day 3

When my alarm clock goes off today I didn’t feel like moving at all. I took a nap the previous day and my plan was that when I got up this morning my body would feel less tired but man was I wrong. After staying up until 1AM watching the basketball game last night I knew that this was going to be a struggle for me. My alarm went off at 4:30 like it usually does and today it seemed like my body was just dead. So once again I snooze it until 4:45 and then I attempt to get up so I can wash my face and start my stretching routine. While I was stretching I thought that my body would kind of loosen up so I could have some sort of energy to get to the gym and start my workout. But today was not that day. All I wanted to do is lay back down under my covers and sleep my day away. Also with the rain down pouring this morning I really did not want to walk to the gym at all and wanted to skip it entirely. But I told myself that I made a commitment to the class to push through so mentally I got myself together and told myself to get through it. As I’m leaving to walk to the gym I try to put on some music to see if it can help motivate me to get me over the emotional struggle that I am dealing with. Going through my playlist the first song I chose that I had on repeat the whole time while I was going to the gym was called blue laces by Nipsey Hussle. Arriving to the gym I thought to myself how can I get quick energy to help me get through the workout? The first thing that came to mind was drinking a monster energy drink. Never having one before I was thinking it would help me out and give me a good energy boost. So I take a couple drinks and proceed to the weight room, then about 10 minutes in my stomach starting hurting and bubbling. I’m not sure what your experiences are with energy drinks monster specifically but as for me this was one of the worst things I could of done. Maybe it was because I was drinking it on an empty stomach and I had just took creatine before my workout, I’m not really sure but what I do know is that it did the opposite of what I wanted it to do. I started sweating randomly so I tried to drink a bunch of water to try and get it diluted in my stomach. I ended up feeling better after about 30 minutes thankfully but as I learned Monster Energy Drink is not for me. I plan on going to sleep early thursday night so I can have a success story for you guys on friday!

Day 2 on 5 AM Journey

My alarm goes off at 4:30 once again and my eyes are heavy. I reach for my phone to push the snooze button and then I doze off again. 8 minutes later the alarm goes off again and now I attempt to wake up. I find that this is still the hardest part for me because it is like trying to get back into a routine. I know that if I can just make it to the bathroom and throw some water on my face I will be able to make it to the gym on time but at this moment I just couldn’t. So I snooze the alarm one more time and now it’s almost 5 o’clock and I am losing some time that I usually devote towards stretching in the morning. So after my daily morning routine I come back to the room and start to stretch my body and see what parts of my body are tight. After taking the weekend off and letting my body rest my back is not in pain like it once was. As I go through my stretching routine I find that my hamstrings tend to be a little tight so I focus more on them today than I normally would. As I pack my bag for the gym I hear the birds start chirping near my window. As I open my window a cool breeze brushes my face and as the birds get louder This is a clear sign to me that the weather is being nice. The weather has always been a big motivator for me when it comes to waking up in the morning for the gym. ‘I discovered that the more nice the weather is the easier it is for me to transition from my room to the gym. The gym from my dorm is about a 5 minute walk so I try to put on some good music that will motivate me to get there. This has been something that I used to do to help distract me with the time. The cool breeze sends shivers up my spine because I left my room in shorts thinking it was warmer than it actually was. Getting to the gym I start with my warm up around the track to loosen my body. Today is shoulder and back day so I plan to hit the weights hard. Concluding my workout my body feels exhausted. I am literally drained and arms feel like noodles. It is hard to even lift them up. But I can’t wait to share with you guys about my experience on Wednesday!

First day on my 5 AM Journey

As I wake up today it’s 4:45 and my head is pounding. Feels like someone is hitting a hammer to the back of my head with a nail over and over again but I know I have to workout. I wake up at 4:45 so I can give myself a little extra time to stretch and get myself mentally prepared to go outside and walk to the gym. Today is a little foggy outside because of the rain and my lower body is still sore from a workout that I did a couple days ago. Still wanting to be dedicated to the gym like I said I would be I proceed to get myself out of bed and get myself to the gym. The one thing that I hate about going to the gym here at school is the actual walk. Living on campus the walk is literally all downhill. So during this walk especially today my lower body is just aching with pain but I know right now that it is all mental for me. This is how it’s always has been even this year during basketball season I found out that even when my body is hurting if I can find a way to push through it and distract my mind it dosen’t hurt as bad. Proceeding into the gym I noticed that my lower back is aching as well but after doing deadlifts two days ago after not doing them since basketball season ended I figured this is something that might occur. My warm up on the bike got my body lose and my headache seemed to have gone away and 30 minutes in I seem to feel like I’m going to power through this workout. Today was an arms day and I wanted to do a little bit of abs at the end of it. But while I’m breezing through as I’m moving onto abs I realize that my back start aching again. I think I came up too fast while I was doing a russian twist and it literally feels like something is stabbing me in the lower back. Now having to cut my workout short I move onto the foam roller to try to loosen it up a bit and try to get the pain to calm down. But it seemed like the more I foam rolled then the more it hurt so eventually I just called it quits for today and what was supposed to be an hour and 10 minute workout turned into 45 minutes. And when it comes to working one thing about me is that I hate when my workouts are cut short especially due to something that is out of my control. Being an athlete a part of me wanted to keep going but then again I know my body’s limitations. I hope over the weekend I can get enough rest and recover so I can give you all a better story than today!

Benefits of cold showers

Most of us have heard of either cold tubs and know most of the benefits from them. Not many people know about the benefits of cold showers. I know for myself my thing has always been hot showers. I enjoy them a lot but it wasn’t until recently when I did the research on cold showers that I actually seen the benefits from them. Some of the benefits are below

Increases Alertness

Taking a cold shower in the morning and feeling cold water go down your body seems more discomforting than soothing. However the deep breathing that happens during this process when our body is in shock helps us keep warm and also increases our overall oxygen intake. This gives us the energy boost we need for the day.

2. Refines Hair and Skin

When it comes to hair and skin, one of the most natural ways to maintain it is with cold showers. Ever wonder when you take a hot shower and you get out and you become ashy and your skin is dry? That is because it is drying out our skin. Cold water on the opposite hand tightens up our skin and will tighten our pours which will prevent then from getting clogged. The same thing goes for the scalp where it prevents dirt from getting in it.

3. Simulates Weight Loss

Cold showers can help weight loss in an unexpected way. The human body contains two types of fat tissue white fat and brown fat. White fat is gained when we consume more calories than our body needs to function and we don’t burn off these excess calories for energy. This body fat piles up in a variety of places in our body and is hard to get rid of. Brown fat is good fat which generates head to keep our bodies warm and is activated when exposed to extreme cold temperatures.

#4 Eases Stress & Helps recover faster

Jumping into the shower without letting it heat up or going into a pool without slowly acclimating to it can help increase tolerance to stress and even disease. Also as you may all know ice baths are something that athletes do to help their body recover faster but if you are not at that level yet, cold showers can have the same affect.

Try a cold shower in the morning and see how alert you are for the rest of the day. A lot of you depend on coffee and other energy boosters to help you. But from my past experiences I have been way more alert after a cold shower than any other drink could do for me. And if you can just jump right into a cold shower, start gradually. Try a luke warm shower and then move it to a little colder.

Any questions or advice feel free to contact me on instagram

@lefthandedassassin

Coach Q

Importance of Eating breakfast

All my life growing up I have never been someone who liked to eat breakfast. I never saw the point in eating cereal or anything of that matter in the morning. It was never for me I always thought that I could skip breakfast and just eat things in the afternoon, little did I know that I was starving myself. Think about it growing up if you didn’t eat breakfast if you were lucky enough to go to a school where you would get a snack break in elementary school sometimes middle school if not you would have to wait until 11 AM to eat your first meal. And growing up when I would get light headed or feel dehydrated it would be because of either I’m not drinking water or I’m waiting too late in the day to eat my first meal. It wasn’t until I got to high school and realized that when I don’t eat breakfast and wait until 11 to eat my first meal that I realized that I was literally starving myself for 8-9 hours. There was no wonder why I would have no energy to go to the gym in the morning or even feel light headed. So when I realized how important it was too eat breakfast I thought about some simple ways that I could fix this problem of not eating in the morning and I wanted to share them with you:

#1. You can drink a protien shake. Every morning I wake up I try to drink at least 2-3 glasses of water on an empty stomach. After that is when I would suggest drinking a protien shake so you could at least have something in your stomach. If you are like me I’m not a big fan of food in the morning so eating a big breakfast is something that I never do. A protien shake can be a subsitute and should hold you over until your next meal.

#2. Bring mini snacks with you to eat throughout the day until your lunch time. Whether it is eating a banana and bringing bags of nuts or different fruits with you to work or put it in your gym back, it is always important to have some sort of filler snack that you can eat that can hold you over until the next meal. I’d rather you do that than to be so hungry after the gym that you go eat fast food.

Drinking a protein shake or eating a variety of fruits and nuts in the morning or even eating something light as yogurt is something that I think is very beneficial to you. A lot of people over look breakfast as I once did and I think this is one of the worst things you could do. Breakfast provides you with a variety of vitamins and nutrients that you miss out on if you wait until lunch. Now of course if your fasting or doing some sort of dieting program than their is exceptions.

Hope you find this beneifical to you.

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The benefits of deadlifts

The deadlift it is an exercise that has many benefits too it that people over look. I know when I first started out weight lifting dead lifts is something that I hated doing. I would see it on my college lifting workouts and automatically skip over them because I never saw the benefit from them. It wasn’t until my junior year of college that I started to taking deadlifts serious. Below are some benefits that I’ve discovered during the process.

#1. Better Posture

Deadlifting increases your core strength and also adds to core stability. While performing this exercise it targets all of the muscles responsible for your posture and enables you to keep your back straight during your daily activities.

#2 More Muscles are being worked

The deadlift works more muscles than any other exercise believe it or not and that is also including the squat. While doing this exercise the lift engages all of the major muscle groups. When you are performing this exercise you may notice that your upper and lower body parts are being worked which is contributed to this workout.

#3 Increases Hormones

When doing at least 8-10 reps of deadlifts with a significant weight you can increase the amount of testosterone and growth hormone that is produced in your body. Testosterone increases muscle growth and improves muscle. So if your doing deadlifts and after a couple sets seems like your what I like to call “in the zone” it is because your body is producing testosterone at a high level.

#4 Prevents Injury

The deadlift can help prevent injuries by increasing the strength of your muscles around certain tendons and ligaments. After pulling my hamstrings and even partially tearing one during my basketball career when I found this out deadlifts became my best friend, They have helped me a lot during my career and I think it is something that is very vital to having strong hamstrings.

Overall I know deadlifts are one of the most important exercises that can benefit you when done correctly. Some people tend to put a lot of weight on and their form ends up being horrible and they end up hurting themselves. The best advice I can give is to do what is comfortable for you and more importantly make sure your form is correct.

Does the Sauna help you lose weight?

When I first started going to the gym I was never really use to the sauna. I noticed that a lot of people would go in before or after their workout and they would come out sweating. So one day I took it upon myself to give it a try and it was my first time and I almost passed out because I stayed in for too long. At first I didn’t see any benefits from it but after a while I thought that it was actually helping me lose extra weight that I did not want. So eventually I started weighing myself before I got in and after I got in and surprisingly there was no major difference. So eventually I went on to do some research to discover if the sauna actually helped people lose weight and here’s the answer:

When you are in the sauna you are losing a tiny bit of weight because you are sweating off water weight. Once you start drinking water again the weight returns. The sauna may also help you burn some extra calories but I would not recommend relying on major sweat sessions alone to shed weight. It is not a real effective tool for significant weight loss.

So at the end of the day if you are someone who has been counting on the sauna to provide significant weight loss for you then I would suggest to look for another avenue. Because at a bear minimum you are only shedding off water weight.

Finding motivation

A lot of people struggle with the ability to find motivation when accomplishing their dreams and goals. People say that they want to go to the gym everyday but when that alarm clock goes off and your body is telling you stay in bed people often give in. When they have to be at the gym by 7 they think 7:30 won’t hurt then that turns into 7:45 then they think maybe I’ll just go later in the day and never make it to the gym. Trust me I know this happens because this is something that I use to struggle with myself until I found something that motivated me. Here’s a little story:

On January 5th I drove to the basket and landed on my hand. I automatically assume the worse because it was my shooting hand but I continue to play through it because it was late in the game but I knew something wasn’t right and I went to the trainer right after. I told him what happened and he said it was probably a minor sprain and with ice and some treatment it will get better. The following week I’d say it gets worse to a point where it’s excruciating pain just to shoot a basketball. Nobody really knows what I’m going through and to make the long story short I play the rest of the season dealing with this injury. Come to find out a couple days ago I have a ligament torn in my wrist and now they are talking about possibly getting surgery done once I graduate. But during this process I had to find something to keep me going. Basketball is my life I been playing since I was 3 years old. If something it going on in my life and I want to get away from it I go lose myself in the gym and go shoot. I love the game. But imagine not being able to do something you love to do because every time you do it it literally hurts. I even had a dream about this a couple nights ago and tears literally started pouring down my face in my sleep and when I woke up I knew it was still a reality. I miss it but this is what I was dealing with and I had to find something to motivate me to get through it. I would always have talks with my parents back home and they would always tell me how proud they were of how far I’ve come even though my performance wasn’t like it was last year they knew what I was capable of. But little did they know I physically couldn’t do it and that is what hurt me mentally the most. To be completely honest with you all from Jan 5th to the end of the season mentally was the worst time of my life. But talking to my parents and seeing back home that I had people that counted on me kept me waking up at 5AM and training. I couldn’t shoot because the pain was too much but I kept working on things in my room to keep my mind and body strong and in tune with myself.

I say all this to say, if you ever find yourself asking how can I keep the momentum going to accomplish my goals or tasks, whether it’s going to the gym everyday or eating healthy or going to work when you don’t feel like it, find something that will motivate you. Once you find that motivation I promise everything will be so much easier for you. Those days when you just don’t want to get up for work, when you think about your motivation your body will switch into another gear and you will find yourself never contemplating those thoughts again.

I want you to take some time out of your day today and think about it now and write it down so it’s a daily reminder to yourself, what motivates you?

Benefits of drinking water when first waking up

Everyday whether your working all day or going to class your body has exerted energy and power. That’s the reason that you get thirsty and want to soothe yourself through hydration. But something that you may not have known was that drinking water first thing in the morning has many health benefits.

Every morning when you wake up your body is craving water. The human body is composed of more than 50% of water to keeping it refreshed with water is very important. When you do this in the morning you will see amazing benefits from it. Maybe after reading these benefits that I will give you, you will also join me and drinking water first thing in the morning as well.

#1 Drinking water first thing in the morning immediately helps rehydrate the body.

A lot of people don’t realize that when you go to sleep for that six-eight hour time period that’s literally your body not having any consumption. So when you wake up feeling thirsty that’s your body telling you that it needs to be replenished. Drinking two-three glasses of water when you wake up on an empty stomach allows you to quickly rehydrate.

#2 Drinking water first thing in the morning helps fuel your brain

One thing you may not have known is that our brain is made up of over 70% water. So when you are not properly hydrated your brain operates on less fuel causing you to feel drained and feel fatigued. It can also help your memory and brain performance.

#3 Drinking water first thing in the morning increases your level of alertness

One of the main indicators of fatigue and tiredness is your dehydration. A lot of times when you first take a drink of something in the morning you literally feel like a shock went through your body. I know a lot of people like coffee or tea first thing when they wake up but try water. Water can stimulate faster growth of red blood cells in your system which generates more oxygen in your blood. When this happens it gives you a good burst of energy.

#4 Drinking water first thing in the morning helps get rid of the toxins in your body

Drinking a few glasses of water in the morning can help flush out all of the toxins that stores in your body overnight. As you drink it, it naturally stimulates movements in your bowels. During the night your body repairs itself and takes out all of the toxins in your body. Drinking water in the morning will help flush out these toxins giving you a fresh body.

As you start this process of drinking water on an empty stomach in the morning you will also start to see your skin start to glow and your metabolism increasing. Water is one of the most underrated things when it comes to having a better lifestyle that people look at. I know for myself I never used to drink water I was always a big juice fanatic but when my body started cramping during games and I would always drink juice after a workout and would still feel thirsty I wondered why. And it’s because water does so many things to your body that you have no idea it would even affect but it does.

Try this out for two weeks and let me know if you see any progress in your health!

Coach Q

Benefits of NoFap

Fellas I wanted to touch on this subject because I think this is something that a lot of you may be dealing with and having struggles with. When you watch porn and jerk off you are actually lowering your testosterone levels. Your semen literally has nutrients and vitamins in it that you need to be a man. Women can sense a man’s masculine energy from a mile away but when you masturbate your limiting yourself from certain options. When you masturbate you’re not at your strongest, ever think why after you masturbate you feel tired? It’s because you’re emptying yourself of the nutrients that men need to have. Now in order to fix this you need to have goals and aspirations that your passionate about and translate that energy that you spend jerking off towards that goal. I know some of you will spend hours at a time watching porn but just imagine taking that time and putting it towards a business you want to start or hitting the gym. This is called SEXUAL TRANSMUTATION. I only know this because it is something that I used to do myself. But once I was able to restrain from it and put my energy towards the weight room and basketball my life started to change. I had a different swagger about myself and quite frankly when I walked into any room I owned it. My confidence level was and still is through the roof. And I would say restraining from porn had a lot to do with this because I know after I would masturbate my testosterone level was low and I wasn’t motivated to do anything at all. All I wanted to do was take a nap after and when I woke up half my day was already over. A number of things will improve when you stop jerking off to porn. Some of these things are you will have improved confidence, your motivation to get things done will improve, your sex life will improve and lastly your all around aura will improve. You should want to be the most masculine version of yourself but can’t be the masculine version of yourself if your beating your meat and watching porn. How do you expect for you to walk into a room and have women feel your energy when all your energy is being wasted on porn all day? This dampens your masculine energy and it’s something that as a man you should pay attention too. Now if you find this to be you I’m not saying to go cold turkey and stop watching porn because you will relapse but I am suggesting too limit the amount of times you watch it gradually and eventually it will become easier for you to control yourself.