If anyone ever tells you that working out is all about fat loss or muscle building, they have a very limited scope of thinking on the subject of fitness.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about a blast from the past, literally.

I used to be a body builder and they were some of the most incredible times of my life… I love the community, I loved building muscle, I love the comradery amongst my friends at the gym.

I owned Olympia Fitness Center back then and it was a blast!

Then I broadened my horizons and learned all about health and fitness… yes I said fitness, because bodybuilding is about neither. I suppose you could say that you are healthier than a large section of the population as a bodybuilder, which you are, but you are anything but "healthy" and shapely, yes… fit… not quite.

As you may know bodybuilding is about building muscles, it’s not about fitness, at least not the kind of fitness we are talking about when you’re Fit for Power, and engage in the basic training plan for the Performance Lifestyle.

For a while I really got down on bodybuilding because as I learned more about health and fitness and the real purpose in thinking, living and training as a Healthy High Achiever, I saw all the bad things in bodybuilding and really beat it up over the years.

What I forget was all the other great things about body building and the community that I was apart of for so long added to my life. First, I loved the hard core environment and when I left it. I left a piece of me behind.

It was nearly 15 years I let that happen and now I know it really affected me.

While I’m not saying "train at a hardcore bodybuilding gym", I am saying that there is more to training than fat loss and muscle building. Both are great, but there is still more…

Two months ago, I met up with a friend I haven’t seen in years to train at a Diamond Gym in Maplewood NJ and I can’t tell you how much of a full circle experience it was as a 40 year old (birthday, October 5th, 2008) to come back to my roots. It changed my life in a good way. It awakened the hard core part of me, that I had been missing for some time, and it enabled me to experience the comradery, that exists in a gym like this, unlike any other gym type can deliver.

Bodybuilders are really there. They are fully present and loving their gym experience. It’s high intensity training, it’s committed, it’s fully engaged and I love it!

Where and how you train and with whom, all the dynamics involved affect your personal growth, awareness and social life. I really value that and I trust you will too.

When you are Fit for Power, you can train anywhere and build in many types of training into your lifestyle. That’s part of what makes it so exciting, so practical and exciting. I did that that two months ago, by adding in a handful of workouts each month at Diamond Gym.

And yes, I experienced some fat loss, and building building, because when you put on muscle, the after burn affect is incredible. And you feel amazing.

In my next post I will be putting up some photos of my bodybuilding days of old.

Till then,

Live Like a Pro,

~JAM,

John Allen Mollenhauer is the creator of Fit For Power a Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

As founder of www.MyTrainer.com, I get around to a number of training facilities and because I learn so much about training, I like to try many different forms. For starters, the cross training and social benefits are awesome, and I have always found that various forms of fitness build on each other.

Well, recently, I met up with an old friend and we starting training together at what was at one time a rival gym to one that I owned here in new Jersey; it’s called Diamond Gym; one of the most authentically hard core training facilities in the country.

The exercise machines, I’m not kidding (and to it’s credit) have not been replaced in some 30 years. It’s hard core. Yes they now have a second floor that has everything from cardio equipment to step aerobics, but the main floor is like muscle beach. Just like my old gym with body building pictures everywhere, including Arnold!

I haven’t been in a gym like this in 15 years, at least, maybe more. I used to be a competitive bodybuilder and when I was done, I was DONE!

But never say never, or forget your roots. These are my roots and this is the kind of place where I first learned how to train. And how wonderful it was to train like I used to.

For now, this feels right, because exercise and training is always about much more than exercise and training; it’s about the social, psychological and personal development that comes with it. Always remember this!

This training is right for all those aspects of my life right now, including the full circle experience that comes with it. It has enlivened, awakened a part of me, that can only come out in a place like this. If you’ve never experienced coming into a gym like this, just for the heck of it, try it, even it your conscious mind says "that’s not for me".

The people are wonderful, no matter how big or intimidating (looking) they may be. They are people, and they respect you no matter what you’re experience or size. They will help you I’m sure.

It will also bring something out in you; something you may have never experienced before. Like say… the animal that you are.

Here are a few video’s of my recent training experience. 
 

  Live, and Train, like a Pro!

 John Allen Mollenhauer is the creator of Fit For Power a Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

Recently I was asked to share my thoughts in an article for SheKnows.com, on the benefits of Super Slow, a method of maximizing the results of your training in the shortest period of time, while improving safety.

The article is titled: Get Super Fit with Super slow Resistance Training. Go Super Slow on Weight Lifting.

Here are some of the highlights:

What if someone told you there was a way you could do a strength-training workout just once a week, for a mere 30 minutes, and look and feel as if you’d been hitting the gym five out of seven days? You would either scoff – or you would be completely on-board to ditch your seemingly endless hours at the gym for an abbreviated – but just as effective – workout protocol.

Read on to learn more about superslow resistance training. ~ Jen Karetnick

David Landau, a HIT trainer in Florida, adds, “This system of physical training is cost effective for those who truly want to benefit. It involves quality over quantity for the exact amount of exercise you require – no more, no less.”

Read more

John Allen Mollenhauer is the creator of Fit For Power a Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier, more successful ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned Healthy High Achiever, John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do for better results. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!

This was easily the most amazing display of mental and physical mastery I have every seen.

2008 Olympics AWESOME Opening Ceremony - Click here for funny video clips

When I see displays like this, I get over any limitations and challenges because our potential is just so great. How high is high, how better is better?

"At one point, it appeared Favre, whose preference was to be traded inside the NFC North, and Packers would come to a reconciliation. But earlier this week, McCarthy said after six hours of "brutally honest" conversations over two days that he felt Favre didn’t have the right mind-set to play for the Packers."

As you may know Brett Favre is now a New York Jet for the balance of his career. He left the Green Bay Packers, where he originally wanted to end his career, but now his is part of the big city.

As his coach said the "The train has left the station and it ended up in New York".

After brutally honest discussions his mindset wasn’t there. Do you see how much emphasis is put on mindset when it’s true importance is acknowledged?

The Green Bay Packers, after 18 seasons, traded their superstar to begin anew, with at least a few good seasons left in this All Pro, on the basis that his mindset was just not there.

Mindset is everything. literally!

John Allen Mollenhauer is the Founder of MyTrainer.com where fitness video’s are free for everybody! He is also the founder Performance Lifestyle Solutions, the better healthier ways to achieve your goals in life, business and sport. As a former worn down workaholic turned healthy high achiever John Allen (aka “JAM”) will teach you how to Live Like a Pro, optimizing your lifestyle the way athletes do. He is the creator of the Healthy High Achiever - Unleash the Full Potential of Your Lifestyle to Perform, Look and Feel Better!