Body Mechanics...what do I mean when I say 'Body Mechanics' well you've likely all heard of mechanics, vehicle mechanics. Looking at the structure of your chosen vehicle, making sure it works properly and optimising it's assets to have a greater road performance! Essentially it's the same thing in Biomechanics, your body is the machine and your trainer is your mechanic. 

Having greater Body Mechanics is important for everyone, regardless of your skill/sporting level. It's used to improve overall way of life! We can use Body Mechanic Analysis to study the human form, look at individual structure and movement then convey this information in to actions that will prevent injury, improve performance, thus increasing activity levels and sporting potential!

Sounds pretty exciting right? 

Okay, so I'm not going to overwhelm  you with pages and pages of direct mechanic help, that knowledge is better spread over time and through correct one - one instruction! 

Coaching
If you are lucky enough to be participating in Personal Training or Coaching, then make sure you're questioning your trainer on Body Mechanics. I don't mean this in a negative way, so don't go running to your next session preaching the word of mechanics! Just ensure you are having correct, technical help on correct lifting form. If you do not have a coach/trainer yet. Try to at least consult one, just for a single session if you have to! I can't tell you enough about the importance of coaching. It literally can improve your performance and prevent your injury risk greatly. 

Performance Curve
A lot of you likely train alone or with friends, you've had a Gym induction, watched Youtube and have taken the Fitness world in your own hands. That's great, I love that! Getting out there and actively participating in a positive act and all of it's magical health benefits. However, I would still suggest you get some guidance on lifting technic as the mechanical advise will reap greater reward! I will tell you now, just incase this happens...like with running economy, sometimes having our techniques critiqued and altered we often experience a small decrease in overall performance. This acute decrease is not a bad thing, drop the weight, continuously use the new mechanical advantages that have been given to you and create that new movement pattern. I promise you that once your body adjust you'll out perform your previous performance bests! 

Pro-longed Activity Levels
Assuming being active is a huge part of your life, better Body Mechanics can increased how long you stay active for. Often we struggle with either training for performance at the expense of our prolonged health or we train lightly so that we don't hurt ourselves but experience minor results. Those problems can be easily avoided with better mechanical coaching! You'll be able to train for performance in a way that doesn't cause body damage, in fact it'll allow for greater levels of conditioning and decrease the effects of joint ageing. 

So to summarise for all you wonderful little, upcoming performance masters! What  I'm inviting you to do is find someone who can properly look and alter the Biomechanics of how you lift/perform. Open your mind to the possibility of change and see how your performance increases! You're always welcome to message the Fortitude Fitness team, come on down to the mecca and have a mechanical based session on us! 

Jason Out!

I had an interesting conversation with one of my clients during our session the other day...

This client of mine is fairly new, just stating up and beginning to feel the positive life effects of increased health and fitness. Naturally, as we begin to enjoy something we share it with those around us, perfectly natural human behaviour right? What my client found was an overwhelming array of mockery and jokes thrown towards them, sarcasm, comments and negative feedback towards there new found love for keeping fit and staying healthy! This got me thinking a little...

Too often we see people put each other down, why? Generally, although nobody will ever admit to it, we tend to give off negativity towards somebody when we ourselves feel lesser. Stay with me here. This person who decided to make fun and belittle my client for attempting something different, out of their comfort zone and positive is likely not doing too much with themselves so instead of being encouraging and supportive, they've deiced to put it down. A guard going up..."Oh, thats stupid" "Still doing that s*** are you?" "Why waste your time doing that" when really they can see that you are actively doing something interesting and positive, so they fear that being supportive and impressed could display some sort weakness...you might start to think you're better than them if they are taken back by your life changes...stupid, I know.

The easiest way for us to deal with something that begins to make us question our own actions is to throw some negativity towards it.

"Nah, F**k that guy, doing stupid, pointless s**t like that...I don't even care about my health"
"It's easy for you, you don't work as much as me"
"I bet that was handed to you"
"Lucky for some, life is easy for them"

Excuses, negativity and straight up self-lies. We see someone working hard, doing something different and being successful, we get bitter and jealous but who wants to appear that way? Not you, not me, so instead lets just put them down and make an excuse as to why they can do it and we can't, or make them feel silly for doing it. We can sleep then knowing that we've bettered ourselves and WE are still on top...

BALONY

Damn, how do you expect to become better or happier if you don't want to learn and accept somebody else's happiness? Deep down when we see someone doing awesome things with their lives we think " I want a piece of that" or "They're looking so much better, why can't I be in shape" instead of fighting this, congratulate them, motivate and be inspired, let them know their actions have resinated with you and now YOU want to make some changes and up your game a little! I've found that by spreading positivity out from my end it circles and spreads, people appreciate and respect your interest in their success and in turn will be there to help you with yours. It's not a bad thing to be a little envious, it's normal, use that as a driving force for your success and not so you can throw it back at people...but so that you can grow with them and help others grow and enjoy your life a little bit more. 

I'm inviting you to try this

I'm telling you now that negative thoughts and dark mind clouds will make disappear, it feels good to act good, so..as I say so all the time

SPREAD SOME LOVE 

Jason Out.

Rise with the Sun and Fall with the Stars

If you know me, or have been keeping updated with the Fortitude Fitness movement, then you will know I'm a huge fan of this little quote of mine! My obsession with the quote isn't just because it clearly makes me look/sound cool and spiritually at one with the world, it's also down to the simple fact that this rockin' little line speaks all kinds of crazy truths!

Sit back, relax and read on my life grasping adventurers.. 

For most, the idea of 5am is horrifying, disgusting and straight up ridiculous! This is not the case at all, it's infact a wondrous time to wake up and feel the world as it awakens with you. Yes i agree that blissfully slumbering away those early morning hours can be tempting and comfortable, but once the hours are gone, which we can all agree feels like a matter of minutes, they're gone, finished, into the past and never to be experienced again...so my question to you all, why not just wake up, rise and live it? 

In the mornings, regardless of that lethargic feeling we experience first thing, we actually have a lot of stored up energy as we've spent X amount of hours sleeping, meaning our brains are fresh, our minds are sharp and free of waste product. beyond that first 10 minutes could hold 2 maybe 3 hours of productive time before you event start work! You could go for an energising morning run, hit the Gym, prepare your food of the day or sit in bed and get on with some admin work?! These are all great things to do in the morning, it sets you up and makes you feel more productive. The ball is rolling already! 

Mind Management
You'll feel in more control of your day, optimising the peaceful mornings to organise your thoughts and plan your day! I like to check when my clients are, lectures etc. This enables me to feel calm and motivated for the rest of my day, ready to tackle the challenges and enjoy the fun times ahead! 

I'm inviting you to try this lifestyle change, you will feel happier for it and experience increased levels of life satisfaction, if you struggle to motivate yourself, take on a Personal Trainer, or start training with friends? Give yourself a reason to wake up, create the habit, the lifestyle will follow and I promise you...it'll be a good one!

...one last thing, I'm not expecting everyone to now start waking up at 5am perfectly everyday for the rest of their lives! You have to be realistic, ask any of my clients and they will be able to tell you times when I've been running around all over the place, complete mess! This happens to everyone, it can be hard to manage life challenges, you just need to stop, relax, re-elvauate and get back on top. There is room for the late night grinds or going out with friends, you just need to know how to make it work, be spontaneous, live, love and enjoy the world, just keep on top.

Food for thought...

Jason Out.

You're feeling it as well right?! A weird impending sense of happiness and well being? The urge to suddenly do more, wake up early, be more productive? 

That my beautiful little readers is better known as 'Summer Vibes' It's a wondrous feeling, one that should be followed and enjoyed! Let it fill your soul and motivate you to be more active! It comes just as our motivation from the New Year is beginning to fall...almost as if sweet mother nature herself has recognised this, felt this notable drop in human energy, thus she has began to tease us with summer days and warm rays! 

Now is the time to take action! Wake up early and seize the day! Rise with the Sun and fall with Stars, a great way to live, cycle to follow and habit to create. You'll literally feel the energy coursing through your veins...just like Flash! (The Flash reference has nothing to do with the TV series I'm currently dedicating my life to...promise..maybe) This new sense of greater wellness will be all you need to hit those summer fitness goals. Join an early morning class, getting your heart rate up will get you amped up for greatness! You'll feel satisfied and motivated at the fact that it's 8am yet you've done so much! 

Keeping this post short and sweet, just read it, take it in and begin to feel that life push you forward! Enjoy every second and prepare yourself for loveliness this summer!

So, as they don't say in Game of thrones...SUMMER IS COMING!

Jason Out. 

Too much going on, too much to take in! You might be like me, occasionally finding yourself in a mind destroying state of blurry voidness? Thats the only way I could think of describing this feeling of blurry thoughts, unorganised and uncollected. 

With so much to think about and so much going on around us we often find ourselves so overwhelmed with thoughts and potential ideas; plans and goals that we end up doing nothing at all. We end up sitting around scrolling social media, checking out what others are doing as opposed to chasing our own dreams and living our own life! Don't get me wrong, I'm not against social media at all however, it is easy to full into the tempting trap of sitting around watching others live their lives. I do it myself.

This is soul destroying, you eventually come to realise you wasted an entire day, weekend or even week experiencing other peoples lives as opposed to grasping your own...then the snowball happens...

You get caught up watching others,the world and its events then it clicks, you need to change something, do something! The ideas come rushing in! start the Gym, work harder, see this person, see that person...now you're in a blur, it's happened, that overwhelming blurriness that reaps over your soul, destroys your mind, makes you lazy..thus...say bye to body! 

It's okay though, it's normal for this to happen. We all get stuck sometimes and we all fall victim to getting caught up in others lives that we forget our own, i do it all the time! Now you can change, now you can fix that problem and start becoming that wonderful vision of yourself you have! 

Start simple, Tip One...from the Mind, Body, Soul - Healthy Soul, Healthy Body, Healthy Mind blog series.

Reduce your social media browsing, increase your list making!

What a ridiculous duo that seems! Think about it though, these ideas that suddenly come rushing towards you, write them down. Once you've completed it you can tick off your list and get that satisfying sense of achievement...maybe even post about that one yourself? Thats already a positive change without completely removing social media from your life! Post about your achievements and your positive steps as opposed constantly browsing what all your buds are doing! 

Actively try and reduce how much time you spend browsing on social media! Those people who annoy you, the friends and family who take all day to reply to what you've said to them, or tagged them online..they're out there living and creating. Try to become that person, this doesn't mean ignoring people for the sake of looking busy but instead, naturally as result of browsing less and completing more tasks on your list, become someone who isn't just known for your fast online response! 

I'm in no way attempting to slate social media, I believe it is a positive thing on society when it's properly used and not obsessed over! 

I hope this resinates within the souls of some of you and helps you make some positive changes...next post for this series will delve into Holistic Iron Therapy...what the heck is that?!

Take it easy, wonderful people!

Jason Out. 

Half way through the second month of the year already! Thats crazy right?!

Question...are you keeping strong? Pushing forward? Staying hungry, motivated?! Do you still have that wanderlust of adventure and desire you had coming in to this year?

Plenty of you do, I know that much! My beautiful clients, old and new have been smashing through this new year. traveling, training and chasing dreams. That's what we're here for, live it how you want it and set your soul free my friends and I promise you everything you give out will come flooding back in overwhelming glory! 

If you're someone who has fallen off the wagon a little, maybe lost that sparkle and passion you had coming in to this year, don't panic and PLEASE don't give up! (I had to use capitals to properly get your attention, just incase) I'm going to invite you to participate in the following steps...

1. Remember - Remember why you wanted to make some changes, who for?! Yourself? Your partner or just the world around you? 

2. Environment - Look around you, has work or social groups reverted you back to the mindset of " I'll just keep chugging through day by day until the weekend or my next day off" what happened to that desire to travel or become healthy? Has this changed through work and friends? Re-think your life and who you surround yourself with. Negativity spreads but so does positive thinking so choose which one fills your soul.

3. Plan - Plan your steps to make some changes, just the slightest of change can begin to create an avalanche of life changing adventure! Diet change, sleep routine, weekends exploring beyond your community..weekends actually exploring your community?! 

4. DO IT - See all those cool things you just planned...go and do them!

So come on you wonderful creatures of this earth, inhabitants of this era and creators of the next! Get back out there, get uncomfortable and go back for another Gym session or keep prepping your food! Go and explore lost worlds and strive towards that job you want, its all there for you, a life of pure fulfilment is a few steps away...

What are you waiting for?

Kick it

Jason out. 

​ 
For years I was caught up in the whole old school eating every two hours scenario, believing all the things you would hear in the gym from the usual bro’s who would tell you ‘brah you gotta get some protein in you or your muscles are gonna start eating away at themselves’… I remember even being at the old gym I worked at literally clock watching and stressing if a session with a client would run over and I was past the two hour eating mark, to the point that almost in my own mind I could feel the muscles wasting away! Now I’m not saying for a second this approach is useless and doesn’t work but I just realised it doesn’t fit my lifestyle, so about a year ago I read an article about intermittent fasting and thought I would give it a try. Fast forward one year and I am loving it and my physique and wellbeing is better than ever! One of the main benefits for me is the simplicity of fasting, most of all not having to lug Tupperware boxes around everywhere any longer, I mean how conducive is this to a real and enjoyable life, not to mention the strain it can have on a relationship. Picture this scene for a female… sitting there with her muscley boyfriend watching the sunset on a beautiful summers evening as she looks to him and says ‘isnt it wonderful?’ and his response is ‘Not bad but it’s been two hours babe’ as he pulls out his little Tupperware box and starts munching away at his dry chicken and rice… I mean talk about a romance killer right! I will admit that when you first start fasting it can be difficult, of course it does take time for your body to adjust to this extreme change in blood glycogen levels but I can honestly say from my experience once it does you do look and feel better overall. People always ask ‘don’t you feel hungry’ and the answer is yes, but I’ve learnt this feeling of hunger is fine and doesn’t actually mean I have to eat… let’s look back to the first types of humans on this planet, they were hunters who would have to wait for an opportunity to kill their prey so going long periods of time without food would have been very normal and as humans despite what we have been taught from children we are very capable of doing this, of course we must still consume the right amount of macros (protein. Carbs and fats) for our goals but fasting does certainly allow us to be in a state of ketosis more often during the day thus increasing the potential for fat loss. To sum up if you have the mind-set where you can except that feeling of hunger and still function normally and perform your daily duties then fasting is great and has many proven scientific benefits but it’s not for everyone! So I am suggesting you live your life this way? NO! But maybe give it a try and stick with it for a month or so and see how you feel at the end…  you may just be pleasantly surprised!

Motivation is very easy to come by and we know that, we have all experienced a form of motivation before and the emotional stimulus this provokes. Now the issue is not how do we get motivation, the issue is how do we get it to stay and stay for good, I can’t recall the amount of times I have had good intentions to do something and in the end failed because my lack of motivation, luckily I got over this by implementing the key factors below.
I give you 3 points that I believe play a big part in maintaining that motivation long term, I have read countless books, watched countless videos and these factors always crop up.

1: Dreaming and Visualisation
Dream big and dream brave, at no point should you stop dreaming, count your dreams if you like as goals it will give you a purpose and with a purpose you find the true meaning of life, by having these set dreams they will always be there to think about when the going gets tough, use them when motivation is low, recall why you got motivated in the first place. Also add in visualisation sit somewhere and think about your life with all your dreams becoming a reality, you need to trick your mind into believing it has already experienced them, now the reason to do this is so that you genuinely believe your goals are possible, when you truly believe in them your mind will automatically stay motivated.

2: Internal and External Factors
Your internal factors are going to be everything related to you and your thoughts, be nothing but positive, do not except the negatives that attempt to creep in the back of your head, shut them down, put them in their place, because if you do not they will overcome you and if that happens you will lose all motivation to continue.

The external factors are going to be everything that happens around you, are your friends inflicting negative energy, are your loved ones offering little to no support, is your partner giving you an ultimatum, you have to be very strong willed to overcome all of those external factors, for the most of us this will bring us down and in turn suck the motivation away, you must create an environment where there is nothing but positive energy, when you share the same beliefs and goals as others you will stay motivated

3: You have to make it fun
This is probably the most important out of the three, if you do not enjoy what you do, you will not succeed at keeping any sort of motivation, it is imperative that your dreams are yours and no one else’s, otherwise who are you truly staying motivated for. I am a big believer in doing something you love, we are not on earth forever so why waste your time doing the ordinary, if you love something that is a little different or risky then do it, as soon as you start doing what you love your motivation will sky rocket and in turn stay high.
It’s up to you to find out what your calling card is, go out and find it won’t you?

Rise and Shine beautiful people! 

The Day is young and so are our souls, slay the day, kick it...*insert attempt at motivational Wednesday message* 

Todays Blog is a little splash of something different, this is the new 'Client Tales' mini-series! It'll appear throughout the year.  Its similar to a testimonial, just a little less formal and little more real! No lies, no pretend journeys, just the experiences that our wonderful clients/members have here with us! 

Below is a passage from one of my OG clients Mr Mark Pearson, enjoy! 

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It's such a pleasure to see our clients/members grow during their time with us, smashing PB's, hitting goals and making strides towards heathy, long joyous lives! 

This is why we do it, this is our life, our purpose and our goal, make the world better one person at a time...do the same, take something you love and use it to do something amazing! 

Beautiful people, magical souls.

Jason out. 

I am going to keep this entry short and sweet, I want you to use your imagination and really think about this magic pill concept.

Hypothetically speaking, if I could give you a pill right now that will completely change you as a person, adding 15 years on to your life, giving you improved health, movement, strength, body image, even improving your self-esteem and confidence. That’s to name a few of the benefits there is many more.
Would you take it?

I hope the answer is yes and for good reason, we all want to improve the quality of our lives. We may have these superficial goals to lose weight or get muscular. But the underlying factor is being able to have a quality life should be at the top, being able to play football with your kids, being old enough to meet your great grandkids.

Now that is a quality life, do you want the above?

Then go out and get it, there is no pill but there is a healthy lifestyle that you can start implementing now. You have the power now to eat better, exercise, improve your happiness and you don’t need a pill to do it.
Now thinking of how long we are on earth for, is 1 year a long time in the grander scheme of things? Absolutely not, in 1 year of improving your life you will feel a new person and you will feel better.

No excuses…