Under the Microscope!

Name: Rebecca Seeger

1. Your profession?

Beauty Therapist

2.  Where do you work?

Mosaic hair and beauty, West End

3.  Years in business?

Mosaic  7 Years

As a beauty therapist 13 years

4. What do you see a lot of?

As I do facials, massage, waxing etc I see a lot of people who want to look and feel great

5.  Do you have long standing clients?

I have clients that I have been seeing right from the beginning of my time at Mosaic 7 years ago. It’s been wonderful seeing some go from graduating school through to getting married, having children and developing amazing careers and travelling the world!

6.  What do people say about you?

I have a good understanding and acceptance of people. I do a thorough and professional service and that I can do a pretty good massage!

7.  What does no one know about you?

I did grow up through part of my childhood on a hippie commune. In reality it was a forward thinking stone fruit farm practicing organic and perm culture principles. Things learnt there I still use in my veggie patch today!

8.  If you weren’t doing what you do now what would you be doing?

I’m interested in travelling, nutrition and writing. So any careers to do with any of those I would love to do

9.  If you had one key skill, what would it be?

Compassion and helping people feel as good as they can

10. How long have you been training?

2 years!

11.  What do you like about training with us?

Fun, hard, challenging, always reaching goals I didn’t think I could reach; always changing personalised programs. And the fact that there is a consistent and always positive attitude, always encouraging and supporting me.

12. What made you start with us?

Needed to improve my fitness, lose weight and fix some postural problems

13.  What has been your biggest training achievement to date?

Running the bridge to Brisbane and fixing an old shoulder problem.

14.  What would you say to others to get them moving and start training with the lab?

If you want to be motivated, fit, healthy and invigorated the lab team will get you there. You couldn’t ask for a more intelligent team who have your utmost wellbeing in mind, and a passion to help you achieve your goals

15. Do you have any health and fitness objectives?

Maintain good health and fitness objectives and lose 5kg

16.  Any words of wisdom to share with the rest of our clients?

Don’t let your fears be the sum of who you are whatever the challenge, whatever the goal you can do it!

Thanks Rebecca for going under the microscope with The Lab this month and sharing some of your inspiration with us!

By Alister Murray

Motivation is where most health and fitness campaigns begin, but it is also where most campaigns fall over. You’re motivated to achieve our goals before Christmas, but what happens when this motivation drops?  What happens when your work and personal life get busier?  What happens when things get silly, as they often do this time of year? Where do you turn for motivation?  How do you stop the downward spiral away from your goals?  How do you get and stay ON TRACK?

1. Set realistic and exciting goals
Your goals must be realistic for you to achieve, but they must also be exciting and inspiring for long term sustainability. Ask yourself Why? What? Where? When? and How? to help clarify your goals and make them inspiring.
2. Break it down
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was your body. If you expect things to happen overnight then you are setting yourself up for failure. Focus on breaking down your goals and take the small but important steps to achieve them. You’ll be amazed at how much motivation can come from doing such a simple action.
3. Monitor your progress
Be open and aware to what is happening. Always keep your goals in sight and monitor your progress toward them. Regular monitoring provides you with the guideposts to keep you on track.
4. Learn from your experiences
Always approach your goals with the aim of learning and developing. If you can learn from your experiences then your results will be much more rewarding and sustainable. Keep asking yourself what works for you and align your actions with the answer.
5. Add Variety
If you keep going over the same ground, you will experience the same results. Try new activities and change your routine every so often to keep your motivation high. See Barry’s article for more tips in this area.
6. Reflect and Reward
When you achieve your goals, or even the little milestones on the way, make sure you reflect on your experiences and draw out the positive learning’s. Plan your rewards when you set your goals and go for it.
7. Have Fun
You won’t keep it up if you don’t enjoy it. Yes some parts of your program are hard work and not much fun, but it doesn’t have to be like that all the time. Structure in regular activities that are fun and enjoyable.

Have you ever wondered why you can’t seem to break through those fitness barriers without picking up an injury or becoming unwell and simply knackered…? Have you ever wondered why you wake up in the morning and you would swear by the way your body feels you have put on 20kgs overnight.

Well here it is…

The average corporate or company worker in my opinion is like an athlete with excessive demands and little guidance.

And I’m not talking about exercise yet either!
——–
Work demands put strain on the body, long hours, and stress, sometimes physical, invariably mental. The effect of constant stress through work demands and mental energy expenditure is actually as demanding as physical stress from sports. In fact it is often more so.

In sport and exercise there are health benefits, pressure release through the cathartic effect of endorphins etc. In professional sports, there are coaches, carefully planned schedules and recovery periods.

In the business world, there is stress, pressure, performance requirements whilst being couped up in an office behind a desk for many hours.

There is nowhere to get an endorphin hit, the body is in an unnatural position and you are lucky if you have anything other then a demanding boss asking you why you look like you haven’t slept since last month.

Pressure Cooker

Stress starts to bounce around inside you like popping popcorn hammering at your insides as the temperature rises. Your body switches from its normal metabolising state and calm parasympathetic nervous system to the fight or flight sympathetic system. You get home and realise that you had promised yourself you would go for a long run. You force yourself into overdrive to hammer the pavement in the hope it will cure all.

Whereas actually the result is opposite

That’s right you will break down. The stress of work and the strain of exercise couples to reach your breaking point.

You wouldn’t expect an athlete of any standard to be able to perform without looking after their body, without thinking about nutrition or without planning their training. Why is work in a suit any different? It’s not.

The Ingredients of Sustainable Success

So to perform at your best consistently at work, reach your exercise goals and stay healthy you need to start thinking like the elite performers.

1. You need a trainer or coach to structure your program effectively. This may mean using periodisation it may mean cross training it may mean a combination of both.
2. You need to be consuming the right fuel. If you have not considered what fuel you are putting into your body then how can you expect to perform at high levels. Do you think a high performance car is going to be any better then a tractor if you feed it diesel well no you will be lucky if it functions at all.
3. Focus on recovery. If you have not thought about planned recovery time then you have no hope. Factor in some rest days, some stretching or meditation and even a holiday.

Poor Health = Poor Performance = Increased Costs

With poor performance costing companies billions of dollars per year it is about time we all realised the obvious; performance without adequate planning comes with a cost, a human cost.

So if you expect to be a high flyer and have health and fitness objectives, think about it, you are a corporate athlete with a profession as your event. Treat yourself like a high performance machine making sure you put in ALL the ingredients required and you will perform. Skip rest, nutrition, exercise or any of the ingredients and you can at best hope for 60% of what you are actually capable of and it won’t be enjoyable!

Keep an eye on The Lab for more performance tips!

Ever looked at your worn out trainers sitting in the corner and hated the thought of putting them on and going for a run. Ever wished you’d drown rather than look at that incessant black line on the bottom of the pool for one more second. Sounds like your suffering from a serious case of repetitive training.
Continuous training of one sort or another will inevitably become boring eventually resulting in us stopping that activity. The secret is to break up your exercise routine, and try something new that you enjoy. By doing this you will stay interested and break the monotonous cycle that often ends in dropout. Exercise is great for our health and well being, but only if it is continuous.
Summer is a great time to introduce a mix of exercises into your program; instead of jogging on your treadmill in front of the TV, get outdoors and experience some fresh air on one of the many running tracks. As a substitute for pounding the pavement for another 30km this week; take advantage of the improved weather and swim a few laps.
This system of including many different modes of exercise in your program is called Cross Training. The changes you make to your program could be day to day, or minute by minute; you could incorporate some short sprints into your endurance run to keep you on your toes; or do a cardio session instead of pumping iron. Cross Training also allows you to be flexible; if the pool is closed, go for a run.
Not only will Cross Training break the boredom and allow you to be more flexible, it also has its physiological benefits as well.

Cross Training -
Conditions the entire body, not just specific muscle groups.
Reduces the risk of acquiring an overuse injury.
Allows you to work some muscles while others rest and recover.
Allow you to continue training while injured.
Improves your skill, agility and balance.
When you continue exercising in one style your body becomes very efficient at this type of exercise; while this is good for specific competition, it limits just how conditioned you can become and may leave you susceptible to injuries of the joints, bones or muscles. By combining different types of exercise some of your muscles and joints can rest while the others are working.
Making the switch to new forms and intensities of training can be difficult, and the new muscles that are working are more vulnerable. So start out slowly and build into it. Keep the intensity lower and the time shorter for your new exercise than you would for your old one, and give yourself time to learn the new skills or techniques.
All exercises have their good and bad points, so when mixing it up it is important to chop and change your program to suit you at your specific point in time. For example cycling is a non weight bearing activity so it is easy on your joints; however we need weight bearing activities to help build the strength of our bones. Running on a treadmill is good for increasing cardiovascular fitness; but it doesn’t challenge our balance and kinesthetic awareness like running on an uneven path.
It is all well and good to be doing 30 different types of exercise every week, but the key is enjoyment. Try many, find the ones that you enjoy, and integrate these into your training. That way you will be looking forward to your workout every day. It may take some time to find and perfect the right mix, but the hard work will payoff in the form of increased enjoyment, less boredom and results.