All The Small Things

By: Joel Luedke

In the time of the New Year and the corresponding resolutions that can lead to overwhelming senses of if things are going to work and how you're going to maintain the expectations that you have set for yourself.   This appears to be why these resolutions rarely ever workout for people.  You have the excitement to get started but the expectations to hold them becomes overwhelming.

This post is meant to try and relieve that stress and let you know that you're able to get so many thing accomplished in health, nutrition, fitness and performance without having to focus on to many things and that simple and small changes can make a huge difference in your life. Find a few examples below:

• Diet changes: simply removing one 'unhealthy' item from your diet (i.e. sugar beverages) can have a profound impact on your body and how it responds.  Often times this can be the start to a big roll in getting the diet you want started.
• With your squat form if you break at your knees prior to loading your hips you set your body up for a lot of stress through the quads and knees that doesn't need to be there.  By adjust this subtle change in movement you can relieve knee pain and also increase your squat ability.
• In my daily life we deal with a lot of athletes that have injuries on and off.  It seems like a vast majority of them are more chronic in nature and in my eyes, often preventable.  When I watch them perform their mobility exercises in the SPC there is often a lack of attention to detail.  Really focusing on these subtle movements can make significant improvements in how your body moves and therefore reduce your injury risk and also get you healthy faster.
• Not every workout has to leave you shuffling out of the gym and not wanting to get out of bed the next morning.  You don't need to spend hours upon hours in the gym in order to get the results you are looking for when it comes to body composition and appearance.  Focus on things that work and that have stood the test of time.  Experiment but go at what what feels good and works for you.  Watch out for fads.

Back to our original point, you don't have to make huge sweeping changes in your life in order to get results that you are looking for.  Simply focusing on the 'keystone' change that can have the most dynamic effect on your health and fitness.  Don't let yourself get overwhelmed with all the information that is out there.  Start with the basics and look to add as you see fit or as you get going and seek help from professionals when the time comes.

And for your listening enjoyment, a little Blink 182.