I know what you’re thinking. Element Five Fitness Studio..What the heck are the 5 Elements?
Hi. This is SOOZ — I am a Coach here at Element Five Fitness Studio.
Don’t get me wrong, a fitness routine must include our 5 Element theory of Mobility, Stability, Endurance, Strength, and Power for sustainability and optimal quality of life. Without our 5 Element Theory implemented into your fitness routine, your risk of injury is high. Your workout efficiency, intensity, and effectiveness is low. Any Quality Personal Trainer, Physical Therapist, and Chiropractor will agree with those statements. Anyways, that’s not all there is to a quality and sustainable fitness routine. There’s another layer that’s really important for you to understand.
Without too much assumption, I imagine that you workout to progress, whether that’s based on performance, weight-loss, the way you look, or a feeling you aspire to feel. You aim to progress from A to B in each of your workouts. Your goal is to get stronger, become leaner, feel happier, feel more confident, like yourself just a little more, and/or lose weight. You want to live a life worth living and you just want to feel good.
Without knowing you, I know your goals are amazing. Why? Because setting goals in general is awesome. I only want you to achieve them (and then some). Here’s the thing that we often forget or don’t think about too often; achieving goals is much MORE, much GREATER than that goal. It’s so, so much more. It’s hard to see for ourselves when we’re thinking about ourselves, so let’s use an example of an 8 year old (boy or girl. Your imagination. You choose.)
So, here’s this little pumpkin ham of love (our 8 year old), and she/he just won a district-wide spelling bee. First things first, I’m not sure if district-wide spelling bee is entirely a “thing” but it is for now. Ok, so he or she just won. Now, imagine their confidence level! Sky rocketed. It’s out of control how great they feel! Trophies, applause, increased self-efficacy, pride, ecstatic. Just so, so happy.
Now, give our little pumpkin ham some credit here. Let’s take a deeper look into their journey. To win the district spelling bee, you don’t just win. You put forth effort. You work hard. You make a commitment. You keep going!
When you have a strategy and variety, when you enjoy the process, when you feel safe and when you practice patience, you win.
Without the next 5 steps, you will not achieve or sustain your health and fitness goals. So many times I see this happening and it’s beyond frustrating on my end. I remember when I was too in the loop of taking classes, working out, doing everything I could to see and feel the results I wanted but they weren’t coming. I can totally imagine how frustrating and discouraging it is on your end.
These next 5 steps were created so you could understand your journey, take control of your own life’s outcomes, and finally achieve all of your amazing goals.
It is possible.
Remember, follow these 5 steps and as always, if you have any questions you can reach me and my teammates directly at team@elementfivefitness.com
1. Strategy
The only way to progress is with Strategy.
If you were studying for a math test, there would be a specific order in which you study, right? Like you won’t learn/study division before addition and subtraction because one topic progresses into the next (help me out math teachers!!)
This same principle applies to your fitness.
You should not overload your body until you have an appropriate amount of mobility and stability, which too many people do, leading them to injury. We are not going to overload power or explosive movements until we have the skillset and strength to endure the workload.
If you are a part of a group fitness gym or work with a Personal Trainer, ask your Coaches questions. What are their strategies that will help you reach your goals? What is step 1 that will help you get to step 2?
Last analogy to understand why strategy is so important. Imagine if you were trying to learn a new language. You would NOT learn French on Monday, Spanish on Wednesday, and Heberw on Friday, right? That makes no sense.
You would stick to French for a while, until you are speaking the language. Then, (and only when you’re 90-100% ready) you would move on to another language.
Same goes for fitness. Your strategy, or YOUR PROGRAM, should flow in a sequential story line that makes sense for your mind and body.
2. Enjoyment
Imagine if you were actually learning to speak French but the instructor was SO boring, spoke with this monotone voice, and never smiled.
Sounds like a literal terrible learning experience and environment. I mean we know for certain that when you are enjoying something, your capacity to remember and embody the changes increases, right? Okay. So apply this same principle to your health and fitness.
Yes, I am 100% telling you to make it enjoyable. This is such a common dispute, and I get it.
Exercise is something you have to do whether you enjoy it or not. Sure, I 100% agree. With that being said (wink wink), why can’t we just make it into something we enjoy?
I remember when I was in high-school, I was sitting at Chili’s (baby back ribs, iykyk) with my friend Kaitlan and her mom. My friend Kaitlan was a really good student; super focused, awesome grades. Yay Kaitlan. Also yay me but not for my grades. Just yay because why not?
Anyways, her mom asked me about school, how I was doing, and what was I studying. As usual, I was extremely stand-offish with this conversation. I didn’t enjoy school so I really didn’t care to succeed. It wasn’t something I was interested in doing. Don’t get me wrong, I did okay because I knew I had to, but I didn’t by any means reach my potential or even close. I did what I needed to do to get by.
First of all, what does that alone tell you about going to the gym and not enjoying the process?
That day, Kaitlans mom taught me an amazing lesson that has stuck with, and will stick with me, forever! “Find something, anything at all, that you enjoy about school. Focus on that.”
Don’t ask me why that stuck out to me, but it did and it’s an extremely important and powerful lesson. Look, the gym is hard work. Staying healthy consistently over time is a commitment. A commitment to yourself to do what is in your control to live a life worth living.
If you can make the process more enjoyable, you are opening up the opportunity to better health, reaching your highest potential.
Find a Coach that you simply enjoy spending time with, that knows how to keep you going when times get tough. Find a group fitness studio that makes you feel great on the inside and out. Find an online program that excites you, encourages you, motivates you. Find a new style of movement that is challenging yet inspiring.
3. Safety
The word safety is an interesting word. We hear the word safe and we automatically think of safe vs. danger.
When you feel safe, you open up more. When you open up more mentally, well you have clearer thoughts, less cloudy judgment, and more room for growth. There’s a lot to be said there but let’s hold on these thoughts for a minute.
When you feel safe, you sleep better.
When you feel safe, you move better.
It’s honestly that simple. How does one feel safe? Trust. Gut. Instinct. Intuition. Knowledge.
When you feel safe, and know for certain you are doing everything in your power to reduce your risk of injury, you will perform to your best ability, right?
Walking into a workout with any slight sense of fear, hesitation, or doubt will 100% damper your workout and will not allow you to perform to your full potential.
Step 1. Increase your knowledge about what you are doing and feeling. I do not mean Google. Sure, you can 100% but it can be confusing with so many points of views in a science based industry.
Step 2. Find your resource and stick with them. Find someone you can trust to explain things to you in a way that makes sense to you.
Step 3. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.
Step 4. Practice our 5 Element Philosophy by having adequate ranges of mobility, stability, endurance, strength, power.
4. Variety
Variety is such a simple complex yet it is SO underrated and often overlooked.
Variety is FUN but it is also completely necessary. I want you to think of variety as a subtopic for both strategy and enjoyment.
Variety for enjoyment is really, really simple. Here’s an example: After a while, rowing in isolation is boring. So you stop rowing or worse, you row with no intention. Blah.
In that same context, if all you’re doing is rowing, what happens to all of the other endless ways your body moves? I literally want you to think about this.
If you strictly ROW for 30 days as your training, like do nothing else, what will happen to your squat mechanics, or push mechanics? You’ll get weak in these areas. The movement patterns will become deconditioned.
I’m afraid because this is such a simple concept, people just tend to ignore it. It’s simple but it’s really, really important for continued improvements and reducing risk of injury.
It’s kind of like one of those “change” quotes… if you want to see change, you have to be the change. Well, this again applies to fitness. If you want to see physical changes, you have to change it up (aka add variety strategically).
Variety in programming is important for both mind and body; not to get bored and unmotivated, and not to disregard movement patterns.
5. Patience
I know this one is obvious. I know you know it.
Patience is a virtue.
You have to be in it for the long haul.
With patience comes progress.
Yeah, yeah. You’ve heard it. I hear you. I get it..
Here’s where I’m going to blow your mind.
Jk, nothing new but pretty cool.
When you have a strategy with variety that you feel safe with and enjoy, you need less patience.
So, my friends.
When it comes to your fitness routine NOW and in the future, remember to always implement strategy (or hire a Coach to do that for you), make sure it’s fun and safe, add variety, and patience will easily flow.
As always, if you have any questions ever, feel free to email Team@elementfivefitness.com or just send us a text (954) 420-9889. We have a Coach ready to answer any questions you may have. No commitments, I promise.
Hopefully, speak to you soon.
XO,
Sooz!
One Response
This is awesome! Thank you so much.