone: 905-329-1570

Looking forward to training with you in September.
Leeann Arcaro-King CPT
X Fitness Boot Camp Coach

 

Building a better body

by Leeann Arcaro-King CPT

X Fitness Boot Camp Coach

You have to build strength to change your body.

The biggest problems with getting in the shape you want is:  (i) isolated training (ii) exercise selection. These are two main causes that cause the chain reaction that starts with frustration and leads to quitting.

Isolated training means training alone.  Isolated training is a level of training that takes significant experience to reach to get maximum results.  Not many can work out to the max alone. You have to work up to that stage.

The second problem is exercise selection.  Effective workout programs need curriculum-based structured outcomes. This takes the balance between strength training, cardio, and nutrition – the fitness trilogy of success.  Like with all curriculum, contents can’t be chosen randomly.  Exercise selection needs structure to chose:

(i)             type of exercise

(ii)             weight selection

(iii)           set selection

(iv)           rep selection

(v)            sequence  

Team training is the solution for both problems.  The combined effect of coaching and training with a team is a proven solution to the problems of working out alone and trying to figure out what to do. X Fitness Boot Camp provides with coaching and connections with teammates who are working common goals. Instruction and motivation are the two main benefits of X Fitness Boot Camp.  A coach makes the right calls for you. Working out in a team environment is a proven way to get you through the struggle and challenge of trying to work out alone.

I’ve experienced the struggles of trying to build a better body. My greatest challenge was getting back in shape after my pregnancy.  What worked out for me was working out with a coach and with a team. Nothings happens overnight but the struggle has been worth every rep. I’ve worked out alone and with a coach-led team and there’s no comparison. The benefits of coach-led team training far outweigh the benefits of working out alone.

September is a great time to start or renew your personal commitment to building a better body. You can register at:

X Fitness, 44 Division St., Welland.

Don’t underestimate yourself.  You can find the strength to change your body.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about X Fitness Boot Camp. My contact information is:

Direct email: leeann@xfitness.ca

Direct phone: 905-329-1570

 Looking forward to training with you in September.

Leeann Arcaro-King  CPT

X Fitness Boot Camp Coach

 

Losing Your Mind

On August 28, 2012, in Uncategorized, by admin

I can’t make up my mind whether to put this excerpt in my new business book or my other new book on winning & losing. It’s called “Losing Your Mind.” Here it is:

The beauty of coaching football is that it gives me life-lessons about what not to do in real-life.

Football is filled to capacity with unchallenged myths. Unmitigated bullshit. Each myth is a limiting belief passed on from one receiver to another until it’s almost impossible to drop. Each myth is powered by the one of the strongest all-times fears – fear of being different. No two humans share the exact same DNA but nurture often trumps nature. The power of socialization tries to make us conform and become identical twins . Conformity leads to uniformity. Blend in. Fit in. Assimilate into the mainstream. It’s human nature to think the same and do the same even though we’re not built the same. Even though we’re wired up differently, conformity is a powerful force of nature. Instead of revealing true self, it gets hidden. Buried. Left unchecked, it all starts to look the same.

The leading cause of conformity and uniformity is the fear of being different. It starts a chain reaction of the wrong kind of lifting. The fear of being different lifts the fear of criticism, lifting the fear of disapproval, lifting the fear of stepping outside the box which leads to stay confined inside the crowded box, shoulder-to-shoulder in obscurity and anonymity, where no one can find you, including yourself. You end up losing yourself by losing your mind. You forfeit the uniqueness of your mind by losing originality. You lose the one-of-a-kind mind you were blessed with and replace it with someone else’s mind. Lost but never found.

When a business loses its mind, you go out of business because of failure to separate from the rest. Dual meaning. You will never distance yourself from the rest of your competition and you’ll never distance yourself from excessive resting and relaxation. And you will never go the distance. You’ll never brand yourself and you’ll never do what it takes to get branded. All of which leads to losing everything – everything you own, everything you’ve invested financially, intellectually, emotionally and physically. You will lose everything you put your heart and soul into. And your mind. You will lose what your mind powered and your mind-power.

The secret to prevent losing your business’s mind and losing your business NEVER KILL THE CLOCK. Killing the clock is one of the top-rated football myths. Killing the clock means waste as much time as possible. Protect a lead by slowing everything down. Even take-a-knee, the boring, uneventful, fearful act of intentionally losing ground, intentionally going backward not just to prevent high-risk but to prevent any risk at all. Taking-a-knee is symbolic of overwhelming fear. Fear of your team unable to execute the most basic of skills and plays. Fear of the other team. Fear of doing what you do best. Killing the clock flips the switch. Fighting is switched to running out the clock so you can run off the field and run away from your opponent.

Killing the clock contradicts the essence of what allegedly makes football appealing. All the tough-talk rhetoric about who’s tougher than who ends up with taking a knee hoping and praying that nothing goes wrong. Too scared to even run a basic play. Take a knee for the whole world to see.

The only way to truly protect a lead is to score more points. Not by avoiding point scoring.

I’ve heard the arguments in favour of killing the clock starting with style point don’t count. Yes they do. Eventually style will replace substance. The fearful style of killing the clock will eventually become a habit. Killing the clock is synonymous with wasting valuable time that you’ve been afforded on this planet. Eventually, killing the clock will spread to the rest of the game.

The true difference between winning and losing by whatever definition you attach is who kills the clock the least. This applies in sports, business, professional life, personal life. S/he who kills the clock the most, ends up with the least. Whoever wastes the most opportunity, scores the least amount of points. Changing your clock management philosophy changes the final score.

Gino Arcaro’s newly-released books are guaranteed to help you light your inner fire: SOUL OF A LIFTER and EXPLODE: X FITNESS TRAINING SYSTEM. Promise. Guaranteed. His new business book is intended to overcome the fear of starting up and staying in your own business. A release date will be announced in the future. This excerpt might be included in the new business book or his new book about winning & losing. You can review all Gino’s books them by clicking here.

 

Launch is set.

On August 23, 2012, in Uncategorized, by admin

All systems set and ready to go. Countdown to another miracle.

 

Finding Peace

On August 19, 2012, in Business, Fitness, Soul of a Lifter, by admin

Good news.

Striving for peace and tranquility is a 24-365 job. X Fitness is cleaning up its real-life friends list by deleting customers who didn’t clean up. Once again, a small number of people have been identified who confused the gym for the streets of Welland by using it as a dumping ground for plates, garbage, etc. Life’s too short. Way too short. Can’t tolerate it. Won’t tolerate it. The gym is not a playground or dumping ground. And, its not a bar. And we’re not part of a 1960′s Pumping Iron documentary. To quote Martin Luther King Jr. -

“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.”

Top Secret Motivation

On August 17, 2012, in Business, Fitness, Soul of a Lifter, by admin

I can’t take two consecutive days off from working out. No calling in sick. No vacation days.

I’ve worked out 223 days this year. Each workout has had a different purpose. A higher purpose. That’s how I keep the streak alive. I recently extended my workout streak to 43 years. It started at the top – a different mindset. The psychology of working out is more important than the physiology of working out.

I have never relied on external motivation in my life to workout. No one has ever had to drive me to the gym or drive in the gym. Never happened, never will.

Some guy walked past me during a set last night while I was working out with my daughter at X Fitness. He started screaming, “Come on, one more rep!!!” to be funny or cute or both. It was an act that exceeded ignorance and arrogance. My workouts are my workplace. That’s like walking into somebody’s office and interrupting with a feeble attempt to be funny. Guys like him don’t get it and never will. SUAL – shut up and lift. What you focus on grows. Try to develop burning instead of aimlessly wandering around. Find a higher purpose. My concentration during a workout doesn’t break. Clearly his does. There’s one key to workout longevity. Change the focus, change the outcome.

There’s a crossroads in every workout where you have to make decisions under fatigue. How you handle decision-making while you’re tired determines how far you go. Every workout is a battle of the mind. Whether you fight or quit is determined by how you condition your mind.

Highest-grade motivation is not the typical soft, fluffy bullshit. It comes from a different power source that no one wants to talk about or write about – the chip on the shoulder. Never underestimate the power of the chip on the shoulder. Don’t make the mistake of underestimating anyone who has one. It’s a source of sustainable drive that won’t run out of gas. But the topic is avoided because it doesn’t fit the pink-bubble mold of soft, cuddly romantic motivational fiction. Getting the job done is not pleasurable. And doing it better than your competition may be worse. The chip on the shoulder never fails to work out.

Here’s my point. There is no top secret motivation strategy. There’s only an inner fire. A soul on fire. Either you have it or you don’t. The good news is you control it. You control your inner fire. The bad news is there’s a battle raging inside to put out the fire. Either you’re up to that fight or not.

Gino Arcaro’s two new books are guaranteed to help you light you inner fire: SOUL OF A LIFTER and EXPLODE: X FITNESS TRAINING SYSTEM. Promise. Guaranteed. You can review all Gino’s books them by clicking here.

After reading this article, http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1239000–people-who-don-t-join-facebook-are-suspicious-say-pundits I wish that the English language would recognize the word “stupidest.” What harm would there be to say “This is the stupidest article of 2012. Maybe ever.”

I posted the following comment on Facebook on our X Fitness Welland page and I chose to be grammatically correct:

“Absurd. Dumb & Dangerous. Dumbest article of the year. Dangerous stereotyping by the clueless.”
http://www.thestar.com/business/article/1239000–people-who-don-t-join-facebook-are-suspicious-say-pundits

Here’s the only response that was received:

“How much are your fat burners and do thay (sic) really work ,thanks.”

Not sure what the relevance was to my post but I posted the following response:

“Sorry, don’t sell fat-burners. Never have sold fat-burners or used them, never will. The real fat-burning secret is proper nutrition and exercise including lifting. Thanks for the post.”

Two people pressed “like.”

Here’s the longer version of what I wanted I really wanted to post:

Continue reading »

Headcase

On August 6, 2012, in Business, Leadership, Soul of a Lifter, by admin

“They dedicate their lives
To running all of his.”
- The Unforgiven, Metallica

At some point during every workout, I turn my iPod to M, press enter because the only file I have under M is Metallica, then I scroll down to U – The Unforgiven. Every workout without fail, I have to hear James Hetfield belt out “You labeled me, I’ll label you, so I dub thee unforgiven.” The reason is the feeling. The Unforgiven has Paradoxical Power. It can fire me up bad or fire me up good. It can piss me off or turn the light on. It can put me in a bad mood or good mood. The Unforgiven has been responsible for the majority of my personal bests in the gym. It also saved me in school.

I was doing my master’s degree part-time while working full-time and being a full-time parent. Universities don’t understand full-time workers. They just don’t get it. Some of my professors didn’t grasp the concept of full-time workers and full-time parent. During a seminar that discussed some off-the-wall readings that had no relevance to reality, one of my fellow students said something that flipped the switch. I loved university. I hated elementary school, I hated high school even more. But I loved university. Except seminars. I hated how they turned into therapy sessions. I was a good student in university. A model of maturity. Never disruptive. Never acted like an asshole once. Respected the process fully. I minded my own business. Until that seminar. The student said,

“You know, the other day, I was driving to work and I heard this song. It was kinda strange. A symphony with some wild rock band. It was soothing yet unsettling, and…”

“It’s not some wild rock band. It’s Metallica.”

I didn’t put my hand up, didn’t say excuse me, just rudely interrupted. There was a moment of silence.
Everyone turned to stare at me. Feeling stupid, I tried to redeem myself but it only got worse.

“S&M.”

More silence.

“That’s what it’s called. Symphony and Metallica. “

More silence.

“San Francisco Symphony and Metallica.”

More silence.

“Best workout music ever.”

Couldn’t say iPod because the iPod hadn’t been invented.

At the end of the seminar, we were assigned a group project. I was given the name of two other students who I had to do a presentation with. We exchanged contact information. “I’ll call you,” I told them. I never did. I was a conscientious student. I never cheated. Never plagiarized. I was the model university student. But I never functioned well in group presentations. Never understood the concept of group presentations. Most groups can’t agree on pizza toppings without fighting let alone agreeing on a seminar presentation. How can you express original thinking in a group presentation? You can’t.

On the day of the presentation, my group members approached me before class.

“Hey, you never called.”

“Too busy, man.”

“What are you going to say?”

“Don’t worry. I got it covered.”

It was a lie. I never failed to do my homework. Ever. Until this time. I didn’t even understand the topic that was assigned. I tried. Read it over and over. The topic made no sense whatsoever I had worked in the field for a decade but the topic has nothing to do with what I did for a living.

“You’re difficult to get along with. We’re supposed to be working as team.”

My blood boiled. This was the reason why I hated school. Scolding. Micro-managing scolding. Holier-than-thou scolding. Talk-down-like-you’re-a-piece-of-shit scolding. To my credit, I remained silent. I was at a stage in my life where I said Go-Fuck-Yourself. A lot. Chronically. Not proud of it. I don’t advocate it. But it became a personal anthem. To my credit, I didn’t say it. Which built up a severe case of cognitive dissonance that grew and grew during the entire three-hour class. Cognitive dissonance is both a blessing and a curse. It’s an inner conflict caused by not acting in accordance with your personal beliefs. Self-contradiction. Acting out-of-whack with who you are. Pretending. Depending on your response to it, cognitive dissonance will either burn you up or set your soul on fire. I learned to use cognitive dissonance in as many essays as possible. I wrote 4 chapters of a partial PhD dissertation and wrote cognitive dissonance 51 times. And I used it in almost every email and phone call with my PhD supervisor. It never failed. He was impressed every single time. In fact, I told him I was using cognitive dissonance as a theory of interrogation. “Outstanding,” he said. “Great concept. Never heard cognitive dissonance used for interrogation. Go with it.”

My presentation was scheduled last. I had to endure all the painful presentations, with all the bells and whistles like Grade 3 show-&-tell. People clapped. I had nothing – no slide show, no handouts, no goodies. My cognitive dissonance grew. I played it back over and over: “You’re difficult to get along with. We’re supposed to be working as team.” Then I played back my silence, over and over.

The beauty of cognitive dissonance is the clarity of thought that it can generate. My group got called. I said, “I’m going first.” No one objected. I walked to the board and wrote this:

“You labeled me,
I’ll label you,
so I dub thee unforgiven.”

Here’s what I said:

“This is the cause of all cognitive dissonance. This is the cause of all conflict in the world. Outer conflict and inner conflict in the history of mankind. Labels. You label me, I label you… conflict. Cognitive dissonance. All conflict between nations, organizations, teams, GROUPS, even families, in the history of civilization starts with labeling. This line is part of the lyrics if from The Unforgiven by Metallica. Multi-dimensional. Greatest workout music ever and the solution to social and psychological unrest. The true secret to outer and inner peace. The rest of the song is about a headcase who was controlled his entire life, who never experienced true self, and became a horribly bitter man.”

I then assigned optional work for the rest of the class. Youtube hadn’t been invented. Neither had stealing music. I challenged them to buy the song, listen to the entire lyrics, and think of a time when they contributed to the making of a headcase. Then, I challenged them to make the world a better place and working toward peace by never labeling another person again.

Here it is. A Masterpiece. The Unforgiven. The 134 who pressed ‘dislike’ are headcases and are unforgiven.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYUMPKFYd6g

 

Gino Arcaro has written 12 books. He started his writing career by writing 6 best-selling academic law enforcement textbooks. Then he changed his focus and wrote 6 non-academic books to compete on a new stage. The first book is Soul of a Lifter, available in paperback and e-book. The book is about how lifting is a life-saver – lifting others and lifting weight. Dual-purpose lifting. You can review all Gino’s books them by clicking here.