Physical Conditioning

Mental Preparation

Physical conditioning does not happen overnight. If you want success, no matter what your target, you’ve got to plan. I’m not talking about unrealistic goals either. You have to set serious reachable goals that still make you stretch to achieve them.

The first thing I would suggest to anyone who wants to even begin training would be to pick up a couple of note books and a log journal. To start, you’ve got to have a purpose, a why. Write down everything that you believe to be a reason to create why training is the priority you want it to be. List all the reasons of how training is going to benefit you. Then make a list of all the possible reasons of how by not training your life will be affected. After you’ve compiled every possible thought to paper, read it and reread it. Writing your reasoning down always makes your ambitions more concrete and attaining your goals more reachable. Remember to go back to your note pad about every 2 weeks and read it again. It should strengthen your belief system and serve you as a reminder of why your training. You should now have enough purpose, enough why, to commit to a compelling case to train.

The journal is to monitor your progress. Steady progress is best made by setting goals. Your goal setting should never be such that you gave it everything you had, your best effort, and by the end of the first week you’re not where you want to be. Set goals that are realistic but that make you push yourself just a little more than you really would have. It’s kind of like starting from point A reaching point B, but trying to hit point C. Get it? That’s called stretching.

Always leave room for the nutritional and emotional aspects of training. You’ll want to track your physical and psychological ups and downs during your training. Log what foods you take in along with the calorie count and how you felt that day. This is a “leave no doubt” way of why and how you can achieve your best performance more often and even on a steady basis.

Well, I think that’s enough to get started on for beginners and those of you that are already training. I truly hope this helps. If you have any questions just drop me an e-mail and I’ll get back to you.

Train hard and train smart,

Sensei Robert