Blog — Bang Personal Training Queen West Toronto

How long does progress take?

12/31/2021 No Comments

How long does progress take? That’s the type of question that sits right alongside others like Are we there yet? and How long is a piece of string? It helps—in these situations—to clarify what we’re talking about. So, I’ll refer here to ballpark numbers for improvement. It should be clear to the naked eye—or tastefully nude microscope. In each of the following examples, there is a range given. The low-end is based on motor learning and skill

Mindful or Present: What’s the Difference?

12/10/2021 No Comments

The words presence and mindfulness are largely pretty interchangeable, don’t you think? But I’ve been playing with a distinction. Something that fits into last week’s topic of how sensitivity can bolster toughness. Mindfulness can be applied to anything where you’re focusing on the task at hand. To eat mindfully, for example, might include thinking about the farmers who produced this food, the land where it was grown, the truckers, sailors, or robots who transported it,

The Paradox of Resilience

12/03/2021 No Comments

A lady I know recently injured herself. She’s been on my mind—even though I only heard the news second-hand. Her femur didn’t snap or pop. But it might have crackled because this was a stress fracture. Stress fractures, if you don’t know, aren’t one-shot deals. They tend to come from high-volume work like long runs or repetitive jumping. That makes sense because she is next-level tough. I’ve seen it first-hand. She has the mental capacity

Information, not emergencies

11/26/2021 No Comments

We had a fiery cluster of activity on Instagram last week. It all started when I shared a post about disengaging from the news cycle. People jumped in and the discussion got spicy. The concern, of course, was that ignorance is untenable. And that remaining unaware can only come from a place of privilege and disconnection. This stuff that is important to discuss. Big-picture health includes the wellbeing of our communities. It means living our values (metaphysical

How to talk about fitness (with people you care about)

11/19/2021 No Comments

There are some things that can be tricky to talk about without real emotional distance. Health behaviours are in that group. So, when it comes to talking about this stuff with the people closest to us, things can get weird pretty quickly—even with top-notch intentions. Suffice it to say that there are some skills involved. Over the years, I have come to think of intrinsic motivation in the same way that Neanderthals probably thought about fire: it’s precious

100% Pure Dopamine

10/29/2021 No Comments

You’ve heard plenty about dopamine. Or maybe you’ve just heard a few things a lot—like “dopamine hits”, and how slot machines and social media are both expertly designed to manipulate the stuff. You may have also heard dopamine described as a molecule of pleasure. But that phrasing is not quite so accurate. Dopamine is better described as a molecule of motivation and desire. I’m not referring to sexy-time (exclusively) here. Rather, dopamine tends to make