true true true

This is a great article my friend Ashley forwarded me from her gym – Body by Boyle – outside of Boston.  As I am always on the quest for better health (aka, fitting into small jeans) I am taking this author’s words to heart!  Hope you get something from it too.

The 23:1 Rule

          
The 23:1 Rule is basically a reminder that of 24 hours each day, only one may be spent training.  That leaves 23 hours of every day making decisions about how to eat, work, sleep, and continue the benefits of training.  If we expand and look at the week, some people train once, twice, or three times a week.  There are 168 hours every week with an average of 7 hours of sleep each night.  This leaves about 120 hours for productivity.  So of the 120 hours in the week you may spend 1, 2, or 3 hours training.  The burning question then is, what actions are you taking outside of training to help achieve your goals?

 

 Many people have talked to me about wanting to be stronger, lose weight, have better posture, and some I have given exercises to enhance what we work on during our sessions.  The bottom line is that the 1-3 hours of training a week are an extremely positive step in the right direction but are you sabotaging these efforts during the rest of your day?  Let’s take a look at three major facets of every day life that influence the ability to achieve our goals.

 

Diet

 

When we look at the some of these goals such as losing weight or more specifically decreasing body fat, the major factor controlling this is diet.  I can provide hard work that will create a strong metabolic effect that will help burn more calories but if we are taking in more calories than we are burning or even the same as we are burning our efforts at the gym will make no difference.  So the decisions made outside of training are paramount to achieving these goals. 

 

Posture

I would like to address this with everyone since it is extremely important in reducing pain, especially in the shoulder and back.   During training we spend a lot of time doing pulling movements.  Whether it is the band series, face pulls, YTWU’s, or any of the other pulling exercises we do, they are aimed at stabilizing the shoulder blades while bringing them down and back.  If you are spending the rest of your workday and relaxation time seated looking at a computer, documents, or the TV this is counter-productive to what we are trying to achieve.  Again, our actions and decisions impact how fast we can achieve our goals.  On a side note, sitting in the same position for longer than 20 minutes creates a stress that your body will naturally adapt to and start to weaken your back, make your chest muscles short and tight, and decrease the normal motion of your spine.  If you can tell, I see this a lot.

 

Sleep

 

This may seem self-explanatory but I feel the need to make this abundantly clear, sleep affects all aspects of life, specifically a lack of sleep.  The majority of recovery and regeneration of the body happens while we sleep.  If we are getting less than 6 hours a night we are in a sleep deficit that cannot be made up.  Only consistent sleep allows for proper recovery and regeneration, fat loss, strength gain, immune system function, and many other benefits.

 

Conclusion

 

I don’t know it just seemed to fit in with the rest of this tip.  Remember that 1-3 hours a week is a start toward achieving our goals, but there are many other hours during the day and week that have a profound effect on how fast we will attain these goals.  If you are trying to lose weight start by consuming fewer calories than you burn, then make better nutritional choices to enhance the results.  If you are in pain, specifically shoulder or back pain, or have poor posture, or just sit in the same position for a prolonged period of time, set an alarm on your phone or computer to go off every 15-20 minutes and get up and take a 3 minute walk for a cup of water, use the bathroom, or just stretch and get your chest tall and shoulders back.  Finally, sleep brings it all together, making sure we are getting at least 6 hours of sleep helps your brain function, immune system function, ability to recover from workouts, and lose weight. What will you do with your 120 hours a week?  
 __________________________________________________ 

Questions about the article? Ask the author!

Contact Dan Gabelman at dsgabelman@aol.com.