On day four of the ISA World Surfing Games in Costa Rica this week our daughter Laura Rishworth became the highest placed Kiwi in the Women’s Division placing 17th overall after finishing third in her fourth round match up. In her second stacked heat of the competition, Laura came up against two Hawaiian surfers who progressed through the heat while she beat the Tahitian surfer who finished fourth.

Using teamwork to their advantage, the Hawaiians had the contest area more or less covered. Laura surfed some fantastic waves when the opportunity presented itself, yet the Hawaiians ensured these were few and far between. Laura has done herself, us and NZ proud with the highest placing of any NZ woman in this event to date.

Five years ago as a fifteen year old Laura set her sights high and created a written goal for her self stating that she wanted to represent her country internationally in surfing. Then she set about creating and periodically revising her exercise and nutritional programme to help her achieve her objective.

Naturally we are very pleased for her and pray she continues to be a role model for other youngsters and oldies too!

Carpe Diem!   Seize the Day!

Proud Mum,

Nancy

I was talking to a friend the other day who said, “People don’t purposefully not exercise, they just don’t allow any time for training, so days, weeks, months, maybe years go by, and they still think that one day they will start to exercise…”

And then they get to 30, 40 or 50 and find they have developed some chronic health problem, and their quality of life just continues to decline as their body develops more and more aches and pains.

So, here are some steps you can take if you are one of those people who just can’t seem to find the time to exercise:

1.    STOP thinking of exercising in 15, 20, 30, or 40 or more minutes chunks of time.

2.    Instead think of exercising in 30 second increments – (you do have 30 seconds you can spare, or is life just sooooo full, you can’t spare 30 seconds?)

3.    Now think of an exercise you can enjoy doing for 30 seconds. (It can be anything – walking, running, dancing, skipping, etc).

4.    Do that exercise for only 30 seconds. No more! Because remember, for weeks and weeks you have been promising yourself to exercise and time deprivation has been your excuse, so prove that you can find extra time (but only 30 seconds).

5.    Now, buy or find a book with blank or lined pages, and write down the date you trained for 30 seconds and the exercise you did for that time. And write down below that first entry the next date and the time you plan to do this 30 seconds of exercise again.

6.    Stick to that entry date and time and train exactly for 30 seconds, then stop! Record the exercise and length of training and under that entry write down the next time and date you plan to train.

7.    Do this for one week. (Train no more than 5 of the 7 days in a week.)

8.    After one week, ask yourself, “Can I increase my training to 1 minute?”

9.    If, “Yes!” then train for 1 minute, no more than 1 minute! And follow the same system of entering in times and dates.

10.    After one week of 1 minute training, ask yourself, “Can I find time to train for 1 ½ minutes for 5 days of the coming week?”

11.    If, “Yes!” Then follow the same routine and pattern, and week after week continue adding 30 seconds to your training until you feel satisfied with the duration of your training, and stick to that and you will have broken through the barrier of exercise procrastination.

Note: As you increase your training you may be wanting to follow a varied and interesting exercise program.

If you want easy to follow information that will give great results check out our website www.flexibilityplus.com

All the best

Jonathan

I heard this the other day from self transformation expert Anthony Robbins: “We don’t do half the things we want because of the way we chunk things.” What he ment was we put off doing stuff that would add value to our lives and that ultimatetly we really would enjoy, simply because of the detail we choose to focus on. Let me give you an example of what I mean. I was talking to a friend the other day I’d sent info to back in January. Stuff she really would have benefited from using in order to have better control over a health issue she’s been grappling with for years and is greatly impacting her quality of life. When I asked how she was going with it she said she really hadn’t done much with it all these months, why? Too hard!

She asked me how I was going with something she was helping me with and I had to admit to the same failing.

We laughed and as the conversation went on I observed that really what was missing was a conditioning of our selves to make us follow through. In other words strategies that would make doing what we want in order to achieve our goals automatic. Because when we get into healthy habits of doing we can reach our goals with much less effort. I went on to give an example of some of my own routines, like early morning meditation, followed by exercise, followed by making fresh carrot juice. She laughed out loud and said for her doing stuff like blog posts, which I was struggling with at the time, would be 100 times easier for her to do than juicing ever would. I stopped and said “yup sometimes we struggled with it too, when we made it to complicated”. Thinking about all the steps, from buying the twenty kg bag, to lugging it up the stairs, to storing it, to getting the carrots out, putting the juicer on the counter, washing the carrots, juicing, cleaning the juicer, drying and storing it again.  Wow! It’s enough to make you go” I don’t have time to make fresh juice I think I’ll have another coffee!”

It’s all because of the way we put it together. See once upon a time when you were learning to drive, it was overwhelming there were ten things you needed to simultaneously and it just about fried your brain trying to sort it all out, but when you got your licence and got some experience engine on, clutch in, gear change, break off, signal, look in rearview and side mirrors, steer, accelerate all became part of one thing, called driving. Now you drive, chow down on your big Mac, and talk on your cell all at the time without blinking an eyelid. Creating habits for healthy living can become just as easy if we focus on the outcome and not all the detail. Think about it if someone told you in advance all the grim detail of learning how to drive would you have. If you’d let the detail stop you learning think of all the freedom you’d hve thrown away.

Oh it was fun putting this blog post together, now I feel like some carrot juice.

Till next time
Chunk it right!

Nancy

Nancy and I have just spent the last 3 days at a National Baha’i Convention which meant we had little time to do any intense exercise as the meetings started early and finished quite late each day.

But we walked each morning for just over half an hour which was a refreshing way to start our day.

Now back home I am looking forward to 5 days of surfing with some mates next week, so starting tomorrow I will be getting in as much surfing and exercise as I can in preparation for the upcoming surf trip.

If I didn’t build up my paddling fitness for this surf trip, (which could mean around 4 to 6 hours surfing each day), I would not be able to fully enjoy myself due to a lack of surfing fitness.

Now I know I can get to the level of fitness I want to within the next 6 days because of my baseline paddling fitness.

If I didn’t have a sufficient level of paddling fitness there is no way I could achieve my fitness goal within such a short time frame.

However, if I wanted to run a marathon, I wouldn’t be able to achieve the necessary running fitness within 6 days, because that is not what I train for.

So, when you set fitness goals think about your current baseline fitness and set your goals accordingly. Don’t create goals that you cannot possibly achieve because chasing unrealistic dreams will only result in frustration and you will not be enthused by such failure.

Keep it real!

Until next time

Jonathan

www.flexibilityplus.com

After writing a little about goal setting I thought I would get a little more personal and write about my two BIG goals that keep me pumped. Now, please don’t get me wrong – I am not suggesting that you should have these same or similar goals.  The idea is that I want you to see what pumps me, so in turn you can (hopefully) think deeply about what pumps you.
So…
My first big goal is to stay fit and healthy for me and my family. I have a wonderful wife and we have three great children – a 19 year old daughter, a 17 year old son and a 7 year old son.
My goal is to continue spending quality time with my wife and children for many years to come. I want to enjoy sharing in their lives as our children mature and in turn have their own children.
My second major goal is to stay very fit for surfing. Why? Because I just love surfing. The experience of riding an ocean wave is magical and I hope to be surfing when I am 70 and beyond.
That’s it.
No major list, not complex, but for me, very significant.
Find your BIG goals and go for it!
All the best
Jonathan
www.flexibilityplus.com

Yesterday I talked about being flexible in your training, allowing yourself to change your exercise program to suit your changing circumstances.
In my twenties and thirties I was focused on increasing my strength through lifting heavier weights on a progressive basis. Right now, my focus is far more on cardio fitness, flexibility and core strength, incorporating exercises to specifically improve my surfing performance.
This doesn’t mean that a person can’t keep the same focus with their training, as each of us needs to train in a manner that they enjoy, whether that means sticking to the same program year after year, or regularly changing their routine.
Whatever exercise system works for you, the main ingredient is to keep doing it!
Having said that, don’t fall into the trap of giving yourself too much to achieve. You need to create routines that are simple and easy to achieve. As you get fitter, stronger, more agile and flexible, then you can look at adding more to your program.
You are far better off to start a jogging program that has you running for 30 seconds for 5 days a week, then adding another 30 seconds so you jog for 1 minute for the next 5 days, then 1 minute and 30 seconds for the next 5 days, and so on; allowing you to comfortably build up to running for 20 minutes within about 9 months.
This beats going hard out for 10 minutes in your first run, feeling really exhausted, having very sore muscles for three or four days, and then giving up.
Set goals that build a strong foundation, that allow you to sustain exercise for year after year, because you are seeing great results and you are thoroughly enjoying yourself.
All the best
Jonathan
www.flexibilityplus.com

This is a big subject, but I am only going to touch on one aspect of it for now.
What I want to focus on is how your goals will change as you get older.
BUT you do need to have goals of some sort to stay motivated and to train regularly.
Over the previous two years I lost my motivation for surfing after getting hit by my surfboard across the side of my head which perforated my eardrum and took about six weeks to heal. Then I got a painful ear infection which kept me out of the surf for another few weeks, so all in all I was pretty fed up.
This led me to focus more on my martial arts and so I got more into stretching to increase my flexibility for higher kicks.
In an earlier post I talked about getting back into surfing this year, so I won’t go into that again, except to say that right now I am very focused on my surfing as I am really enjoying it.
So, I have developed a new exercise program that focuses a lot on cardio fitness, upper body strength, and core strength, with stretches to maintain my flexibility.
So you can see how my changed circumstances have resulted in my goals being changed.
My overall goal to be fit and healthy hasn’t changed, but how I train has altered to meet my micro goals. This flexible approach to exercising is really important, and is an aspect of training that is often taken for granted.
It is, however, the secret to longevity for your health and fitness, because as you grow older you will find that your circumstances do change, and these changes will affect what you can do.
So, go with the flow, train in a manner that achieves your goals and don’t be stuck in a groove.
Check out www.flexibilityplus.com which provides training methods that allow you to create your own unique personalised exercise program.
Enjoy your training
Jonathan