Wichita Personal Training Blog - GoTimeTraining

9 Feb 2023
Love Yourself! Self-Compassion as a Key Moderator in Increased Physical Activity Engagement

A Literature Review by Caleb Campbell, M.S.Introduction By definition, self-compassion involves the disposition of being touched by and open to one's own suffering, not avoiding or disconnecting from it, generating the desire to alleviate one's suffering and to heal oneself with kindness or acknowledging suffering as part of the normal, shared human experience. Self-compassion is a healthy way of approaching one's suffering, such as failures, perceived inadequacy, or other life difficulties. It allows an individual to accept distress or relate feelings/experiences with a gentler mindset and recuperate or bounce back accordingly. Do you find it difficult to overcome barriers to regularly ....
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Using Arousal-Inducing or Reducing Techniques

Goal: To bring yourself or someone else to optimal arousal or activated states for optimal performance. 1. Increase or decrease breathing rate. 2. Act energized or be calm. 3. Use mood words and positive statements. 4. Listen to energizing or relaxing music. 5. Use imagery. 6. Complete a workout or yoga session. 7. Remember your "whys". When we are kids the first things we are taught to help us maintain emotional, mental and physical control is to take a deep breath. Doing so slows the heart rate, relaxes tension in the body and eases racing thoughts and anxiety. After a hard day of work and taking care of various other responsibilities, a person could benefit from slow and deep ....
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Balancing Family with a Healthy Lifestyle

Balancing Family with a Healthy Lifestyle We all play various roles in our life that keep us busy. Balancing time and energy in all of these rolls to sustain a happy and healthy life can be very tricky. A role that many people take on is that of parenthood. At this point in their life, most people certainly have many other roles they are pursuing or have established in their routines and adding children to the mix can be very energy and time consuming. As a father of two girls, a 4 year old and the other about a month old, I understand the importance and experience the pressure of living a balanced healthy life while maintaining my responsibilities as a father and spouse. Stress and ....
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How Ready Are You?

Are you ready? This is the most important question you must ask yourself to know where you fall in the behavior change continuum. The behavior change continuum involves 5 different stages: Pre-Contemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action and Maintenance. Although there are 5 separate stages in behavior change, people can cycle back and forth when it comes to their readiness for change. Therefore, most of the time progress is not linear as humans typically revert back to old habits even if it's just temporarily. It is important to know how to identify what stage you are in first. This blog is to help you do just that. For the purpose of this blog, we will use the example of exercising ....
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Behavior Change... What is it?

We have heard it time and time again, especially at the start of a new year. People will say "I want to quit smoking," or "I am going to lose weight this year and get in better shape." Smoking for example is a human behavior. These behaviors can have direct negative or positive influences on human health, thereby impacting happiness and life satisfaction. Smoking negatively influences health. Therefore, people see smoking as a behavior that needs to be changed or it will drastically make their overall life satisfaction much lower than someone who does not smoke. Being overweight is not a behavior, however, there are behaviors that lead to weight gain and cause all sorts of physiological ....
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3 Stress Resistant Personality Characteristics: Part 3 - Optimism

Optimism- (APA) n. hopefulness: the attitude that good things will happen and that people’s wishes or aims will ultimately be fulfilled. Optimists are people who anticipate positive outcomes, whether serendipitously or through perseverance and effort, and who are confident of attaining desired goals. Most individuals lie somewhere on the spectrum between the two polar opposites of pure optimism and pure pessimism, but tend to demonstrate sometimes strong, relatively stable or situational tendencies in one direction or the other. “Optimism is associated with greater psychological adjustment and is negatively related to stress and burnout (Crosno, ....
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3 Stress Resistant Personality Characteristics: Part 2 - Mental Toughness

Mental Toughness- Similar to hardiness, mental toughness is a multidimensional construct composed of resiliency, confidence, commitment, concentration skills, pressure seeking, and effective coping (Connaughton, Hanton, & Jones, 2010; Crust, 2008; Sheard, 2009). Mentally tough people have been found to use problem-focused strategies that require engaging in behaviors aimed at eliminating the problem, when control is possible (Nicholls, Polman, Levy, & Backhouse, 2008). Mentally tough people demonstrate lower levels of negative emotional states (Gucciardi & Jones, 2012). “Mental toughness represents a constellation of positive psychological ....
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3 Stress Resistant Personality Characteristics: Part 1- Hardiness

Hardiness- (APA) n. An ability to adapt easily to unexpected changes combined with a sense of purpose in daily life and of personal control over what occurs in one’s life. Emotionally resilient. “Hardiness enhances performance, leadership, conduct, stamina, mood and both physical and mental health” (APA). “Hardiness can help you get out of your head in a positive way. It can help you to have a more balanced and outward perspective, building your ability to cope, and consequently, feel better about yourself” (Firestone, Psychology Today) “Hardy people have the ability to positively appraise situations” (Kobasa, 1979). ....
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Getting the Most out of Group Training

Many people use group training to exercise on its own or in between their individual/semi-private training sessions. This form of exercise training can be very beneficial for many people and can be used in multiple different ways to help someone meet their goals. We are going to talk about specific tips to help you see progress from workout to workout! There are many pros to group training! Exercising has been shown to help mental health and brain cognitivity, improve your quality of sleep, help regulate blood sugar/glucose levels, and of course, increase muscle/lose fat. When it comes specifically to the style of group training, the exercises change day to day, week to week, ....
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Getting Started

I’m going to share a hard truth. Motivation isn’t enough to get you from where you are, to whatever version of your best self you can imagine. BJ Fogg creates a fun image in his book Tiny Habits where he explains the Motivation Monkey and how this silly fella will help you get all these great ideas, lose 10lbs, run a 5k, eat veggies every day and he might even get you far enough to join a gym, sign up for a race and go grocery shopping. Then, do you know what he does? HE BAILS ON YOU! You’re left with a fancy new scale, a bib number and bundle of broccoli with zero desire to do anything at all. That’s why motivation isn’t enough. ....
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