Stew Smith Fitness News

Are You Mentally and Physically Ready? Let's Find Out BUD/S students doing Land Portage To succeed in your goals, you must first embrace the true pain of honest self-assessment and consistent but unsexy preparation. Every journey starts with a leap of faith, yet it is the moments leading up to that jump that often cause the most anxiety. Fear, doubt, and uncertainty questioning did you do enough to prepare loom large when facing new challenges, be it a demanding job in the special ops community, highly competitive and rigorous training, or an unfamiliar academic and workplace setting. Recognizing that this...

Learning From Fitness Failures (Now or Later) “To err is human, but to really screw things up requires a computer.”  I learned that (again) after failing to save this article the first time – now I am making it even better.  It is true, we are all experts at failing and one thing life throws at us are opportunities to fail, but eventually – IF YOU KEEP GOING – you will find the path to success and learn how to do things better / smarter along the way.  Here are many common mistakes we all make in fitness. I recently...

Failure IS a Learning Experience and Assessment Tool - Nothing Else. Learn from Failure and Keep Moving... Resilience and mental toughness emerge from your willingness to confront failure head-on. Face it: Building resilience and mental toughness is uncomfortable. It’s a complex mix of fatigue, frustration, and self-doubt that resides outside your comfort zone. The magic happens when you push against these limits. Accept that feeling burned out and challenged indicates you’re in fertile ground for growth. Each struggle is a testament to your determination to become tougher and stronger. Have you ever wondered why some of the most gifted individuals...

Two aspects of the discussion during Tactical Fitness Report 246 that resonated with me were his focus on the spiritual side of the Four Pillars of Wellness for the Tactical Service: Physical, Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual, and his discussion of Eye Movement Desensitizing and Reprocessing EMDR Therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS). My first question to Dan: “What exactly does the spiritual wellness pillar mean?”Dan:  Spiritual wellness/resilience and the daily practice are the foundation for this. It's a foundation for tactical professional service. The practice of spiritual wellness is your capacity to love to be helpful, to be useful, to be driven by your...

Unleash the Never Quit Mindset If you are human, you will at some point doubt yourself. You will doubt whether you are smart enough, strong enough, fast enough, tough enough, or ready for an upcoming challenge. Instead of having doubt cripple your efforts and put an ALL-STOP on your progress, use it for good. One of my favorite uses of doubt is to use it as an assessment tool. I listen to doubt as an inner voice that is my coach, telling me I need to improve something, better myself, or refine a product in my business. The truth is,...