elitefts™ Sunday Edition

Five Causes of Failure You Want to Avoid

“Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill


 

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt

 

 

What’s going on?

 

You may be wondering why I have this section in here again this week. You might be asking how much can really change in one week?

Well…

You have NO IDEA how much changes around here in one week, especially this time of the year.

This e-book manual is doing UNBELIEVABLE! We already exceeded donations raised from last year. Well, actually this manual beat all previous years and with some extra help from you all, we may be able to beat all of the past years combined! Remember ALL proceeds from this e-book will go directly to the Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Greater Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. This money WILL help the wishes of some very special children come true.

How can you help?

  1. Purchase the e-book (by the way it is very good).
  2. Purchase it again.
  3. Share it on facebook.
  4. Tweet it.
  5. Blog it.
  6. Tell your friends.

I would also like to take this space to personally thank all of you who already helped with this. This charity is very special to me, so I sincerely thank you for the support. It's also very empowering to see everyone (staff, team members, writers, volunteers, customers and readers) come together to make this happen.

THANK YOU ALL!

Hello Dave, just ordered the MAW ebook and it came through to my email straight away. Im really pleased with it and it's huge bargain at 10 dollars (£6.50p), can't believe how much great stuff is in it and if anybody is on the fence whether to buy it or not they should definatley buy it.

- David


If you have already picked up this manual I would love to hear your thoughts about it. Please post your comments below.


Bear Crawl Handles

 

Do you do Bear Crawls?

Have you ever done a Bear Crawl? It's an excellent conditioning movement that will build a strong core and even strong(er) arms, but can kill your wrists in the process. These handles are a great solution to this and provide a way to add weight to the movement.

These are also great for:

  • Planks
  • Renegade rows
  • Swings and many other kettlebell-type movements
  • Upright Rows
  • Bear Crawls
  • Hill Bear Crawls
  • Stair Bear Crawls
  • Handstand Push-ups
  • Chest Supported Rows
  • Due to the unique leverage of the handles, they're awesome for all type of shoulder raises.

Notes: These steel handles are sold as a pair. The weights are not included. The five-inch loading steam holds standard Olympic plates 25 pounds and under.

Swiss Multi-Grip Fat Cable Bar

A picture is worth a thousand words, or in this case a thousand ideas. Look this bar over and think off all the movements you can use it for...

    • Lat Pull Downs
    • Cable Rows
    • Front Cable Raises
    • Push Downs
    • Chain Curls
    • Chain Extensions
    • Chain Front Raises
    • Plus much more...

If you've been following the site the past four to five weeks, you may have noticed that we've been posting several articles very early Sunday mornings. This will now officially become know as the...

elitefts™ Sunday Edition

While these articles won't be targeted for everyone, they will fill very specific niches of readers. These posting are in column formats (1-2 times per month) and while we will add a few more authors, these are the Columns we have committed to this right now.

      • Under The Bar by Dave Tate
      • The Angry Coach by The Angry Coach
      • EFS Classic by elitefts™ Staff
      • Powerifting by David Kirschen
      • If I Knew Then What I Know Now by Harry Selkow
      • The MBA Meathead by The MBA Meathead
      • By The Strength Coach for The Strength Coach by Todd Hammer
      • The Executive Meathead by The Executive Meathead

 

 

 

 

Five Causes of Failure

1. Lack of Purpose - I've written about the importance of finding purpose many times in the past, but this goes beyond just finding your purpose – you need to"define" it. If you don't have a clearly defined purpose, how will you know what to strive for, if you are on the right tract or when you get there?

There's ALWAYS a reason to get better, smarter, strong(er), but we all need to discover what that "reason" is for ourselves and then use it to drive us above and beyond.

2. Negative Personality - If all you see is the negative in the world, then this is what you will attract. Most of the truly negative people I've known and been around are all good people, but can't see that their outlook on life is the real cause of what is holding them back.

When they begin to understand that their negativity is not only affecting themselves, but others, they will either place blame, or come to the realization that their negative personality needs to change. This is not saying there is POWER in positive thinking, because very little positive can happen without "action" and I know many negative people who are very action-orientated and do extremely well, but this is a very rare group.

For the most part, a negative personality will lead to failure more times than not, so if you're a negative person, try to find the good things in your life and embrace them. If you're constantly around negative, people find a way to spend less time with them.

3. Wrong Choice - You picked the wrong sport, job, spouse, etc. There are two parts to this. You're either expecting too much, or to little. If you feel your job and relationship should be GREAT and FUN 100 percent of the time, you're sadly mistaken. Jobs and relationships take time and work for them to be great. The "crap" part of any sport, job or relationship is the price we pay to reap the rewards associated with the GREAT STUFF.

At the same time, if you're always expecting things to get better and there are NO great times or rewards and the dues are very high, you may have made a poor selection and would be better moving onto something you'll have better success at. This is very hard for most people to wrap their heads around because they may have a lot of money, time, effort and work into something and don't feel they can just walk away and start over. While this may be true, let me slap another reality at you. You might not have to walk away - if you let it go long enough, it very well could be taken away. Then what will you do? We all make mistakes and life isn't always easy, but we do have the ability and control to do one thing: decide.

4. Procrastination - One thing that was brought to me many years ago was that it's not what you know, but what you DO with what you know.

There are many people out there who are full of answers, but no action.

There is a need for these people in this world and I'm not one to put a price on the value of education and these people are educators, BUT keep in mind this only becomes true when they make the decision (action) to teach. Without this action, their education is of limited value in the marketplace or to anyone else for that matter.

Their lack of action is what is holding them back.

5. Education - As a follow up to this, the lack of education is also a very large cause of failure. A degree or certification is only a start - the bare minimum required to be successful. To succeed in any trade you need to consistently be educating yourself. A simple check of this is to ask yourself, "Do you know more about your trade today as compared to what you knew last year? If you are a lifter, do you know more about training and nutrition than you knew a year ago? If you work in construction are your skills better than they were a year ago?"

If all you do is just stay the same for three years, you will not only lose value in the marketplace, but also with yourself.

More Later

This is one topic I unfortunately know a lot about. I take pride in knowing I've failed more times than anyone else I know, but over time I've learned how to thrive on it. I could write a book on this one aspect alone, so I will write more posts on this topic if it's something you all are interested in.


The Finisher

This is  a great finisher for the triceps that makes use of the elitefts™ Pro Mini bands and the 4" training grenade ball.

Slip knot two to four mini bands around a power rack (or other sturdy and bolted down item) and hook the grenade ball on the other end. Using the same form as you would a dumbbell Triceps extension begin by doing as many reps as you can with one arm and proceed to the next. Without rest, repeat this process three to four times until your triceps are pasted.

Some tips:

      1. Take a band off each set to keep the reps higher.
      2. If it begins to get too hard than you can't get more than 6 reps take a step of two back.
      3. Don't stop until your triceps are completely pasted.

* The great thing with this finisher is that it's very easy to recover from, so you add volume to your training, increase blood flow to the elbows and triceps and it has very little negative effect on recovery.