The following is an excerpt from John O’Sullivan’s excellent book Changing the Game.  If you would like to see more about his book, or Carol’s Dweck’s Mindset book, links are provided at the end.

The influence of state of mind on performance has been confirmed through decades of research by world-renowned Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck. She has discovered that beyond talent, intent, and actions, a person’s approach and what she calls “mindset” play a tremendous role in achievement and performance. Dweck has discovered that people have either a fixed or a growth mindset when it comes to performance. The view a person adopts profoundly affects the way she lives her life, how she performs, and what she accomplishes.
Fixed-mindset individuals believe that their abilities and qualities are carved in stone and that every activity is a test of one’s innate, unchangeable ability. Whether it be in the classroom, on the athletic field, or in a relationship, fixed-mindset individuals view every situation as a confirmation of their intelligence, ability, character, and even their personality. Challenges are to be avoided, obstacles are reasons to give up, criticism is ignored, effort is worthless, and the success of others is threatening. Fixed-mindset people do not believe in growth, only validation. You’ve either got it or you don’t!

Here are some things that fixed-mindset people say:
“I don’t play much. I am just not a good soccer player.”
“I failed the test. I won’t ever understand algebra.”
“I am not an artist. My brother got all the artistic genes in our family.”

Do any of these sound familiar? Do you know anyone whose every failure is a repudiation of his ability? Do you see a player who has potential but is not applying himself? “Why even try?” says the fixed mindset person. “I am just not good and never can be.” On the other hand, Dweck has discovered that growth-mindset individuals believe that one’s abilities are starting points and that talents are capable of being cultivated, nurtured, and developed. Effort, commitment, risk, failure, and disappointment are all components of development and not a reflection of permanent traits. Everything is a part of the journey, and every success or failure is a reflection upon where one is today, not where one might be tomorrow with some effort and application. As a result, challenges are embraced, effort is the path to
accomplishment, criticism is helpful, persistence is celebrated, and the success of others is inspiring.

Hopefully we have heard some growth-mindset statements from our kids:
“If I’m going to break into the starting lineup, I need to practice
harder and more often.”
“I got a C. I need to do some more studying for our next test.”
“Wow! That was the most challenging practice we ever had. I like our
new coach!”

Growth-mindset individuals love challenges, take risks, try new things, and focus on the process—not the outcome—of achievement activities. Through her research, Dweck has developed a series of mindset workshops and tested her theories on students of all ages. In one of her studies, she taught a portion of a class a fixed-mindset approach (the brain does not develop, skill is innate and cannot be learned, etc.), while others were led to adopt a growth-mindset approach (this can be learned, ability can be developed). Over eight sessions, both groups of students were taught study skills and how to apply them to learning challenging new concepts. Their teachers were not told which kids were in which group, but they were asked for feedback on student performance. Throughout the study, teachers singled out far more students in the growth-mindset group for making huge progress in both their motivation and improvement. At semester’s end, Dweck looked at the students’ grades in math. The growth-mindset group showed an improvement and was far more inspired to learn and put forth effort. The students in the fixed-mindset group did not improve their grades. In spite of receiving everything the growth group did, except for the growth-mindset training, their motivation to learn and apply their new study skills did not change. Their mindset held them back!
From toddlers to adults, Dweck’s results are astounding and consistent. Every study confirmed that the growth-mindset individuals learned more, demonstrated more improvement in testing, challenged themselves more often, and enjoyed themselves more than the fixed mindset groups. Every time! The highest-performing athletes are likely to have a growth mindset when it comes to sports. Of course, young athletes and even pros may perform well on a fixed mindset, but they will never reach their true potential. They will constantly seek validation and need to prove themselves instead of focusing upon improving themselves. In the long run, they will be surpassed by those athletes with a proper growth oriented state of mind.
The great news is that mindsets can be changed. Dweck has developed workshops and exercises that help students, athletes, and others adopt a growth-oriented mindset. Sometimes it is as simple as watching a short video on how the brain grows and develops throughout life. Other times it is simple statements of praise that have the desired effect. Once people are open to the possibility that nothing is fixed, they can get on with
learning and performing their best.

John O’ Sullivan’s site

Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset

Everybody has heard of personal training.  It is ubiquitous in every gym.  You join, they set up an appointment with a trainer, you discuss goals, frequency, duration, training history, time of day, etc.  It is the “personal” part of personal training.  You get a training card with your exact routine:

• If you want to gain muscle, it is probably a body part split, with reps between 8-12, 3-4 days/week.
• If you want to get super strong, it is a powerlifting style, with lower reps and heavy weight.
• If you want to burn fat, it may be a metabolic style with several exercises grouped together with the goal of burning calories.
• If you “want it all”, it is a total body routine that is repeated 3-4 days/week.

Could the same be said for “personalizing” your nutrition?  If you read ten different books, each with their own twist on how be lean, eat healthy and look/feel your best, you would likely be more confused than ever.  So, if we take the time to write up exercises, design programs and teach proper form, exercise progressions, recovery methods, etc, shouldn’t we treat nutrition pretty much the same?

Personalized nutrition is as much science as it is art.  Training methodologies work for the vast majority of trainees; the same cannot be said for nutrition.  It is much more about the person and how they need to eat than training.  For example, Brian and myself have extremely fast metabolisms and are afforded the “luxury” of eating whatever we want.  While it works for us, it is not recommended for everybody.  Others simply have to look at food and they gain weight.  It comes down to experimenting with several different habits, not diets, until you find the formula that works.

So, you may be wondering, “How can this work for me”?  It is a two part process:

Part 1 – Develop habits.

Part 2 – Experiment, refine and repeat those habits.

Here are a few habits to consider:

In the past, I have been guilty of taking more about diet/nutrition than building habits that include nutrition, but are not grounded in nutrition.  Some of the habits above (journalling, gratitude, planning) are not directly about food but about a habit involving food.  They could also be about anything else in your life!

There is not a “one-size-fits-all” answer when it comes to nutrition.  It is a never ending quest to learn as much as you can about your own unique physiology, brain chemistry, metabolism, genetics, and digestion among other factors.  The key is to never give up the journey to find your formula to personalize your nutrition.

If you would like to chat more about this topic, let us know and we can go down the rabbit hole together until we find the answers!

Any athlete who has been to Adrenaline for performance enhancement training can tell you there’s a heavy dose of glute work in just about every training session. Hip thrusts, band hip abductions and glute bridges are just a few of many examples of what you might see athletes performing. On the flip side, new athletes usually have a look of absolute confusion or shock when we show them how to do a hip thrust. “I have to do what!!?? Why???”. The gluteus maximus is the single largest muscle in our body, but the majority of people do not use them correctly or know how to activate their muscle group known collectively as the glutes. It is also critical when it comes to athletic performance.

So why do we put so much emphasis on glute training? First and foremost, strong glutes directly help to improve posture. All of the athletes we train, and certainly a great number of adults we train, are stuck at a desk or driving the majority of the day. This is a recipe for tight hip flexors, over stretched weak hip extensors and dysfunctional glute activation. All of this contributes to poor posture and associated chronic low back pain. By strengthening the glutes in conjunction with stretching the hip flexors, we can pull the pelvis back alleviating the common issues caused by a constant anterior (front) pelvic tilt. Second, and probably most importantly, is injury prevention. I previously hit on the importance of glutes and how they collectively support the low back, but lets talk about how it can affect the lower body. The glutes are hip stabilizers as well, which means when weak, can completely screw up our lower body alignment. If we don’t have proper alignment from the hips to the knees, this can make us more prone to ACL sprains, iliotibial band syndrome, tendonitis, etc. This will obviously trickle down the kinetic chain to our lower legs and ankles. Injuries such as Achilles ruptures, medial tibial stress syndrome (shin splints), even ankle sprains can become more likely due to improper alignment stemming at the hips and weak glutes. Lastly, we have their contribution to athletic performance. As the title suggests, our gluteal muscles are collectively the strongest muscles in the body. They are able to produce massive amounts of force which is directly related to how fast we can run and how high we can jump. The more powerful we are with hip extension, the more we can propel our bodies forward, laterally, and vertically.
It should be clear that training and strengthening our glutes is a critical component of all protocols we implement at Adrenaline, whether it is an athlete with a goal of increasing their vertical jump and 40 yard dash, or an adult with the goal of living a more active lifestyle. Hopefully, this helps answer the question I know so many people have either asked, or are thinking:  Why do we train the glutes so damn much?

Part two will go into some specific exercises, why we use them, who they are for and how to properly execute.