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Two years ago, in July 2019, Nathan joined our training program. He was struggling with the aftermath of COVID, which had made his job and lifestyle more sedentary. Nathan knew he needed to develop healthy routines and habits to break out of that rut and take control of his life.
When Nathan initially joined our training program, he encountered difficulties due to gouty arthritis, experiencing pain during flares while performing various activities. With limited experience in athletics and movement, he had to learn how to connect with his body in terms of perfect form, overall movement, balance, and coordination. However, Nathan's determination to learn and work hard was unwavering, and as a result, he hasn't experienced a gouty arthritis attack in nearly two years among other accomplishments.
When asked if he felt any strain on his shoulders during the exercise, Nathan responded with an emphatic "NO," demonstrating his deep understanding of the mechanics of the movement and how his body was allowing him to perform it correctly.
Nathan’s commitment to self-improvement serves as a reminder that with determination and effort, anything is possible. We are proud of his progress and excited to see what else he can accomplish in the future.
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Many people struggle with maintaining a healthy lifestyle due to a lack of willpower. However, research from the 90s has shown that willpower is a finite resource, and we are more likely to run out of it when tired, stressed, or after making several decisions throughout the day. This often leads to skipping exercise, ordering unhealthy takeout, and giving up on our goals altogether. But there is good news! Recent studies suggest that the concept of ego depletion only applies if we believe in it. In other words, if we believe we will run out of willpower, we likely will. So, what can we do about it? We can focus on building mental toughness, also known as personal responsibility and accountability. Mental toughness is the ability to stay determined and focused when faced with challenges and to have the resilience and flexibility to overcome obstacles.
By following these eight practices, you can build your resilience and mental toughness over time. Remember that it's a gradual process, and you may encounter setbacks along the way. But with consistency and perseverance, you can achieve your goals. So, what are you waiting for? Put these practices into action today and start building your resilience! And don't forget to download our Resilience and Mental Toughness Guide for even more tips and inspiration. Together, we can overcome any challenge that comes our way.
Looking for some extra support, guidance, and accountability to help you achieve your health & fitness goals? Look no further than our Free 2-week Group Personal Training Trial Program! Don't wait any longer, visit www.wilcoxwellnessfitness.com/trial to learn more and start your journey towards a healthier, stronger you today. As we get into the month of May we’re sending out a big shout out to our May Athlete of the Month, Kellie Stinson.
Kellie is an ultra marathon runner, and her love for running is matched by her unwavering commitment to her training in the gym. She's acutely aware of how her workouts at Wilcox Wellness & Fitness contribute to her running success, as evidenced by her consistent improvements in personal records and increased ease during runs.
We are committed to staying ahead of the curve by always learning and updating our approach to best serve our clients. Kellie embodies this mindset, with an open-minded approach to new fitness approaches. While it can be challenging to adjust to changes after years or decades of doing things a certain way, Kellie has recognized the value in these adaptations. By observing and questioning these changes, she has strengthened her own understanding of how she can optimize her training for maximum benefit.
Kellie was receptive to this approach, eventually embracing it wholeheartedly and realizing that an intuitive eating method was truly efficacious. As a result, Kellie made notable strides towards her weight loss targets over the last several months.
Spring is in the air, and if you’re anything like me you’re starting to do some spring cleaning around the house and yard. It always feels so good to have things tidied up after the winter. While we’re cleaning up the house, let’s also talk about cleaning up what we’re putting into our bodies….and cleaning out the old ideas that we hold in our minds and that hold us back. This month I want to talk about stripping the junk out of our daily lives. When we think about stripping out the junk in our lives you may have immediately gone to the importance of stripping out junk food, and that is certainly a good thing to look to strip out, but I’m also talking about stripping out junk in terms of anything that creates an obstacle along your health & fitness journey. This could also include what you focus on with your thoughts & beliefs, which can have a major influence on your confidence, mindset and motivation. Food is definitely an important “junk” consideration that is well worth reducing or eliminating from our diet, and certainly worth talking a bit about. Have you ever noticed that foods that aren't exactly “good” for you seem to taste amazing? It’s kind of like Mother Nature is playing a practical joke… but there are a few reasons this happens.
So if you find yourself craving these foods, that’s by design! I’m sharing this with you because I believe knowledge is power — and keeping this in mind helps me keep my own food choices in check! According to the National Academy of Sciences, people eat too many calories, saturated fats, and added sugars; too much sodium; and not enough vitamin D, calcium, potassium, or fiber, and here’s the big kicker: the top causes of death (heart disease, diabetes, some types of cancer, etc.) are strongly associated with our food choices, making the elimination or reduction of these foods a real priority for the sake of our long term health. But….with that said, if we continue to struggle with our overall mindset and motivation, making adjustments to what we are eating can be that much more challenging. So let’s talk a bit about changing our mindset first so that we can be better prepared to tackle all aspects of our health & fitness with greater confidence and chances for success.
On the other hand, there are also hard things that we DON’T choose and don’t move us forward - things like frequent doctor appointments to manage chronic health conditions, struggling to go up the stairs without feeling winded, being unable to keep up with our kids or feeling confident engaging in active social engagements like going out for a hike with friends on a beautiful spring day. My point is that there is so much more to gain by putting in the effort to change things that will make our lives better because no matter how we look at it our choices will be hard. The question is, are you choosing to tackle the hard things that will make a difference in your life or are you coping with hard things that only create extra challenges and limitations in your life? So how to get started? Here’s a simple 3 step process that I think can get you on the right track:
Step 3: Now it’s time to get into problem-solving mode and TAKE ACTION.
Let’s make this springtime season all about cleaning out the junk in ALL aspects of our lives. You’ve got this! And don’t forget. If you need a little help, we’re here for you! Join us in congratulating Branielle - our April Athlete of the Month. Branielle has been training with us since September 2021 when her boss and Wilcox Client, Tom, encouraged her to get started, and we are so happy that he did!
“My boss trains at Wilcox as well and watching his transformation and how highly he speaks of the trainers has really inspired me. He is currently still a client and I love seeing him leaving when I am coming into the gym. His drive for fitness and how much he tries to pass it onto his employees amazes me”.
She embraced the extra support and the community engagement in the program. She utilized each resource to help her along her journey including being consistent about submitting a nutrition journal each week so that she could get tips on where she could make small, incremental changes in how she was eating. She worked hard to make healthy swaps and adjust her portion sizes so that she could continue to make progress towards her weight loss goals. She’s noticing her clothes fitting better and even fitting into smaller sizes.
When Branielle was asked what her best advice is for getting started in a health & fitness program this is what she said: “Just start. Get through the first couple of weeks. You will never know what you can do or can’t do unless you try it. Commit to a month and see how you feel. You won’t want to take a nap in the afternoons anymore. You will have more energy. You will overall feel better. You will make new friends that will support your journey”.
There’s a lot of talk out there about having a “strong core” but what does that even mean?
You can think of your core like a barrel with the pelvic floor at the bottom, the diaphragm at the top, and all of the muscles that wrap around your torso. This group of muscles play an incredibly important role in our posture, our digestion, and even how we feel emotionally. A strong core helps to protect our joints from impact related injury and they are also important in protecting our back and our organs. Each of the muscles of the core can be broken down into two groups - stabilizers and movers. The Stabilizers are important for maintaining intra-abdominal pressure and keeping you stable and strong. The movers are responsible for allowing you to sit up, bend over, twist, bend to the side, bend backward, and more. It’s important that we have balance between our stabilizer muscles and our mover muscles. When we don’t have strength & balance between our stabilizer muscles our bodies will compensate resulting in us using mover muscles for stability and our stabilizing muscles for moving. As you can imagine, that can result in many problems including pain, particularly in the lower back, and an increased risk of injury. The glutes are the largest muscle in our body, so when this muscle group isn’t working optimally we will likely move dysfunctionally and experience pain. The reality is that most of us sit for a significant amount of our day. We started this way back in Kindergarten when we started sitting at a desk for school, so it feels relatively normal to sit 8 hours a day, but doing so can take a real toll on our glute and overall core strength. We often don’t notice that we’re losing strength in this important muscle group until we start experiencing pain and other movement dysfunctions. Some signs of weak glutes include:
The pelvic floor is often a forgotten muscle that helps to support our organs, including our bladder, and for women, our reproductive organs. A weak pelvic floor is associated with incontinence, and in more severe cases prolapse which can feel like these organs are falling out of our bodies. For women in menopause the risks associated with a weak pelvic floor only increase, so maintaining a strong pelvic floor is incredibly important for leading an active life with confidence well into our elder years.
Digestion: Sitting with poor posture after eating can result in pressure on the abdomen resulting in acid reflux, heartburn, constipation, bloating & gas. Pelvic Floor: poor posture can also put pressure on the pelvic floor muscles, which makes it harder for those muscles to stay engaged leading to incontinence, adding insult to injury if your pelvic floor is already weak. Mental Health: Studies have shown that poor posture can have a direct effect on how we feel, including our mood, stress levels and self esteem. These are some pretty good reasons to care about our core strength. Could you use some extra guidance & support in moving better, feeling better, and living your best life (including having a strong core!)? Check out our Free Group Personal Training Trial Program.
We are so proud of Juley Salisbury and all that she has achieved since starting her training program with us last April.
Juley not only connects with the comradery of the community, she also contributes to it by offering up a little extra guidance or support to others in her group. It’s the attitude and spirit of people like Juley that creates the welcoming and supportive culture that we’re so proud of!
The trainer team is always prepared to help her slow down the movement when needed. Juley’s communication about what’s working and not working helps the trainer team guide her in her session so that she can stay safe and feeling strong and confident.
When Juley throws that ball to the ground she feels the ground shake beneath her and she feels strong and powerful. She’s also working harder on choosing a slightly heavier weight, reminding herself on the regular that she’s much stronger than she thinks.
Join us in congratulating our February Athlete of the Month, Lorrie Cardwell-Panfil.
Lorrie quickly embraced the opportunity to regain her connections to her body through her training program at the gym. She comes into her training sessions ready to work hard and engaged. She listens to the trainer’s guidance and cues, and works to understand how the exercises in any given training session will benefit her body, how she moves, and how she feels.
Lorrie always comes into the gym with a BIG smile on her face, but don’t let that smile fool you. She’s very serious in her training sessions and wants to get the most out of each minute. Lorrie is the type of person who smiles when she’s working hard, even if it’s challenging to her and she’s struggling in some way, she’s still smiling. You can really see just how much she enjoys working in the gym. One day Lorrie came in and she wasn’t smiling. She shared how she was having some tests done to diagnose a possible serious health condition. She shared her fears in how such a diagnosis may impact her ability to keep up with her training program, the intensity at which she’s enjoyed working, and her ability to maintain consistency. Lorrie welcomed the support provided by the trainer team where she was reminded to take each day at a time, to do what she felt she was able to do each day, and to rest as her body required. By listening to her body she was able to maintain balance in her overall energy and her commitment to her training sessions. Thankfully, tests came back negative and Lorrie was able to identify some less intense changes to help her address some of the symptoms she was experiencing, and enthusiastically resumed her higher intensity commitment to her training program.
Lorrie, we just love training you and we’re so proud of all that you’ve achieved in your training program. Keep up the great work!
This weeks focus will be all about our split stance. The great thing about this move is we can modify it in so many different ways! This makes this lateral bosu hop a great foundational movement to get comfortable with. It's important for us to be able to move laterally with strength and ease as this helps us be more mobile in our everyday life. To have a well rounded, working, moving body, we need to work it in all directions. This week will be a great opportunity on creating power and stability through lateral movement. There are a few key components we will be focusing on in this lateral hop. First, strong footwork and knowing where your feet are in space. We will feel uncoordinated and clumsy if you don't have a solid foundation of the split stance and bracing through the floor. Landing softly but with strong engagement will help protect our body from aches and pains but also get you to move faster on your feet. Posture is everything! Without proper posture you won't be able to connect to your thoracic rotation effectively. This inhibits you from activating your core and lats to help stabilize and move through your upper body. Footwork and posture will help you reach success with this movement. Create power by pushing off the bosu, this will connect you to your outer glute. This will then connect you to our opposite side lat and core through rotation to pull you the rest of the way through the lateral hop. This is our cross body connection that you have been focusing on the last few weeks. When we manage to move our whole body together we work more efficiently and safely. After landing on the floor we are looking for instant ground tension that will help us spring off of our feet into a quick switch step in our split stance. This is where your power will come from. If you don't have solid connection to your split stance the switch can feel clumsy and awkward. We will always be thoracically rotating over the front leg to help pull us through the movement with our core. As the week progresses look to push yourself in how far you can laterally hop. See how soft you can land in your split stance while also creating ground tension. The more connections we make the quicker you can get with this movement. Then we can add even more fun variations in to help keep that brain working! Here's your checklist:
Last month I shared some ideas for setting goals and strategies for achieving them. This month I want to talk about committing to healthy living by creating habits that are sustainable in your life. A habit is simply a routine that you practice consistently to the point that it becomes automatic. We have so much to think about on a day to day basis, and lots of decisions to make in our lives, so the number of decisions we need to make, and having to think about the actions we need to take in order to reach our goals, can quickly become a barrier. Creating some strategies that you use consistently will help you make these regular decisions and actions more of a habit with some practice, and you’ll find yourself breaking down those barriers in no time.
For Example:
So, with that in mind, let’s talk about three simple strategies to help you build habits that will support your goals, and be sustainable for the long term..  Plan Ahead: Half the battle is having a plan. Have you ever heard of decision fatigue? It’s just what it sounds like - that sense of exhaustion in having to make another darn decision. I find this happens to me at the end of the day, but for you it could be in the morning when rushing to get out the door, or at another time during the day or week. Personally, I’ve been making decisions all day long, and if I don’t have a plan for dinner I’m going to really struggle to make a decision about what to eat. Take time on the weekends to map out what you are planning to eat each day. If this feels like a daunting and time consuming task, start with the meal that gives you the most difficulty. Then, make a list of the ingredients you need to have in the house to make these meals happen. Taking some time to prep some of the ingredients can help make the task of preparing the meal that much easier. You don’t need to spend hours preparing for the entire week. Consider what is the biggest thorn in your side when it comes time to make the meal and try to get it prepped in advance. It’s just going to make it that much easier when it comes to meal time. Here are some ideas:
Make Healthy Swaps: It’s not unusual to feel like we need to completely overhaul the way that we eat in order to make an impact on our overall health and wellness, but this usually just leaves us feeling deprived and overwhelmed. Instead of changing everything, consider making some healthy swaps at meal time. With this in mind, I thought I’d share some foods that can help you lower your LDL (bad) cholesterol to provide a little extra incentive to swap in some of these beneficial foods. I often talk to people about their goal to eliminate prescription drugs such as drugs for high cholesterol or high blood pressure, and hope you find this to be a helpful resource. You can also prep these items ahead of time 😁 10 Foods to Help Lower LDL:
Here are some swap out ideas for you to consider:
Habit Stack: Habit stacking is a great strategy for creating new habits. One of the new challenges of creating a new habit is remembering to do it when we’re first developing it. Additionally, the key to making a new routine a habit is doing many repetitions of practice to cement the new routine into a habit. The more frequently and consistently you can practice the faster it becomes a habit. Habit stacking stacks a new habit on top of an already existing habit, something that you’re already doing on a regular basis. Here are a few examples of habit stacking:
I hope you find these strategies helpful for building new, healthy habits into your life. Need extra help? Check out our Powerful Habits for a Powerful Life Resource Guide! References: https://www.thensf.org/the-link-between-nutrition-and-sleep www.healthline.com/nutrition/can-not-enough-nutrients-cause-brain-fog Are you interested in learning more about what we're all about?
Come train with us - For Free 2-WEEKS FREE with out Group Personal Training Trial Program www.wilcoxwellnessfitness.com/trial Not sure where to start? Schedule a call. www.wilcoxwellnessfitness.com/getstartedbrunswick |
AuthorHi! My name is Allison Hopkins and I am the owner of Wilcox Wellness & Fitness in Brunswick, ME. I am excited to bring WILCOX to Brunswick and share in my passion for living a great life through health and fitness. Archives
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