Fitness Revelation Pillars
Mind
If we are to engage in optimal health, we must “renew” the way we think. What we deem as important must be reoriented and that starts in our minds, in our decision-making process. It is a decision to value ourselves as someone we truly care about so that we begin to make different decisions in how we live.
Body
We intrinsically know our bodies are fantastic and marvelous beyond comprehension. Yet, we often treat them as if they don’t matter, or that they will be okay despite our lack of care. Thus begins the inevitable decline of our health and wellbeing. Yet here’s the thing, our bodies are incredible at healing!
Spirit
I am here to integrate your health with your spirituality. What’s amazing to me is how so many other belief systems have integrated health and wellness into their spiritual journeys, yet-Christianity which purports to be the answer-has all but ignored and in some cases spoken against our physical bodies.
Principles
Longevity is the goal
Our goal is a long life. A life well lived, as they say. When I speak with people about transforming their health, I never speak in terms of how it will improve their looks or how much weight they would like to lose or how nice they want their abs to be. Instead, I talk to them about longevity and how this will inform everything they will do in their exercise protocols. This also takes the pressure off. More importantly it takes us out of the world’s perspective of why we exercise and puts us into a healthy perspective. God has given us these bodies and, like the other things that He has given us, He asks us to be their stewards.
That is the underlying purpose that empowers us to longevity: to live a full and vibrant life. We want to be able to function well long into our later years. Sure, the by-product of all this hard work is that you will look better. More importantly, though, you will feel better. Not just physically, but mentally and spiritually as well. You will once again have a sense of self-love as your body heals and your soul prospers.
They’re all one. Nothing is separate.
Being effective and efficient
Most people think we have to be in the gym for hours to transform our bodies. That simply isn’t true. It’s no badge of honor to tell me you spend two hours a day in the gym and your body hasn’t changed in the past two years, but people say it to me all the time. The solution is simple: you must be efficient and effective in what you do. The time you spend working out is irrelevant if it’s not done efficiently (or if you’re merely at the gym spending most of your time “resting” between sets).
To be efficient and effective is about focus and intent. It is stewardship of time and effort and it’s based on proper programming and training protocols that are appropriate to your current level of fitness. (By which I mean, pegged to your age, weight, stamina and medical health, if that is an issue.) My level of training is certainly different from someone that has never exercised in their life and your level is different than the person standing next to you at the weight rack. Yet we can all be efficient and effective in what we do in order to accomplish our desired results.
As a follower of Christ, I believe we must commit all we do to the Lord. Two verses come to mind.
Proverbs 16:3 (HCSB) says, “Commit your activities to the LORD, and your plans will be achieved.” The GNT puts the same verse this way: “Ask the LORD to bless your plans, and you will be successful in carrying them out.”
Proverbs 19:21 (NIV) says, “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.”
When our exercise is focused and committed, on-purpose and with the goal of transforming our temple to honor God, it is committed to God and we will achieve our purpose and goal. I am here to tell you that I have witnessed this over and over again. Here is a testimony from one of our Fitness Revelation transformation clients. He was a guy that actually worked out but was still overweight and not really healthy. Listen to what He has to say about Fitness Revelations Temple Transformation program:
You are doing an amazing job of leading and transforming people’s hearts and minds. The platform you are using has given us the instruction book on how to lose weight and transform our bodies through diet, exercise, and—most importantly—Scripture. God has given us the instruction book on how to live in the Bible. If we would just do what the Bible says, we would live an abundant life for others. I draw parallels to that with what you are doing with Temple Transformation. If we would do the exercise, eat what you have given us in the meal plan and do the devotionals, then our lives will and have to change.
He gets it. He has become an advocate. During his time in working with me, he sent multiple messages about how he never thought about connecting exercise and diet with his walk with God. When he submitted those things to God, his body changed—and dramatically so.
Showing up is job number one
I’ve learned a lot about faith by being in the gym. After all, the gym literally saved my life. It is human nature to take things for granted until we lose them. That was my journey. I liked to work out, but my motives for it were skewed. I was young and directionless, and I certainly wasn’t walking with God, but working out was something I liked and did often. After getting run over, literally (I was run over by a pickup truck), the only repeating thought I had was that I had lost the one thing that brought me true joy. At that point a seed was planted. That seed grew over the next few years as I went through multiple surgeries to put my broken body back together.
Mine was not an easy road with an obvious or predictable outcome. In fact, the prognosis once I knew I wouldn’t lose my leg was that I may be able to walk, and that would be it. But I wanted to train! I wanted to do much more than just walk. So, I started to do the work. Physical therapy morphed into training and I landed on the first lesson.
I ended up doing physical therapy with a clinic that was owned by a professional bodybuilder named Bob Gajda. In addition to winning the title of Mr. America in 1966, he was light years ahead of most everyone else in the realm of training. He was a brilliant man ahead of his time when it came to practices we now take for granted in the gym, like functional training, movement restoration and integrated stability, to name a few.
Bob’s clinic was an hour-plus away from my house and I needed to go three times a week, which I did. And, over the next year, I began to get better. The lesson I learned was that if I showed up, I was ahead of the game. Really—showing up was the hardest part for me. Getting in the car and driving all that way with all the other pressures of life crushing me under their weight (I was not able to work due to my injuries and money was in extremely short supply). Somehow, I just chose to show up.
I’ve seen this principle lead to success and failure for others in my life, as well as for me. I tell my clients and I’m telling you, if you show up you win. The hardest part is getting yourself out the door and getting to the gym. Getting yourself off the couch and showing up… for you.
And therein lies the rub. Why is it so hard for us to decide that we are worth it? Why is it so easy to accept that this is as good as it gets? Had I given into those thoughts rather than drive an hour each way three times a week, I’m pretty certain where my life would be right now: I would be that drunk at the end of the bar, filled with bitterness and anger over what had been taken from me by that accident. Instead, I showed up. And you will, too!
Be present with you
One of the greatest things I can teach a client is to work hard enough in their workouts that the cares of the world fade away. When you commit fully to your workout:
- You are in tune with your body
- You feel your heartbeat
- You hear the depth of your breathing in your ears
- You feel the level of fatigue
- You are alive and in the moment
- You are completely present
When you get to this place, you are free of worry and regret. You are free from thoughts about what others think about you. You are completely one with yourself and with God because He is always present in the moment. Stop and take it in. Grasp it feel it. Thank God for the ability to move and exercise. Praise Him inside where only He can hear.
People ask me why I still train the way I do at my age. I do it because it causes me to be present and I can take that into other areas of my life. My spiritual life, my family life, my working life and my friendships are all the richer for it.
Training has given me life and it can do the same for you.
Never allow yourself to get comfortable
The best thing you can do for your spiritual and physical life is to never get comfortable. Remember that in this case, comfortable doesn’t mean neutral, it means regression. As long as you’re not advancing, you are regressing. That’s the nature of the fallen world we live in. You are either growing spiritually or regressing. The world and its systems are waging war to un-renew your mind. If you sit back and relax you are moving to a place of un-renewal. It’s the same thing physically, if you are not active and pushing yourself to get stronger, leaner, healthier and more fit, then you are regressing.
You are never standing still.
Nothing is neutral.
Everything is fluid and mobile. God says it this way:
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. – Deuteronomy 30:19 NIV
My admonition to you is to choose life. Choose to move and live! Choose to go forward and not backwards. Choose to be focused and on purpose about your health and wellness. Choose to honor God with your body.
Now go and be the temple!
Key Concepts
The real work is in the kitchen
What I mean by “the real work is in the kitchen” is not about implementing another diet, but rather its paying attention to what you’re eating, how you feel from the foods you eat, and will the foods you’re eating get you to your health and fitness goals. James Clear states in his book Atomic Habits, “that we tend to not rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.”
“The real work is in the kitchen” is about implementing a system that creates achievable habits to get you to the goal you desire. “The real work is in the kitchen” is the reality of living the Fitness Revelation lifestyle.
Volume of work
Muscle is built through time under tension. Whether you are a man or a woman it is the same for all of us. And trust me, the goal is muscle. Not everyone has a desire to build a competition physique, most want to be the best version of themselves they can be. To do that you need muscle. To build muscle requires time under tension.
It’s interesting how most men gravitate toward heavy load and most women shy away from load to accomplish the goal of building muscle. People tend to rely on past experience or misinformation when it comes to getting into shape. The truth and the pathway are found in understanding how to create time under tension in a way that protects from injury, accomplishes muscular fatigue, and is focused on creating the changes desired.
Time under tension is accomplished multiple ways.
- Repetition tempo
- Slow eccentric tempo
- Unstable environments
- Super Sets and Giant Sets
- Shorter rest periods
- Descending Sets
- Varying repetition counts
- Load
Notice that I mentioned load last? The reason for that is load is influenced by all the other factors. So, load should be determined for an exercise based on these other factors. The goal of load is to create the time under tension needed to cause muscular hypertrophy (growth and change) to the extent that accomplishes the goals.
Fitness Revelation coaching revolves around training in a way that works best for each client based on their goals, experience, current condition, and past injuries. The focus is on increasing the volume of work, time under tension, by being effective and efficient in each exercise, each set, and each workout. Fitness Revelation provides the system to accomplish your desired results, in a way that saves you time. We can point the way; you just need to have the desire and will to do the work. Remember, this is intended to be a lifestyle, which takes discipline to change current habits, as well as being open to learning new things than you’ve been taught before.
Nuance of movement
Consider the person next to you in the gym doing bicep dumb bell curls. Are they slinging the weight instead of controlling it? Are they keeping their upper arm stationary or are they recruiting their deltoids to help raise the weight? Are they supinating the dumb bell as they lift it?
For every exercise there is a small adjustment that can be made to get significantly more effectiveness from the movement. Paying attention to nuance makes a dramatic difference in the benefit you get from an exercise, and it makes the movement safe, so you don’t get injured. Avoiding injury is key to making consistent changes.
Many of my clients say that paying attention to nuance makes the exercise more difficult to perform, and they are right. It does! Slinging the weight and recruiting multiple muscle groups makes the movement easier to perform, but it also offers diminishing returns and increases the risk of injury.
Pay attention to nuance!
Learn to breathe
Most people, when they start an exercise regimen, do not know how to breathe effectively. I call it drowning in the gym. It happens all the time, you look around and see people panting and gasping for air. Some more dramatic than others. Like it’s a badge of honor or some sign that they’re going harder than anyone around them. FALSE!
Breathing is about being present in the workout. Its about not letting your body dictate to you the level of exertion you are experiencing; you are dictating to your body the level of exertion. Panting is not breathing. Breathing is breathing. If you want to be effective and efficient in the gym you must control your breathing in response to your exertion. This causes your rest periods to be shorter allowing you to complete the volume of work necessary to accomplish the desired results.
Breathe in a way that keeps you moving through the workout effectively and efficiently, without wasting time on rest between sets. This is one way of saving time in the gym.
Learn to breathe…
A rising tide
I live the Fitness Revelation brand twenty-four seven. My clients learn to do the same. Out working everyone doesn’t mean they train at my level; it means that they are moving through a workout with the correct protocols at a level of intensity that fits where they are in their fitness journey. I’ve had new clients doing body weight exercises to establish a proper foundation, that are outworking everyone around them because they are just getting started, and its tough. As well as clients that have been with me for years that have moved through multiple phases of training, that live the Fitness Revelation brand by raising the tide in the gym when they train.
You can always recognize those clients by the volume of work they are doing, and yet completely in control of their breathing, form, nuance, and workout protocols.
To outwork everyone in the gym is to be completely present with yourself. The world has faded away, you are fully alive. You feel the exertion in your body. The sound of your breathing. The mental focus on completing the next set. Every rep counts. Every movement is effective and efficient. Nothing is wasted. This is the Fitness Revelation way.
Raise the tide.
“Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”
The mental transformation process is entirely rooted in answering the question; why? What is your “why”? Answering that will compel you to take the steps to change your health and wellness and transform your life. Determining where you are going, and then laying out achievable goals and the steps to meet each goal is a pillar component of Fitness Revelation.
“I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.”
When we begin to make some adjustments to what we put in them or begin to exercise, our bodies begin to heal. I have mantra that all my clients know; “movement is healing.” My other mantra is the work is done in the kitchen. When we begin to feed this marvelous creation healthy foods and begin to move, no matter what condition you are in, or age you are, your body will heal.
The bible is clear that our bodies are the temple of God;
“Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” – 1 Corinthians 6:19
If we are the temple, then we need to care for the temple. My goal is to reveal the machinations of Hell against this holy pursuit of physical fitness and light a pathway toward a wholeness that will set people free.
To deal with this messiness, you must acknowledge that your physical body is not separate from your spirituality. The church has taught for years that the pursuit of health, beauty and fitness is vanity.
What if they are wrong? What if it’s not vanity, but rather an acknowledgment that we are each of us a living embodiment of the temple of God? What if the pursuit of fitness and a healthy lifestyle actually honors God through caring for His temple? (Us!) And if the pursuit of health, fitness and weight loss is part of your spiritual practice, can it be said it is most certainly not vanity, but an expression and embodiment of freedom from the forces of darkness?
When you can let go of the false humility and stand up as men of valor and women of virtue, submitted to God, then health, fitness and weight loss become a spiritual pursuit. (for those who really take this to heart, a spiritual discipline.) And when that realization occurs, we experience His grace, mercy and strength and this will empower our journeys toward health.
Yes, we are the temple of God! You, me, and everyone around us are the image of God on this earth. When we pursue divine health, we pursue Him.