ZOAR Fitness: 7 Foundational Principles
(1) Maximize Your Strengths.
(2) Minimize Your Weaknesses.
(3) Optimize Your Frame for the Test.
(4) Teach to the Test.
(5) Movement is a Never-Ending Quest.
(6) Breathing is the Most Foundational Movement.
(7) The Mind & Body are Inseparable.
(1) Maximize Your Strengths.
You can pick any physical activity imaginable to pursue your best self, so you might as well pick something you have a natural advantage in.
Remember, you will have to train your weaknesses, but never neglect working your strengths. These areas of your physical practice are awesome because with minimal exposures, you will get better quickly.
Capitalize where you can.
(2) Minimize Your Weaknesses.
Regardless of how talented you are in a discipline, there will always be an aspect of your game that is a relative weakness. Even an athlete with a 500lb back squat has a weak link.
To bring the best version of yourself to fruition you must work tirelessly minimize your weaknesses. This goes for patterns, energy systems and psychological aspects of your game.
(3) Optimize Your Frame for the Test.
Every activity and sport has an ideal body type. We know what that looks like for the Sport of Fitness.
An important part of every serious athlete’s journey is manipulating their physical features and body size to ideally suit themselves for the task at hand.
Runners, cyclists, gymnasts, wrestlers and dancers will often be manipulating their weight down. Powerlifters, strongmen, bodybuilders and rugby players will often be driving their weight up.
Optimizing the amount, type and placement of tissue on your frame is an important step in reaching optimal performance.
(4) Teach to the Test.
A base built upon broad, quality movement is necessary for longevity and consistent growth.
However, performance can only emerge when most things are stripped away.
Adaptations are specific to the pattern, intensity, density and volume.
Resources, attention, time and “adaptation currency” are limited.
Prioritize, plan and attack.
(5) Movement is a Never-Ending Quest.
You are never ‘done’ with movement. There is always a way to move better. There is always a new skill to master. There is always a way to learn and relearn and refurnish the same ‘old’ movements.
At the furthest reaches of everything it comes back to fundamental basics.”
Kenny Kane
Never stop pursuing your understanding of optimal, and never stop figuring out your version of that.
(6) Breathing is the Most Foundational Movement.
Breathing is movement that never stops. If it stops, you die.
If you want to perform well, you must breath well. It doesn’t matter the task. The way you breathe will vary, but the importance will be unwavering.
Breathing and state are like thunder and lightening; where the one is, the other won’t be far behind.
Breathing is the remote control to the brain.”
Brian Mackenzie
(7) The Mind & Body are Inseparable.
The mind-body connection is a universal experience.
There is no manipulating the one without effecting the other.
If you want to master your body, you have to master your mind.
Our thoughts, inner dialogue and underlying beliefs determine our actions.
We are what we think. No one can underperform or overperform their identify for long.
Now let’s put these principles into action…
