Even athletes will sometimes find themselves in situations when they don't feel like training. This can be after a long playoff run. It could be during the rehab of an injury. Or it could near the end of a career when the drive just isn't the the same as it once was. So what do you do to overcome a rut? How do you get going when you have no momentum? What helps you develop inertia to fuel future efforts? Sometimes it's as simple as taking the first step. And trail running offers a great analogy to help us get going. Here's how.   1 - The Arms Are the Drivers If you're a runner you'll know how important the arms swing is for success. The arms help propel us and help us maintain balance. And because the arms don't have to overcome the same resistance to gravity and are shorter levers than the legs, they can dictate the cadence of our stride. What this means is that our legs will follow the speed of our arm swing. Want to move your legs more quickly? Swing your arms faster. This is a great technique when climbing hills and near the end of races when fatigue may limit how quickly we can turn over the legs. There will be something health-wise that comes easier to you than most. Maybe you are really good at meal planning. Maybe you are good at getting yourself to sleep on time. Maybe you are always punctual. Maybe you are good at keeping notes and journalling. All of these things lead to success. The key is to do what you're good at to start. Other positive habits will spin off from the good effort you are making in another area of your life. 2 - Lean Into...

Hello! How’s it going? It’s Trevor here and I’ve gota great success story to share with you. This story is about Derek Retzloff, and he hasachieved some amazing results over the past 2 months with his training. Derek rocking his Seahawk Air Jordans. You know Derek, right? Or better known to you as Derek Scott, the radio guy from SunFM (now Virgin). He might not look familiar but if you heard his voice on the radio, I’m sure you’d recognize it.  Derek is usually in at 9:30 am Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He has done numerous works for SunFM and other radio businesses for over 20 years. For a person who has had to face numerous challenges throughout life, it makes what he’s achieved even more amazing. From a young age, Derek was at a physical disadvantage. His so called “condition”, which he’ll describe for you shortly, made certain tasks of daily living challenging. Tasks weren't necessarily impossible to complete, but hard to be efficient. It might be tough to relate but consider the things you’ve struggled with in your life and eventually overcame. Maybe you broke your leg, tore or pulled a muscle, hurt your back and had to sit out from a sporting event or even had to take time away from work. You were presented with new challenges in your daily life, but eventually you got better and were back to health. Remember how those challenges made you feel? Even better, how you felt when you accomplished them? Imagine if you had to live with them your whole life and each day there was something to accomplish. Sooner or later you work through those challenges more fluently and now you're looking for even more ways to challenge yourself. You won’t let anything stop you or get in your...

So we got a dog. And it wasn't a decision we took lightly or came to quickly. We've been considering this for a number of years, even before we had kids. In fact, when Olivia was 3 she was asked if she thought she'd be getting a dog. She's 7 now by the way. Sorry to all other dog owners out therebut Poppy is the cutest puppy in the world. Anyways, she thought about this for a second and then gave a great answer. She said "she'd have to get a new family first". That comment has haunted me ever since. Nobody wants to be the bad dad. But we do enjoy to travel. And we head up to the hill in the winter. And I couldn't see how we could continue our current lifestyle with a dog in the mix. And to be honest I'll still don't. To give you an example of how 'on the fence' I was about getting a dog, we told the girls we were going to babysit the dog for a few nights. And so the dog would have a few nights sleepover with us. This would allow Alexandra and I the chance to evaluate how everyone was adapting to this new member of our family. And how this little puppy was adapting to us. Because let's be honest, a new puppy can be a lot of work. And if we realized we weren't up for the challenge or we'd bitten off more than we could chew than we still had the option to take the dog and the girls would still be over the moon about having a dog stay with us for a few nights. Win-win, right? Plus, since we decided to keep the puppy you should have seen the girls faces and...

Accountability for gym routines – coaches are just like you! Accountability to go workout or be active must be one of the biggest barriers or fall outs of an exercise routine. That is what most people who work with coaches need the most help with. But it is important to know that even the most fit people and coaches themselves have trouble with accountability and sticking to exercise routines. Coaches have all the components to keeping to a routine best; unlimited access to a gym at any time of the day, and unlimited knowledge of what to program for a workout makes it that coaches have no excuse to miss a workout, yet it still happens! There have been weeks at a time where I am unable to fit in a solid workout in between work, studying, and general life activities. Eventually, missing workouts leads to lower self efficacy and impacts on our mental health; we feel that we cannot control our time as much as we hope to fit in those important healthy activities like getting to the gym or going for a run. It affects coaches as well because they are supposed to be the ones leading by example when it comes to healthy living. However, we also have the resources to get you back on track! The first part of the solution to get back to a regular exercise routine is to: 1) recognize that you are in a dry spell of gym workouts so to speak. After you recognize that there is a need to get back to being more active, then 2) find an amount of time you can commit to being active (on any sort of level or intensity); say if you can commit to 30 minutes of activity everyday, then cut that in half...

I'm always curious about what drives people? Especially when we're talking about 'the best of the best' or impressive performances. Take professional athletes for example, they typically don't need the money and have already won at the highest level. Why do they continue to train, prepare and compete? I mean, once you have enough money an extra cheque isn't really going to do much to inspire. And if you've won at the highest level of your game then the challenge becomes to see how many times can you repeat this success? Can you exit your sport as one of the best ever? What kind of legacy do you leave behind? Maybe these are some of the things that drive athletes to continue when the cheques and trophies have already been collected in abundance. Now maybe it becomes a personal challenge to see how many times they can reach the top? [caption id="attachment_4892" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Don't talk to me about problems. 11 rings and only 10 fingers. Because, let's face it, the life of a professional athlete is a very small window. The NFL is also known as the 'Not For Long' league. I remember reading the average career of a professional football player is less than 3 years. Think about that for a moment and imagine if the average of your career was less than 3 years. Do you think you might bring your best everyday? Do you think you might feel some pressure to extend this if you could? Maybe the realization that his opportunity is so short lived explains why NFL players will do whatever it takes to stay in the game. The other thing that might drive athletes is something that drives others who are successful as well. This could include entertainers, artists, business people and more. So...

I’ve misplaced my motivation somewhere between the soft pillows and biweekly Timmies runs.You gasp and sit up. The alarm on your phone is blaring its obnoxious wake up call, urging you to move your butt out of bed, from beneath the warm, comfortable, soft.....zzzzz.... ARGH, HUH, WHAT???! For a moment, you can’t remember why on earth your eyes are open, or what day it is. Then you remember. It’s Monday. You’re getting up to exercise. You’re supposed to be leaving your haven of blissful dreaming to get changed, go out in the cool air and run/bike/drive to the gym. You think about the cold side of the pillow (colder than your ex’s heart), lay your head down, and promise yourself you’re just going to close your eyes for a moment. Just close them to wake them up. You’re startled awake by your alarm. For work (or school, or a coffee date, or some other appointment). Not exercise, because you fell asleep. Again. Ah well, looking on the bright side, there’s always tomorrow to start. Yeah, tomorrow, it’ll be different. Is this you? Is this a struggle you’ve battled and lost multiple times? (Insert infomercial background music here).No, sadly, life and exercise cannot be solved by an infomercial. Chris wrote an excellent article (read here) on motivation, pain, athletes, and finding what matters to you and using this as your driving force to live stronger, fitter and as an absolute goal crusher. This is a follow up post. On that note, most of us, in regard to exercise, fall into one of these categories: You’ve battled the motivation and rocked it. You have this exercise thing figured out, and have no trouble getting out to run/bike/gym/team practice/gallop your horse into the sunrise. You have yourself convinced you love exercise, but whenever you...

Reading is probably one of my favourite ways to relax. While I don't mind catching up some shows on Netflix or watching a movie there isn't the same kind of relaxation involved with reading.It might have something to do with the fact that movies involve more external stimuli and reading is more internal. I don't know? All I know is that it's pretty darn relaxing to have an interesting book to lose yourself in forDitch an hour or so.With that in mind here are some of the books I'm currently reading and some of my favourites as well. Feel free to add your faves to the comments section below.Non-fictionInfidel: My Life by Ayaan Hirsi AliThis is an incredible true story that my wife and I both really enjoyed. It's told from the perspective of the author who escapes her Muslim upbringing in Africa and flees for her life to Europe. Against her families wishes and ditching her arranged marriage there is a bounty place on her capture and return. She later becomes a member of Parliament in the Netherlands and advocates for helping others suffering as she once did back in Africa.The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom by Slavomir RawiczThis book came out as a movie a few years but really didn't do it justice. But that's no surprise. Movies can never measure to an incredible book. Recently as well, there have been claims that the story was fabricated or exaggerated. This doesn't change it for me. I still found it a great story about over-coming adversity, the will to live and realizing how good we have things.Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura HillenbrandAre you seeing a pattern here? Yeah, I like stories of survival and Unbroken is one...

If you've trained with OPP for a while you've probably seen the wide variety of clientele that we have the pleasure of training. From post-rehab to body transformation and sports performance there is a huge range in training goals. [caption id="attachment_4154" align="alignleft" width="300"] Clients train for a variety of goals at OPP. One of the groups we work with doesn't really fall into any of these categories. While there may be some in this group that have played sports they aren't preparing for an upcoming season. And others may benefit from a little more lean body mass they aren't coming for this goal. And others still have have some type of injury but that isn't what brought them to us either. You see these students are from a school here in Kelowna which is a school that helps young people facing different types of challenges in their lives. These challenges may be substance/alcohol abuse, behavioural problems or some other type of conflict. Now since these are students they are still under the care of a parent or guardian. In other words it is usually someone else's decision that results in attending this school and ultimately training at Okanagan Peak Performance Inc. Think about that for a second... Imagine that someone else decided to send you to OPP? Imagine that it wasn't your choice to train? And that one day you ended up at our facility and someone such as Graeme, Megan, Jordy or myself was telling you to do squats, deadlifts, chin-ups and burpees? When we start with a new client there is one thing that determines success more than anything else and it has nothing to do with training, nutrition, recovery or supplements. Before we can worry about dropping 6 inches off the waist and hips we need to ensure the 6...

What motivates you? I mean in terms of your health and fitness what encourages you to do the training, to eat healthy foods, to get enough sleep and to basically care enough to take of your health? And not only is this different for all of us it is different for each of us at different points in our lives. For example, I'll admit that when I was younger my reasons for living a healthy life were different than they are today. Actually I should re-phrase that. When I was younger the reasons for my decisions were more aesthetic then performance or health oriented. Case in point, I would be diligent in training, eating quality foods and buying whatever supplements I could afford in order to look my best. On the weekends I would hope all my efforts would help attract the attention of the opposite sex. In fact, as a university student I quickly realized a few things about supplements: 1. Not all of them work as advertised. 2. They were all marketed towards helping me achieve my end goal. 3. They were expensive. Expensive in the sense that as a university student it wasn't cheap to find another $200 per month for bars, shakes, protein powders and creatine. So to that end I found a solution. I realized the Court Club in Regina was not selling supplements so I approached the owner Carm about letting me help set them up with an account to sell supplements. By doing so I was able to purchase supplements at cost through the distributor using the gym's account. So you can see I was pretty motivated to train, eat healthily and have access to discounted supplements. But nowadays my priorities have changed. Now my goals are more about my health, being able to...

Have you ever done something that you thought 'This is not what I signed up for' or 'I'm not sure if I want to be doing this'? This is how I felt last weekend. I was done to Spokane to play in a charity golf tournament for a foundation that supports families of kids with cancer. And this is not the part I had regrets about. Instead it had to do with Saturday morning. Actually let's back that up. It all started on Friday night. I drove down to Washington and arrived at my friend Tim's place to find out he was over another friend's house for 'men's night'. Now I wasn't sure what this meant but since getting up at 5 am, working all day and then driving almost 6 hours I wasn't overly upset about missing out and potentially getting to sleep a little earlier. But Tim, being the good friend and gracious host that he is, came home to bring me back to the party. As we drove up to the home where this was all happening I thought to myself 'are we on the set of MTV cribs?' Let's just say this was a beautiful home with lots of food, beer, wine and drinks of every kind. I was introduced to a CAT-5 which is a drink with ties to New Orleans and hurricanes. At about 1230 am I thought it was time to go when we were all summoned outside for steaks. Now I understand most things Americans say but this made sense. I mean we had already eaten and had more than our fill of drink when I realized they had steaks ready on the Green Egg. ***quick side note...if you've never tried food on a Green Egg you don't know what you're missing*** By...

When you go to the gym, do you need to change your fitness mindset to be more successful? How badly do you want to achieve your goal? What are you willing to do? For some, a strong fitness mindset is more geared towards performance and an athlete's perspective. But what about the rest of us? [caption id="attachment_3106" align="aligncenter" width="275"] The proper fitness mindset leads to great results. Do our goals matter any less? Is our health any less important?   Don’t Let Yourself Off the Hook Sometimes we let ourselves off the hook by approaching our fitness mindset with a casual attitude. We compare ourselves to the general population and know that we are doing more than our co-workers, a particular relative, or a friend. Unfortunately these people aren't the epitome of health and fitness. So when we use this as the measuring stick we feel good about ourselves and satisfied that our efforts our adequate.   Approach Your Fitness Mindset Differently I'd like you to suspend reality and imagine you could achieve great things with your health, fitness and performance training. You could deadlift 500+ lbs. You could run a sub 3:45 kilometer. You could lose 45 lbs. You could rid yourselves of your nagging joint pain. If these could all be true, would you approach your training differently? Would you approach your nutrition differently? Who you approach your rest and recovery differently? Of course you would! Any high level athlete has to have a certain level of confidence that they can win, achieve great things, and are capable of being the best in their sport. Once they have this level of confidence then we see the extra attention to their training, nutrition, rest, recovery and overall focus. There will always be some exceptions to this rule, but for the...

Chris is not my first. By Chris, of course, I am referring to our fitness lord and savior, Christopher M. Collins. The MSc, CSCS, strength coach, gym founder and all-around guru-dude cracking the whip here at Okanagan Peak Performance Inc. Now you have to know that I’m not bragging about this. To have gone through seven or perhaps even eight different trainers in the last twenty years or so is not exactly a badge of honour. I want nothing more than for Chris to finally be my last. It’s been a solid two decades since I first went to war with my body. And throughout that time I have enjoyed my share of victories and defeats, along with more general frustration and base-line annoyance than I could ever shake a foam roller at. (and if you don’t know what that analogy means then I guess you gotta join OPP…) Sure I can get motivated but I can also give up. I can get happy and excited but slip just as fast to angry and frustrated. The battle is never-ending, for me at least. Now I recognize tagging this intensely personal struggle as a “war” may not be a particularly healthy way to view such things, but in all honesty that is exactly how it’s progressed. I fight my way down the weight ladder (or up the fitness one) only to lose focus or somehow self-sabotage and muck things up anew. I’m petulant, impatient and easily distracted. I’m also slow-moving and easy, until I get annoyed and flip out in an instant. I am as active and as diligent as I can be lazy like a sloth. Add in decades of marinating my over-stimulated consciousness within a brew of media-perfected imagery crossed with Hollywood outcomes and you’re left with a forty-two year...