Kids are dropping out of sports!

“Kids are not playing sports the way they used to.”  That sounds like something that my Dad would say, but it’s true. Research from the Sports Fitness Industry of America has shown a marked reduction in the numbers of kids playing sports. In 2018 there are 45% less kids playing sports, both team and individual.…

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Guest Post: Ruby’s Rules for Nutrition

Gymfinity Ruby

This post was written by Coach Ruby Carpenter, an Xcel coach here at Gymfinity. Ruby also competed as a gymnast and grew up here at Gymfinity. She is now a student at UW Madison and studies Community and Non-Profit Leadership. Ruby is high on my list of respected people and when we talked about doing…

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Being Reasonably Fit

Being fit as a trend or short term is not healthy, in fact it’s just the opposite. We have to know the reason we maintain a healthy lifestyle. We should be able to have healthy pursuits in a way that our happiness is not impeded. This is exactly why “getting healthy” as a new year’s resolution never works; we obsessively push ourselves to be unhappy out of guilt and shame until we just give up and validate our poor self-image. Sounds odd for me to say, but sometimes chasing a healthy lifestyle is not what people need.

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Training Confident Kids (Part 2)

In the last post we covered how people can gain confidence by pushing the envelope of what is comfortable and what is a little out of the comfort box. Doing this frequently allows us to see things that would normally throw us into a fit of panic as only moderately stressful, and things that were…

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Training Confident Kids (part 1)

I had some people ask me questions regarding a past post discussing motivation and it’s relation to confidence.  Here is the first of a 2 part post on Confidence and how we get kids to be more confident. As coaches, we always want the best for our athletes. We train them physically to be strong,…

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Why we do what we do (My lunch with Ed.)

I had lunch with my old friend Ed the other day. We coached together over 20 years ago, I coached 2 of his daughters and in fact met my wife at one of his daughter’s wedding. The best part about reconnecting with an old friend is how you re-validate who you are, or possible the…

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Resolve for a better life by moving

Another year and another reason to start working out. Right? Will it be another year where you do it a few times then you hear the siren call of extra sleep, or worse, the beckoning of the couch and TV remote? What you need is a good sound reason. A reason that resonates with you…

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Every moment is a teachable moment

I was a nerd in school. My mother was a librarian and so any books that were assigned by teachers were read. Cliff notes were not an option. Now as an adult, I utilize book summaries, and sadly am addicted to audio books (while working out). My mother would cringe and ask if I forgot…

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lucky we made it

You know how every once and awhile you get an e mail or Facebook post that compares how simple things used to be to how problematic they are now. They are usually ironically titled something like “remember when things were tough” or “We’re lucky we made it”. They go on to demonstrate by list or…

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