Brain Training for Body and Mind

Brain Training for Body and Mind
in AThletic Training, Bodyweight Training, Calisthenics, CrossFit Training, Interval Training, Performance Coaching by

Train Your Brain, Body, and Mind

Your brain is a playground. It’s a computer. It’s your security system. And it loves to collect data. When you train, neurons activate and form new physical associations. Old neurons die and rebuild with flexible connections. People who understand the neuroscience of the brain can use it to their advantage in life and career.

“The brain’s ability to change its plasticity is lifelong.” (UC San Francisco neuroscientist Michael M. Merzenich, Ph.D. Michael Merzenich: Growing evidence of brain plasticity, 2004, Ted Talk TED2004) Learning anything new, perfecting a skill, puts the brain in a “stressful” situation. It’s very similar to physical training. The rebound from experience allows the brain to toughen up and develop a new resiliency. Brain function increases. Your memory can become sharper. Your cognitive abilities grow. Task yourself beyond your comfort zone. Train your brain with physical exercise. Invoke the modern science of human physiology.

Your prefrontal cortex is the CEO of your brain. If you have ever been curious as to how you make decisions, your prefrontal cortex is the hardware making it possible. It’s the control room where priorities, temptations, and wants to receive the go/no-go sign. It is where your habits reside.

How Do You Benefit from Neuroscience Knowledge?

Take points from other successful coaches. “Be a teacher first and a coach second.” John Wooden. Take your first step – activation. Make some determinations about yourself and what your purpose is. Find a source of knowledge. That might be a strength coach or someone in your family. Make sure they are objective and open to learning as well. Your goal is to understand your habits.

Identify your “why.” Get clear on why you pursue your objectives. Recognize the routines you subscribe to that keep you trying as opposed to succeeding. Identify what you must do for yourself to become the type of person capable of greater success. A behavioral change is required for you to keep moving forward in your pursuits. Become conscious of your internal growth and the skills necessary to move towards an external expression of your growing mental strength.

Activate. Attack your habit of comfort and realize the positive effects of exercise on the brain. Being forty years old has an impact athletically. If you are fifty or sixty, you must build brain health. You have lost flexibility and strength over the years. All physiological functions slow down as you age. If you’ve been active over the years since high school, you might be in a little better physical shape. Believe in the science. Exercise works to rejuvenate brain performance. You must see training as one goal with two targets.

Prioritize. Merzenich goes on to inform us that if you don’t rejuvenate your mind, you have a 50% chance of being senile by age 85. You will understand the shocking reality if you find your car keys in the refrigerator. I recently reached into my jacket to grab my cell phone and pulled out the remote control for the TV. It’s time to add another workout session to my busy week. Your routine behaviors must congruent with your goals. Don’t lose it without a fight. Take positive steps in creating new practices knowing you can grow your mind. Do it now before you forget.

If you are a party animal, the gym will appeal to your gregariousness. If you aren’t, then maybe your choice of individual training will work better. Regardless you must feel safe and believe training will work for you. You are building brain health.

We live by our behaviors. We die by our beliefs.

Dan Raabe, Performance Trainer

Training isn’t rocket science. It’s not pain and suffering. Creating new habits is the real work. Develop a working model of modern behaviors for anything that might be holding you back. If you are healthier and stronger, you’ll be more able to protect the ones you love.

Think of your “why.” Include brain training in the picture. Physical exercise for brain training is a substantial reason. Find yourself involved in all manner of brain performance and brain health. Let the strength training do its job. Your task can be permitting yourself to stay motivated.

Physically remodeling yourself is a choice. Behave towards new horizons without following the negative buzz on the Internet. Think about the ability to move and function better physically. Think of channeling stress into positive motion. Envision a more functional circumstance. See yourself in a crowd standing a little taller. Fit people are easy to find.

We don’t need a Ph.D. to get motivated to invest time in useful activities. Develop a life of fascination. Train differently. Apply the lessons to your career. What if your perspective is cleaner? Your calling card says you are an individual. You listen. Your unique proposition expresses your motivations, knowledge, and follow-through. You have criteria and metrics that can be understood by anyone you meet. Through the new skills, you’ve worked to polish, and the personal presence you exude, those around you feel your intrinsic value. It’s a winning outcome.

If you feel that training involves risk, we do risk well. You will grow in athletic prowess. Proper training is a skill.

Fill your head with insights and knowledge. It’s human nature to analyze everything, but cool it a little bit. Learn for the sake of supporting your interests and curiosities. A good portion of your physical health is vested in keeping your brain engaged. Exercise does its part in the activation of your core neurology. Sleep is necessary and rejuvenates brain chemistry. Actively learning through study, reading, and indulging in abstraction keeps your brain plasticity youthful.

Performance Coaching is Complex

Asking anyone to identify “why” in an area of life is invasive. It’s personal. But you must get on with the task. Activation means you made the first move with autonomy. You attended the webinar. You took a pro-active stance and physically moved to action. Then you created new priorities. Performance training must be one of your top priorities.

Train hard and train for a reason.

If you find yourself in the forties plus, career-centric, working-professional group you are my target audience. There is more to the performance discussion and I’ll gladly share it with you. I am a speaker, author, and interval training expert. Send me an email coach@danraabetraining.com or text to (303) 880-4641. Mention “LinkedIn article” and I’ll send you today’s workout. Don’t look for a reason to train. Train for a Reason! #performance #danraabetraining #trainforareason


Self Care – 20 Minute Workout

Self Care – 20 Minute Workout
in AThletic Training, Bodyweight Training, Science of Behavioral Habits by

20 Minute Workout

The answer is my favorite conversation. It has to do with you and exploring your negative connotation of self care. Let’s admit that our preoccupation with comforts may be a little wimpy. Taking action to evolve a more significant life is attractive. Do you want others to see you in the image of how you look at yourself?

Are you into self  care enough to create a new personal portrait as an attractive, convincing winner on the track to success? Self care is a good habit. In the context of you taking care of yourself first, you build the health and strength to take care of the talented people around you. It begins with a want and ends with a reward. The habit of in-action is what you must change. If your routines are active, then they create attractive patterns, and you win. Do your methods include the kind act of self-development.

If the answer is yes, you’re on your way to a new positive outcome. You are building power. Reasonable is irrational if the outcome isn’t positive. The result of a stronger physiology through proper exercise is the big point.

What’s in it for me becomes tangible when the investment in training time comes from expert skills, consistent activity, and safe performance. Build your presence on physical and mental changes that are the positive reward of a process of training, because being reasonable isn’t in your blood.

Resolve your life’s most intimate, unrealized issues. Get up earlier.

Visualize the day: “You are standing in the gym, alone, beaming in your shiny new shorts with the swoosh. Your rash-guard makes every curve in your sturdy frame stand out and shout, “I am a warrior!”

You are warmed up and ready to become the self-made athlete you’ve always dreamed you could be. Rap madness is playing in your ears. You are badass! The coach raises his hand. His thumb presses forcefully on the start button, and you hear the pinging beep of the stopwatch fill the gym. It’s game on.

You reach down to grab the bar.

You are in perfect form.

You’ve trained for this moment.

20 Minute Workout Scenario

20 Minute Train for a Reason

There is an earthly weight on this rope of steel. All the eyes of the gym are on you.

As your hips drop into perfect lift-off position, your firm, supple hands reach the cold, knurled steel bar. Chalkdust is aloft in the bright morning sun. And you lock on. Lift! And nothing happens. It won’t move. It’s stuck to the floor. You scream, but no one runs to your aid. You’re unreachable. It’s the slo-mo version of Road Runner.

Then, as if ordered by the gods of iron, your kid wakes you up to get the milk out of the ’fridge, and it’s all over. Exit dreamland.”

You must be truthful to win.

There is no truth in dreaming that someday success, top performance, and sustainable health will happen.

It’s “You Inc” beginning now. Your plan must include all personal development within your reach – physical and mental.

Having a great body, eternal youth, and a six-pack that would bring Marilyn Monroe back from the grave isn’t worth the energy if it comes from the negative connotation of self care. Understand the context of the documentary you make of yourself.

Focus on you and the people you love the most. They depend on you, and with that knowledge, you have the freedom to be the master of self care. Give to yourself. You deserve it. You are in this for the outcome – for yourself and those around you who allow you to be the alpha in their lives.

Training is your best friend. It will never let you down. It goes with you everywhere.

It always makes you better. No matter what the circumstance, training will still support your high experience. It’s foundational. It’s the pressure to do the right thing when you need it most. It’s support when good intentions and energy turn around and bite you in the backside because it is simple, functional, rejuvenating, creative, inspirational, portable, available. It’s a noun and a verb!

Training is the action in this book. Get some self care going.

Your life depends on your investment in self-actualization. Partner passion with strategy. This is your “why.”

Proponents of self-care like to point out that unless we take care of ourselves first, we will not be well enough to help and take care of others.

– John A. Johnson, Ph.D.

Inspiration – action, action, action!

in AThletic Training, Bodyweight Training, Calisthenics, CrossFit Training, Gymnastics, Interval Training, Kettlebell Training, Performance Coaching, Personal Training, Plyometric Training, Resistance Training, Science of Behavioral Habits, Skilled Movement, Tactical Mental Training by

Dan Raabe Performance - Train For A Reason - Gymnastics, Conditioning, Mental Strength, Tactics, Skilled Movement, Training #trainforareason #danraabetraining

Inspiration precedes every action. Why? Because inspiration is the blood supply of motivation, learning, and follow through. It’s the heartbeat of will-power. Without will-power, there is no self-control. Self-control is a precursor to success.

How many uninspired projects have you undertaken? Your determination might have seen you through to the end. Or perhaps it fizzled, unfinished. With a lack of inspiration, your motivation waned, and the effort soon became drudgery.

We have one precious chance to impact our life’s outcome. If our actions are congruent with our desired results, then it’s easy to understand why finding inspiration is such a necessary component. It improves how we arrive at an outcome we targeted. You will hear me say, “Train for a reason.” Actions taken towards goals are not decisions. They are dates for your future.

How many people must we meet, interview, and build relationships with before we find someone who asks the magic question, “Can you teach me how to do that?” Life would be so easy if adults automatically got inspired just by intrinsic enthusiasm.

A coach can inspire athletes to act for their good. A good coach can also teach the executive athlete how to use their prowess to accomplish the enormous goals in their life. The motivation to act on a good premise comes from inspiration.

Watching the Olympics, I never fail to ask, “How did she/he do that?” Every event requires a unique skill set. There must be some tipping point when you cease to accept the status quo for yourself, and your physical preparedness. I became a coach when I realized that I could answer the question, “How do I get strong?” My inspiration comes from meeting successful, skilled people, and taking account of where I fit into this potentially powerful group. When I feel weak, I find inspiration from, “I train because I want to be strong,” Once you identify and commit to your goals, the second step is assured. There can be no considerations to keep you from achieving.

In the training culture, the kid inside you plays, and the adult safely does the work. We work in a different context that puts training on our calendar. Physical accomplishments become congruent with life’s goals. We operate outside of the reason to train. We train because we are focused on the outcomes.

“Taking action to participate requires three motivators: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. It’s my idea. I’m confident I can do it. I belong here, and I’m worthy.”
Richard Ryan and Edward Deci

If you like this article and want more information, please contact me at coach@danraabetraininig.com or call/text to (303) 880-4641. We focus on the forties plus professional because it’s important to stay in motion, build a solid foundation for health, and hone the skills of self-control. Don’t look for a reason to train, Train for a Reason.