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Hey Hey!

How’s your day going?  I trust it’s going swimmingly!

As I sit here at my desk I’m looking out at sunny skies and a bunch of snow on the ground.  It is kinda pretty…slightly.  The only thing bringing the pretty-factor down is how freakishly cold it is.

I could give you all sorts of metaphors for how cold it is, most of which are rated above PG-13, but I won’t.

Instead I’m going to admit something slightly embarrassing.

I have watched 10 minutes of “The Jersey Shore.”  There I said it.  I’ve seen it and no matter how hard I try, I can’t wipe those images from my mind, nor can I erase some of the names from my memory banks no matter how hard I mentally scrub with steel wool.

There is one little piece of genius I’ve taken from the show and that’s GTL.  I’m fairly certain it stands for “Gym, Tanning and Laundry.”  Genius, I tells ya…Genius.

Sweet Lord I hope I can forget these images sometime soon.

Until then, I’ve turned their acronym into my own.  It’s just as much a piece of gold as theirs, but I think it’s even better because it applies to workouts.

So what’s my own piece of acronym genius?

F.I.A.

What does it stand for?

Form.

Intensity.

Abs.

What does it mean?

Basically it means that when you workout you should always focus on F.I.A.

Let me elaborate just a wee bit because I’m sure I have some folks shaking their heads wondering just what the heck I’m talking about.  And I hope I can redeem myself for spending a fraction of this post on those goobers on that silly show that I will never mention again.

It’s a pretty good assumption that you don’t have much time to spend working out.  If you did, you probably wouldn’t be reading my stuff, unless you just enjoy my witty banter.

When time is the major issue in your workouts, you need to make every minute count.  You can’t go through the motions and expect to achieve great results, or even good results.

You have to be “in” the workout.

To be more specific, let’s break down the F.I.A. idea…

F stands for Form.  You must ALWAYS pay attention to your form.  Always!  This rule really holds true no matter how long your workout lasts, whether it’s 10 minutes or 40 minutes.  If your form sucks, your workout sucks and you will injure yourself.  Maybe not right away, but at some point in the near future you will injure yourself.  It’ll probably be in the form of aching knees and shoulders or a sore back – or all 3.

I’ve even injured myself a time or two due to crappy form.  I developed tendinitis in both knees because I let my ego get in the way when doing squats and didn’t pay close enough attention to my form.  In order to get over it, I had to completely remove any type of squat or lunge from my workout until I was pain free and then I built myself back up with impeccable form.  Now I can drop myself way below parallel when squatting.

If you don’t pay attention to your form your results will also suffer because you’re probably letting gravity do more work than your muscles.

Think of the push-up as an easy example.  If you lower yourself to the floor and maintain control, you are doing it properly.

If, however, you are like many and flop yourself to the floor before immediately pressing your body back up and immediately flop back down to the floor – that’s crappy form and you’re letting gravity do all the work.

Instead you should slowly, and under control, lower your body to the floor.

Is it tougher?  Absolutely.

Will you be able to complete fewer reps?  Yep.  In the beginning anyway.  But once you get things under control, your reps will be back up in no time and you’ll be MUCH stronger for it.

Not only will you get stronger, but you’ll also burn more calories.

Think about it this way.  If you let gravity pull you to the floor rather than controlling your speed, you’re removing HALF of the exercise and are burning half the calories, and maybe less.

That takes us right into the second letter of F.I.A and the I stands for Intensity.

You better make sure you’re working hard in your workouts or your results will show it.

Work hard and achieve awesome results.

Act a weenie and achieve little or no results.

Do you find your mind wandering easily while doing your workout?

Keep your mind in the workout.

Do you find yourself wandering from exercise to exercise like a butterfly flutters between flowers?

Stop acting a weenie and work it.

That’s one of the main reasons I design so many 10-minute circuit workouts.  If you only have 10 minutes to complete your workout, and you care about your results, you HAVE to work intensely in that 10 minutes.  What’s the point if you don’t?

And finally we have the A, which stands for Abs.

You must always concentrate on keeping your abs “braced” while doing your workout.

In the beginning you’re going to spend a lot of time focusing on the abs because you’re not used to it and your abs have kind of gone to sleep because you sit too much and move too little.

However, after a couple weeks, paying attention to your abs will become habit.

Your abs should be involved in EVERY exercise, whether it’s a push-up, plank or lunge and if you don’t pay attention to those abs and keep ‘em braced, you won’t be able to perform intensely or with proper form and your results will suffer.

Make sense?

Alright, so there’s my own little acronym for you to use from now on so don’t forget it.

F.I.A.

Form.  Intensity.  Abs.

Focus on all 3 when doing your workouts and your results will skyrocket!

Pay them no heed and your results will be as bad as that stupid show I mentioned earlier.

Have an awesome day and I’ll talk to you soon!

The Fit Dad

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