Shawn Phillips | Start Strong Monday

Do you feel lucky man?

It’s great to have luck on your side.

But you can’t count on it. Luck comes and it goes.

That’s why you don’t leave your finances, home, education or your family’s future to “luck.” Wise men have a plan for things that define “a life well-lived.”

Unfortunately, most of these same wise men leave their health, energy and vitality entirely to luck. They wake up each day and blindly roll the dice.

Sure, we could stand to “drop a few,” and feel more energy, get a little more spring in our step, but like most men in the prime of life, we’re busy “working the plan.”

With the demands of career, relationships, family, and friends; social time and even sleep become luxuries. Spending hours in the gym and eating right is just not happening.

If you’re feeling the increasing weight of life, the constant squeeze on your time and enjoyment for life, you’re not alone. Life has a way of squeezing itself out of even the strongest man.

“Men in the middle” of even the best life face challenges. Conditioned to self-sacrifice, we go, go, go until we can go no more; then drop. We use ourselves up first, yet, deep inside knowing that we can’t let our family, friends or careers down.

It’s the tug-o-war between doing what’s right for others and doing what’s right for you. That’s the dilemma of modern man: How to be the man for your family, deliver the goods for your business and remain strong, vital, and self-assured.

As energy is truly the currency of life, it’s energy you need for the time you want.

You don’t need some made-for-TV, reality show life makeover. You just need to get a little mo—mojo and momentum going to start bending life in your favor.

Grade-A Energy for the Type-A Man

Where most driven men regularly fail in energy management is they fail to make deposits. A lifetime of withdrawals from your energy reserves means you’re on course for a personal energy crisis.

Energy is an inside out job. When it comes to stoking your energy reserves there are only two ways: Rest and regeneration—a.k.a. sleep—and life enhancing, energy sustaining nutrition. All the other “energy stimulators” are more like high-interest loans which can reallocate energy, robbing it from the future for now but never truly adding to.

To get ahead men quite willingly sacrifice self. And when time is more precious than you, sleep is the first to go—nutrition a close runner-up (in the rare case it wasn’t already “lost”).

Sleep is sleep—you have to have enough sleep or your functioning is compromised; mentally, emotionally, physically. To a stressed, man on the run who’s sleep compromised, nourishing your body for energy, health, and vitality is a challenge that’ll have to wait.

In tough times, like every day, men eat to survive, not thrive. We stuff our mouths with whatever we find as long as it quiets the hunger and lets us get back to what we were doing.

The First Great Sacrifice

For the driven, wanna-be high-performer, the first sacrifice of their day is the worst sacrifice.

You’ve heard it your entire life; breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Yet most busy men have convinced themselves that skipping breakfast in favor of coffee saves time.

In nearly every physical way you can imagine skipping your morning nourishment is a devastating mistake but there’s much more to the function of breakfast than just nutrition itself.

Your first meal of the day is as much a statement of intention as it is about nutrition. It’s a reflection of the respect for yourself and the expectations you have for your day.

For the truth is your day will rise or fall to meet the physical, mental and emotional energy quality and tone that you set to start your day.

Taking the 5, 10 or even 15 minutes to properly, thoughtfully nourish your body and mind is a strong statement to universe that set the tone and intention you’re your day. Repeated daily it’s a ritual and mantra that elevates and empowers your every single day.

Sure, the foods you eat, for lunch, diner and in between—the way you eat day in and day out is vitally important—it will make or break your life but for the man in demand there’s something even more powerful, more magical and more important about the ritual of breaking-fast and breaking-strong.

For this reason, I challenge every man reading this article, every man who wants more time, more freedom, more energy and more success in their life, to begin your morning with the respect and attention it deserves…for the results you deserve.

The Full Strength Man

When it comes to eating for strength, energy and success there is no one size fits all solution. We are different men with different values, goals and demands. For some a power-breakfast may be grilled rattle snake with grits, and for others eggs and oatmeal—as it was for me for years.

For thousands of high-performing men, the “start strong” meal of choice is a shake; a Full Strength total nutrition shake. It’s why I choose and why I created it. There’s no better, faster and more empowering way to wake up your mind, invigorate your body and get life bending in your favor.

An intelligent, source of integrated nutrition, Full Strength tastes like a delicious home-made milkshake, nourishes like a perfect meal, and energizes your body and mind like magic. It’s the quick, easy way to get luck back on your side.

For most Full Strength men it’s the freedom, the ease and the rhythm of starting each day with Full Strength that sets the tone for achievement, success and confidence. The balanced, premium quality nutrition sets a lofty intention of success for the day and gets you clear, energized and going strong from the start.

The great Roman Philosopher, Seneca once said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity…“

When you start each day strong, with a well nourished body and mind you embrace your day knowing you’re prepared for whatever life has to offer, ready to seize the opportunity it brings.

When you do this simple thing, day in and day out, it’s amazing how luck aligns with your goals and visions and success befalls you almost without effort.

That’s why Full Strength may be the most delicious way to get lucky!

To Your Life @ Full Strength,

Shawn
Follow Me: /Twitter/shawn_phillips

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About the Author

Author, innovator and expert in Life Performance for two decades, Shawn Phillips is as respected for his physique as his wisdom. Working with his brother Bill (of Body for LIFE fame) he helped create the performance nutrition giant, EAS. In his 40's, a husband and father of two young children, Shawn has shifted his focus to helping busy, high-achieving men enjoy vibrant, energized, amazing lives! To help more men towards Life @ Full Strength Shawn created the World's First truePremium Nutrition Shake, the clinically proven Full Strength . For a "how to" guide to a Lifestyle of Fitness Freedom, check out Shawn's most recently instant best-selling book from Bantam BooksStrength for LIFE, called by Next-Level in Transformational Fitness, Here.

The Perfect 10 May Help You Get a '10'

When it comes to lifting weights, 90% of the billions of reps done each day, including the hundreds you’ve done, are a complete and utter waste of time.

Do that math. It’s easy. That’s 9 out of every 10 reps that are simply wasting of your precious time, energy and breath. You just as well be playing Tidily-Winks!

I understand this may not be easy to hear but the fact is you need to hear it.

For there’s no rational reason to waste another moment of your precious time and energy twiddling around in search of some ego-engorging pump—unless you’re an unemployed Chippendale’s dancer who’s needing the attention of being in the gym all day.

Most 10’s Are Really a “1″

Take the typical set of 10 for example. Accepting that the holy-grail of muscle-building magic is held in muscular failure, the first 9 reps are simply filler—like meat by-products in a slice of bologna—being dutifully checked off in anticipation of the one, single magical moment in that 10th rep when the truly effective muscle stimulating work is done.

Now, before you start feeling remorse for all the reps you’ve wasted, you should know that this “turning up the volume,” saving the best for last strategy, is anything but unique.

We do it all the time in sports, business and life. Seems there’s something deep inside our “Operating System” which requires us to regulate our effort, fulfilling the space we’ve allotted for it.

Think about it. In sports it’s the last (bell) lap of an 800 meters race, the final round of a fight, the bottom of the 9th inning, in basketball it’s game 7 in a playoff series. In all these cases and more, we usually look to be at or near 100%, going full tilt until the pressure’s really on and we find something more; another gear, the next level, higher intensity.

And this isn’t just some theory—it’s a real and studied phenomena not just in athletes but in life. This desire to regulate ones effort, maintain at less than capacity until it really, really counts is called “Parkinson’s Law.”

Parkinson’s Law states that: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
 

It manifests in all sorts of ways in every day life. It’s in effect when we get more work done in the two days before a vacation than we did in the previous 2 weeks; when we cram for tests, stay up late to get papers done and why we’re more productive with a firm deadline.

It’s why the most effective—and often successful—people work in timed intervals. They don’t just come in and put in 8 hours they commit blocks of time to particular results.

How to Score A Perfect 10 Every Time

In the gym, fact is most people are being unwittingly used and abused by Parkinson’s Law. This is how you change the game—not just to “try” to override your thinking but leverage the way your mind works to your advantage, instantly getting more intensity is every rep of every set.

Here’s how your mind works: When faced with a set of 10 (or 12 or 8…) reps, the mind focuses in on the goal—the 10 reps and in an instant your body begins to “withhold” or regulate your energy to get there. It’s programmed to succeed.

You don’t know it’s happening. You’ve received no alerts. You think you’re ready to give each rep your fullest attention but the reality is your aiming at the 10th rep, like you’d aim at the other end of the pool if you were going to swim it’s span underwater. You begin, “1…,2…,3…,…9…, 10!”

The nature of the focus on the finish line, the other end makes it a race to get the final rep, and each rep up to 10 suffers. When you’re done, you call it “a set of 10,” when what you’ve really done is just one perfect rep and 9 “others.” Not bad but certainly less than you can do.

Make Every Rep Count

Want to make the change from good to great? Start treating every rep like it’s the 10th, the only one that counts—the only one that is.

Question: “How do you get to the perfect set of 10?”

Answer: “One rep at a time.”

I know, sounds like a joke but it couldn’t be more true.

Give up the 10 reps, the 8 reps, the 12 or 15… and just do one. Do one full, complete, intense and powerful rep. Do the contraction and then let it down like it’s the only rep you’ll do this year.

How to do ONE REP, 10 Times

Then do another ONE. Just the one. Not one more, not the next. Just one.

Then do another one. And do the same one rep, ten times.

This is where your mind-muscle link must be turned on, fully engaged. When you’re pushing or pulling with all your possible force for the one rep, it summons your full intensity.

Here’s a master-level technique I’ve used and shared that can help you stay fully focused and engaged on the one rep—taking full advantage of your minds ability to tap the full reserves on that 10th rep, the last lap, the final seconds.

Change the way you’re counting and change your focus. Rather than curling the weight up, and saying inside, “One…, two…, three…” on the way up, the contraction just say to yourself or out loud, ONE!

Then, as you let the weight down, keep your count overall… “One…,”.

Then up again, you scream, “ONE!...” then, “Two…” on the way down.

It goes like this:

      Rep 1: On the way up, “one.” On the way down, “one.”
      Rep 2: On the way up, “one.” On the way down, “two.”
      Rep 3: On the way up, “one.” On the way down, “three.”

And so forth.

This “Counting Strong”TM technique will radically elevate your focus and intensity in each rep. Count both movements, the concentric and eccentric in each rep.

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this technique, there’s amazing power in it. I promise. Your attention is not on the destination—but rather fully concentrated in the moment of each single rep.

BONUS TIP:

To place extra-emphasis on the cadence of each rep, insuring you get the fullest out of the negative portion of the lift, try counting each rep you’re completing twice on the way down like this:

      Rep 1: On the way up, “one.” On the way down, “one, one.”
      Rep 2: On the way up, “one.” On the way down, “two, two.”
      Rep 3: On the way up, “one.” On the way down, “three, three.”

This Focus Intensity Training technique is from the Advanced Training Techniques in Chapter 11 of Strength for Life.

Give this a try today, or in your next Strength workout and feel the stunning difference. Keep it up for a few weeks and see the difference Focus Intensity Training can make.

About the Author

Author, innovator and expert in Life Performance for two decades, Shawn Phillips is as respected for his physique as his wisdom. Working with his brother Bill (of Body for LIFE fame) he helped create the performance nutrition giant, EAS. In his 40's, a husband and father of two young children, Shawn has shifted his focus to helping busy, high-achieving men enjoy vibrant, energized, amazing lives! To help more men towards Life @ Full Strength Shawn created the World's First truePremium Nutrition Shake, the clinically proven Full Strength . For a "how to" guide to a Lifestyle of Fitness Freedom, check out Shawn's most recently instant best-selling book from Bantam BooksStrength for LIFE, called by Next-Level in Transformational Fitness, Here.

Carbondale's Annual Mountain Fair

This past weekend Angie, I and the kids enjoyed a get away to the small, thriving town of Carbondale,
Colorado.

A short three hour drive from our home, Carbondale is nestled in roaring fork valley, along side the river of the same name, between Glenwood Springs and Lance Armstrong’s adopted new home of Aspen.

It was the weekend of the annual Carbondale Mountain Fair—which I would learn is a pretty big deal. It draws in people from up and down the valley and around the state of Colorado.

A well run and organized fair, there was a terrific variety of great food, live music and all manner of natural, organic and hand crafted items and art. And plenty of activities to keep the kids engaged and playing.

The microbrew mega-star, Belgium Brewing served up kegs of cold brew and there were various other “adult beverages” to be enjoyed—perfect for the terrific line-up of music.

It was exactly everything you could expect from a Fair—all except one thing.

The Silence is Deafening

There was one standard fair issue thing missing—and it was eerily conspicuous in it’s absence, at least to this visitor.
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About the Author

Author, innovator and expert in Life Performance for two decades, Shawn Phillips is as respected for his physique as his wisdom. Working with his brother Bill (of Body for LIFE fame) he helped create the performance nutrition giant, EAS. In his 40's, a husband and father of two young children, Shawn has shifted his focus to helping busy, high-achieving men enjoy vibrant, energized, amazing lives! To help more men towards Life @ Full Strength Shawn created the World's First truePremium Nutrition Shake, the clinically proven Full Strength . For a "how to" guide to a Lifestyle of Fitness Freedom, check out Shawn's most recently instant best-selling book from Bantam BooksStrength for LIFE, called by Next-Level in Transformational Fitness, Here.