Newell Strength Secrets to Success
I remember watching Will Smith when I was growing up in “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”. It was one of my brothers and my own favorite shows. Maybe I have a personal affection for him because I grew up with him, but he has done so much in his life and come from meager beginnings. Listen to the part of the video when he is talking about the tread mill and his sickening work ethic.
He, like you, like myself and others, has no special skills. He will simply out work you and that is the same mindset I’ve always had. Too many people talk about wanting success and don’t want to act on it. High school athletes want to be great, but they want to go out and drink on the weekends too. People that are fanatic about success have a delusional quality to them, it comes across as cocky to many people but that is their only ‘secret’. Successful people almost always come across as having a social disorder because their mind is consumed with becoming great and don’t get me wrong, it’s not for everyone. Devon often tells me that I get this scary look on my face when I am in the zone and I always have to reassure her that its not a bad thing, it is something out of my control. I have created an unstoppable momentum to creating the life I want.
Again, how bad do you want it?
The Shoe
The shoe...
I was getting ready to go train some hard legs on Wednesday and decided to pull out my high tops. I was going to put on the Chuck Taylor’s, but something in me told me to grab my regular basketball shoes. When I pulled out my left shoe, the laces were still all in shambles, which instantly brought that night back to life for me. What night? The night that changed my life, my knee injury.
When I was in Arizona for my mastermind last week, the guys at the VIP day were asking me about how I kept up my schedule with teaching and Newell Strength and I explained that I had suffered the injury and pneumonia around the same time. One of the guys commented, “I thought Superman was a myth…” That gave me a chuckle because I had realized how I blasted through that time in my life, despite what I was told about my recovery. I can look at it in two ways: 1)It was a sign to slow down or 2)It was a brick wall placed in front of me to break through. To show myself how bad I want ‘it’, to remind me that I cannot be complacent. People have always told me I couldn’t do certain things and the knee was a physical manifestation of that, but it lit a fire under my ass.
I showed Devon the shoe and she instantly knew why it looked the way it did. It made me angry for success, pissed off to conquer my fears. I had the best leg workout since the day before the injury. I didn’t listen to the limits placed on me by doctors, haters on the internet or even family. The shoe signified all that to me. Although I say ‘angry for’, I am also very grateful for everything and realized that I need to realize joy and happiness first. The two emotions can and should coexist. There are no limits, there are only imagined walls. The walls are there for you to break down, to show you what you are willing to do to live the life of your dreams. For me, the shoe was the reminder, for you, figure out what it is and look at it every morning and every night before bed. How bad do you want it? Dream big….
What My Typical Day Looks Like
My 2nd office
I get asked a lot how I manage to squeeze everything in, especially now that I am back to teaching full time and running Newell Strength.
I guess that it goes back to when I was in college….I always opted to have the 8 AM classes, even while living in my fraternity house. The other guys thought it was ridiculous, but I loved it.
I became meticulous at scheduling my day. I was often done with my classes before most of my friends even started class. And then, I had the rest of the day to do with as I pleased.
A typical day now looks like this for me, with little variation during the week days:
• I wake up around 5 AM, grab a cup of coffee and either roll out on the foam roller while studying strength DVDs or I head to the gym to train a few clients depending on the day.
• Around 6:30 AM, I get a little extra work in for my conditioning. This might be some sled dragging, bike riding outside, pushups, high rep belt squats or like this morning, pull aparts and farmers walks.
• I have opted to not eat breakfast this year as I am doing a fat loss experiment in which I let the cortisol that his highest in the morning keep breaking down body fat until much later in the morning. Nonetheless I package up my food for the day and make any shakes I have to bring along with me. (Don’t worry; I will cover the breakfast thing later this week or early next).
• I shower up, and shoot off to school around 7:30 AM. On the way to school I listen to some kind of business CD or writing CD, maybe mixed in with a little Stern for the first or last 10 minutes to lighten things up.
• When I get to school, I either lesson plan, meditate or read for a half hour.
• I then teach for the next few hours.
• At my lunch, I eat and then work, either writing or working on my business for an hour.
• I then teach again for a few hours, followed by another half hour of work at the end of the school day.
• I then drive over to Newell Strength and the ride is much like the one in the morning, except
at this point I drained from the kids, so I use it to recharge.
• I coach my clients from about 3:30 PM to 9PM, depending on the day, then its off to eat and go to sleep.
• I have been getting my hard workouts in on Wednesday afternoons (my day off from the gym), Friday nights, an d the weekends.
That’s my typical day in a nutshell. It looks very similar the past years, even though the current Newell Strength has only been open for under 2 years. I was busy building it up in my basement and traveling from client to client for the 5 years before that. That’s some serious time management and attention to detail to make sure I don’t burn out.
For all the aspiring strength coaches that read this, I have already started working on an online course of how to follow my blue print and open up your own place.
Kyle
The Human Strength Expert
ENVY
What ya worried about?
“Of all the disorders of the soul, envy is the one no one confesses too.” -Plutarch
It seems that I have been getting bitch slapped left and right by little verbal jabs that friends and clients have been reporting back to me on, which I normally just laugh off but at the same time I think it’s important enough to write and teach about.
Last week, one of our athletes had a box jumping accident and got 20 stitches. We push the envelope hard at Newell Strength which is why so many athletes want to come and train there.
Set backs happen when you push your limits...
Turns out some young assistant strength coach at the local high school saw his shins and said, “If you were training here that wouldn’t have happened.” Not the first time this high school assistant strength coach has said something to this effect to a local athlete that trains at Newell Strength, and I am sure it won’t be the last. I have never met the kid nor do I care to. I normally operate on a level that I don’t pay any attention to other coaches unless I know they are really good and I can learn something from them. This tool of a strength coach has a lot to learn. His comments wreak of ENVY, pure, unaldultered jealousy.
BTW, the reason an accident like that wouldn’t happen at a local high school gym is because they don’t push the boundaries like we do and I am sure if they saw what we do at the gym it would look very, very foreign to them as I and my staff are constantly learning and applying things from the top strength coaches in the world. We are not stuck in some dumb ass text book, going by outdated, theoretical program design parameters. But I digress, let me stick to my topic.
Fact #1 about envy-people will hate on you when you are better and more superior in your niche than they are. Think about it, what else would a kid like this say? “Kyle is much, much better than I.” Not likely, so its human nature and his nature to talk smack. I am just using him as one of my examples, but stuff like this goes on all the time EVERYWHERE.
Another good friend and client of mine came in to the gym this morning and said some guy on his softball team that knows me said there is no way my gym can be as successful as he was telling him it was. Of course it can’t, if that particular kid was running it. The 99% rule applies to ALL. Most people can’t fathom or muster up the energy it takes to keep a schedule that a 1%er does, waking up at the crack of dawn, spending any and every break in the work day to work on building his dream, having every waking minute geared towards reaching his ultimate goal. That takes more mental energy up in a day for a 1%er than a 99%er spends in a month. This kid wasn’t there when I was sleep deprived for the past 5 years, not there when I was writing down my every thought in my little notebook, not there while I was driving around the country going to different seminars, spending thousands and thousands of dollars on my own education. He is not here with me right now writing this, when I’d much rather be sitting by the pool (in fact, I am sure he is chilling out somewhere right now, taking it easy).
Fact #2-People are secretly infuriated when you achieve success and they haven’t and know deep in their hearts that they won’t achieve it, not because they can’t but because they want it handed to them. They don’t want to go through the pain and discomfort. It is too hard for them and that is fine, but it’s the 1%ers that make the world go round, however the 99%ers allow the 1%ers to shine.
Envy is a cancer and the sooner you learn how to deal with it, the better you will be. I have had top people in the industry accuse me of stealing ideas and such, but ‘dogs don’t bark as parked cars’ and I knew it was them just getting envious of me passing them by.
Anyone, yes, anyone can attain success, its just that few are willing to put in the work and discomfort to do so. The mind is a powerful thing, as an example, Devon and I were watching a horror movie, Insidious, last weekend and she got so spooked that she no longer wanted to sleep in the basement so we had to go upstairs. Nothing changed but her ‘suspension of disbelief’.
Fact #3-Most people don’t believe they can become successful and great. They don’t know how to use the principle of ‘suspension of disbelief’ to turn on the theater of the mind. There have been many nights where I would sit there at the gym in my truck, long after everyone else went home and picture the athletes and gym that I wanted. Do you know how most people train their minds? By watching tv, think about that.
The whole point is that envy makes people do stupid things and if you attain success on any level, you are going to have some envious people trying to bring you back down to their level with the other muck. Recognize it for what it is and laugh it off, don’t waste your precious energy getting into losing battle….
What Makes You Happy?
What’s up guys! I will be posting some cool stuff this upcoming week and I will be having some cool interviews with some peeps within the next two weeks. I was watching this video at 4:45 AM this morning…it is a must watch! Don’t be afraid to fail!!! What is driving you? Is each workout pushed to the max? Stop going through the motions, it is your duty to the world….
Simplify Things
The Human Strength Expert
The area’s top strength coach
Make it simple stupid
Hi, how have are things? Once again, I will be writing on a topic that can apply to both your personal lives and your exercise programs.
In the world of exercise, we have all been taught backwards. We learn muscles before movements and then seem to design our programs based on these principles. The problem that we run into then is that we try to train our body parts by isolating them, when we should be training the movements that the body is designed for. By training these movements, you will be sure to hit every single muscle in the body and the body will be functioning as a unit, the way it is supposed to function. You will more than likely also hit some muscles that are nearly impossible to hit with many of the standard isolation programs that are out there. So, what are the four main movements of the human body? Thought you would never ask. Here they are: 1) changing levels-think of squats and lunges. 2) Locomotion-think of how movement takes place. When you break it down, it takes place one leg at a time-this is where single limb and functional movements come in. 3) Pushing and pulling-these movements will involve all upper body muscles and it can’t get much simpler than this. 4) Twisting-we are always turning and twisting to change directions or to move an object. These twisting movements can take place with a pivot or with the feet glued to the floor. Now you might be saying, how are you supposed to train the body with just four things? Well, there are roughly 20-30 exercises in each category and to take it further, probably 3-5 variations of each. This is way more than we can even remember, but if you compile say 20-25 exercises in your arsenal; you can have a new and exciting workout every time you train. I can also guarantee you that some of the pesky injuries that you may have will begin to go away and your body will feel much better. You can still implement your isolation exercises, but don’t rely only on them. Take the best of both worlds and mix them together.
Along the same thing, take some time to think about life and everything that is great in it. I know that I often find myself looking forward to something or thinking about a past event. The only thing I or we are doing to ourselves when we do this is deny ourselves the beauty of life that is unfolding right in the very moment. We can only affect the present moment. Don’t wait for some event or person to come into your life and make you happy, because you will be waiting forever. You are the only one that can decide to be happy and live everyday that way. I believe it was Abraham Lincoln that said, “We are about as happy as we make up our minds to be.” It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
Instant strength and 1%ers…
Strength at will...
I find that most people have been taught the way of lifting in which they go slow down, slow up, which can be very useful when first teaching someone or if hypertrophy is your main goal (time under tension). The problem arises when an athlete or man wants to lift heavy ass weights.
The principle of kinetic energy training or dynamic training is: fast down, fast up. When a weight is lowered rapidly, it will signal the muscle spindles to ‘snap back’, the muscle and tendons will react as if they were rubber bands that have been pulled tight and then let fly.
You never want to bounce a weight off the chest or bounce out of a squat, but you do want to move the weight fast as humanly possible. Louie Simmons is a big advocate that strength is really just a function of time. Moving the weight rapidly can be trained for on dynamic days, during which we use 65-75% of our max weight (sometimes lighter) and move it for doubles or triples. The goal would be maximum bar speed, moving those few reps in as much time as it would take you to move a max weight one time.
This principal is so important, yet so overlooked in most training programs. I always tell my guys, you can’t jump slow and they seem to get it. You can’t expect to get explosive yet move weights around slowly or without the intent to move them fast. Make sense?
On to another topic…I accomplished more last week than I did during the entire previous 2 weeks combined. How? Simply by getting more rest and sleeping 8 hours per night. I finally gave in after nearly collapsing from physical exhaustion last weekend. I am not quite sure where the idea came from that somehow it should be looked upon as great to get very little sleep, but I bought in way back in high school.
The truth is that in order to be a 1%er, you have to be at your best creatively and energetically, day after day. Sleep is the answer. Speaking of 1%ers, is anyone else getting fed up of the people that want to have all the good things in life, yet sit on their ass day after day? It is a sad state of affairs that people have this mindset, yet it permeates through nearly every corner of the country. A lot of these people can make just as much on unemployment as they can working a job, so why should they budge?
I am all for opportunity, but not if you aren’t going to go out and grab it by reigns and do something with it. I try to only surround myself with 1%ers, heck, I just kicked a 99% athlete out of the gym last week, he simply refused to push himself outside his comfort zones. The men at my gym are all highly successful 1%ers and it is no wonder that they are now dedicating themselves to achieving optimal health. They could waste their money at global gym, but they realize they will only get out what they put in. Simple reality math….
