Melbourne Health and Fitness blog

 

Does power balance really work or is it the power of mind

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

Every now and then we have stuff that purports to enhance athletic performance, there is the skins body suit garments for example, now we have “Power balance” that people swear makes a difference to their performance. A very impressive list of athletes can’t rave enough about it.

Is it a case where the wearer truly believes it makes a difference so the psychological change in the brain creates the belief and there is an improvement. So is it more like a lucky charm, similar to athletes who wear a religious cross around there neck and upon winning a race, ie cycling, they kiss the lucky charm.

Sports people have for years had similar rituals that give them the confidence to succeed. Think about tennis/football players who must bounce the ball “x” numbers of times before making a crucial serve, or the cricketers who rubs the ball against there groin to the point they will wear a hole in their trousers.

There is a famous experiment from Jane Elliot in 1968 who used and an experiment in demonstrating prejudice to highlight the psychological effects of feeling superior and all the bad stuff associated with that situation as well. Children in a classroom were divided based on there eye colour whereby blue eyed children were treated as being more intelligent and the brown eyed children lacked intelligence.

The blue eyed group experienced better grades with their understanding of reading and mathematical tasks being greater than what they had previously achieved. Conversely there was a negative relationship with the brown eyed children who experienced a decrease in there grades.
Ultimately it came down to the psychological benefit, the belief system that having blue eyes made them smarter and more superior, sound familiar?

The test that is often sited to test the benefits of the Power Balance is to hold your arm out at 90º to your body and for someone to push down on it, then you repeat the experiment after placing the bracelet on and miraculously it’s harder to push the arm down.

Well try this experiment in reverse and you will get the same outcome, I would like to see the scientific evidence that there is a measurable improvement in a controlled environment with at least 500 people to get a true sample size, not testimonials from athletes.
All I have to say is “SHOW US THE EVIDENCE”?

The weight loss industry is another example of where being unregulated unsubstantiated claims can be made, often if there are clinical trials, it is based on there on testing guidelines with an extremely small sample group.

Well for a limited time we are offering the “Fitstyler” hologram technology, just $99 plus we will throw in some steak knives:))

Goal setting write it down – the story of David Ogilvy

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

When setting your goals write them down, statistically it has been shown that those people who write down there goals, whether in their diary, a vision board, or even a piece of paper they keep in their pocket will have a higher chance of success.

David Ogilvy was the original “Mad Man” who started from humble beginnings from a small office in 1959 on Madison Avenue with 3000 other advertising agencies all competiting for that lucrative advertising dollar. Over the course of 15 years David Ogilvy grew the business into the advertising giant of Ogilvy & Mather.
How can a young salesman who was a university drop out go onto achieve such mountains of success?

Well he wrote his goals down.

David Ogilvy wrote down his goals on a piece of paper he carried with him, a dream of being a major adverting company in 20 years with 5 blue chip clients, but not just any old clients but 5 of the biggest corporations in the world, General Foods, Bristol-Myers, Campbell Soup Company, Lever Brothers, and Shell. Today all five are clients of Ogilvy, Benson & Mather.

Well Ogilvy got there 5 years ahead of time and today has 450 offices across 152 cities, now that’s big things coming from a belief system, anything is possible:))

Projecting thoughts the laws of attraction and random events accidents

Saturday, June 26th, 2010

After talking to a friend who had a totally random event happen for the second time in their life, a pattern started to emerge that may have seemed a coincidence but was it really?

With concepts like the “the universe” and books like “The Secret” creating some consciousness about the “Laws of attraction” and projecting energy and thoughts, the events that happened to my friend may make some sense.

About 6 months ago, my friend was riding home from work innocently, minding his own business in the late afternoon, the sun was setting on the horizon when “BANG”, a motorist blinded by the glare, lost his view momentarily and not wanting to miss the lights speed up to make a right turn in front of my friend.

The results were a broken collar bone which will require surgery after not showing any improvement in healing naturally.
Well last week, it happened again, while being safely away from the traffic in his house, a totally random event happened, a motorist had a heart attack after returning from the local leisure centre (doing morning laps in the pool) and veared of the road into my friends parked car outside his house.

This time though although there was damage to his car, absolutely no damage to his body.

Mmmmm, so a random event or maybe there is a hidden meaning, it’s open to interpretation but maybe it was something about what thoughts were being projected at the time or over a period of time.
Personally I find this random event super positive, it means that what was ever being projected that had resulted in the body being directly impacted has know lowered in intensity.
My friend may have been walking to his car, been in the car or entering the main flow of traffic, so many possibilities.

While it’s still annoying and inconvenient (And horrific for the driver), it means having to get quotes for the car repair, contacting the insurance companies, getting the car repaired and being without a car while being repaired.
Ironically when I quizzed him about it, this year has had numerous things go wrong with these 2 events just being one of many.

The point being is what ever you want to achieve, whether it’s weight loss, getting more balance in your life between work and life or improving your health and fitness in general, you will keep throwing up these random events that make it difficult to achieve your goals.

Think about people you may know who are going through a financially difficult time, about to lose the house, car, job, no money in the bank then suddenly a random event, the car engine blows up, a fraudulent credit card transaction, the washing machine dies, all these events are really the end results of what is being projected and ultimately what ever you project you attract back into your life.

Well something to think about:)))

Fitness motivation tread water for 12 hours will power belief system

Friday, June 18th, 2010

At boot camp this morning, a few of the Fitmates were expressing that that could NOT hold a wall sit for another second longer, that their legs were aching. Well any type of fitness motivation is about having the will power and belief system to keep going with an exercise and not giving up.

We spoke about the stories that you hear about people having to tread water for more than 12 hours of more. Are these super human people all is there belief system for survival that strong that they overcome the mental barriers to there physical abilities.

Yes there is the flight/fight response that automatically clicks in but the bodies realise of adrenaline and other chemicals is to get out of a dangerous situation, not continue pumping the adrenaline hormones for 14 hours.

treading water 14 hours will power

There was a great story of a father and son who tread water in for 14 hours in Dakota Beach Florida in jelly fish and shark infested waters.

One of the rescue team members commented “They have amazing will power to be able to do it”

The point being if you truly believe in achieving an outcome, you will do everything in your power to succeed, are these people superhuman or athletes, no just a strong belief to succeed.

It’s very easy to just give up, being in complete darkness and drown.

Weight loss 20% exercise 20% nutrition 60% mind

Monday, June 7th, 2010

Often when we think about weight loss, we think of changing the ratio of energy consumption verses energy expenditure which is great however if you are truly not committed and truly believe it will happen then your chances of success are very low.

When you get down to the nuts and bolts of weight loss, it’s more like 20% based on the frequency and intensity of exercise, 20% about what you consume, the amount and the frequency but more importantly 60% is based on what you are thinking.

Think about the Yo-Yo diet, you get weight loss results then just as quickly you get weight gain, how can this be? Well if you don’t have the belief systems in place and the right mind set then old habits will return very quickly.
It’s like a children’s seesaw, one day you are in perfect balance where everything works, both children are of similar weight and contributing equally then the next day a different kid sits on the other end of the seesaw who is heavier or lighter or maybe isn’t contributing to seesawing by just sitting there or is pushing off too hard and making the other kid fall off.

If you don’t have everything in sync with the kids on the seesaw, ie the right weight (nutrition), the right level of exertion (mind) and contribution (exercise) the seesaw doesn’t work.
You can compensate on the seesaw if one kid is heavier or not contributing enough by one person working harder but this can only be sustained for a short period of time BUT if one kid does nothing and just sits there, guess what? nothing happens no matter how hard the other kids tries.

So if your scared of the seesaw, you don’t believe you have the skills to use it or you were forced to play on the seesaw by mum nothing will happen, similarly you wont lose weight.

I like the analogy of the hole in the footpath, you can either keep walking into the hole every morning or change your thought patterns and beliefs by choosing a different street with a different footpath.

The mind plays a massive role in everything that happens in our life, what we do, how we do it etc so get the mind in tune and the weight loss will follow:))