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Spencer Goodding is the Director of Sports Performance at Impact Sports Performance (ISP) in Superior, CO, where he also tests & trains fire fighters, creates & guides strength training classes for adults, and empowers individual human beings to see & feel the results they seek through 1:1 sessions. He is an accomplished Strongman and powerlifter, and he has a great passion for caffeine, steak, and cookies.
Catch a quick glance of Spencer in the weight room lifting 4-5 plates per side of the barbell, and you may wonder: how the heck did you get so strong, man?!
In your same initial glance, you may categorize him as your average Testosterone-tipped gym bro--"you are here to pick up heavy shit and be big."
Wrong.
Much the opposite of what your brain might guess on physical appearance, Spencer is a compassionate, kind swoledier with a heart as big as his lifts.
I began to meet these integrated parts of Spencer during many a philosophical, peri-session conversation on mindset, habits, nutrition, spirituality, relationships, and more at ISP (where I also coach), wedged between our full days of clients.
I quickly sensed the unequivocal message within the riveting in my bones: he must come on the show!
Today, I excitedly invite you to travel with us on an adventure into Spencer's hero's journey, beyond the physical appearance of a strength training figure to discover the person under the prowess.
In this heart-to-heart, eyes-to-eyes conversation, you'll learn:
Spencer's Favorite Type of Client To Work With
How Emotional Pain Can Be A Pathway Into Your Greatest Passions ("Stop Taking Their Shit" and "Turn Your Focus Inward") & Feeling Relatively Weak Can Be A Great Aggravator To Becoming The Strongest Version of Yourself
Discovering + Developing His Voice & The Inextricable Link Between Physical Expression and Total Self-Expression
Spencer's First Idea For a Career
A Genuine Desire To Help People Is The Base of All Great Coaching & How Delivering Results Comes Before Being Liked
His Lens of Exercising v. Training
Play-By-Play Examples of How The Energy of Yin & Yang Fits Into Spencer's Training & Coaching
And much, much more!
Practical Advice From Spencer on How To Become A Stronger Human Being Starting Today:
Write your goals down, create a deadline for those goals, and write down what you need to do on a daily/weekly basis to reach those goals.
Find someone to be accountable to for the goals you've written in the step above.
I feel this episode will be truly valuable to anyone with the desire to transform themselves in mind and body and need a source of inspiration (a model) to take life by the reigns, train with intention, and get strong as a bull, inside and out!
Resources:
Impact Sports Performance Website
Equipment Mentioned:
-Grenade (cannonball) Grips
-Axle Bar
-Circus Dumbbell
Quote Of The Episode:
"Being a student at something that you are a complete beginner on is such an enlightening experience as a coach. It's really changed the way I communicate with people and what I expect out of them coming into this brand new environment of exercise and training."
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Do you want to feel more alive? If so, this episode is for YOU.
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Spirituality can be uniquely defined by each individual, yet we can all agree that it is connection to some larger force, essence, or entity.
Spirituality is a FEELING.
Which is why it can be so challenging to express in words!
Yet, it is non-negotiable to experience the essence of Spirit in our lives...if we want to live a more fully relished and inspired Life, that is.
This begs the question: How can we access that super sweet feeling of aliveness more frequently?
I gotchu.
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You can access a remarkably ecstatic, enthusiastic, effervescent vibration called Life Force (some call it Chi, Prana, Mana, Nyama, Chu'lel, Shekinah, Tummo) when you consciously choose to animate the life within each of your flesh-bound vessels. And it can begin in your next workout.
In this episode, I detail five practices you can begin in this moment to elevate your next workout into a mechanical expression into a visit into a delightfully majestic movement universe.
The How:
Practice #1: Perform six cycles of box breathing before your workout. Bringing your attention to your breaths--where the air is flowing and going, and concentrating on harmonizing a particular strength + length of breath that helps bring you into an even tone of parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system states, will prime your body and brain for more focused performance and sensitized engagement with your surroundings.
Bonus Tip: breathe in and out of your nostrils, which limits your breathing to the belly. Belly breathing stimulates the vagus nerve and activates your relaxation response.
Practice #2: Match your inhales and exhales to the load and explode portions of your lifts, respectively. Called "biomechanical breath pairing," this technique guides you into the most ergonomically efficient and natural pattern of breathing while resistance training. You will inhale and fill up with oxygen on the loading phase of a movement (i.e. lowering body in a pushup, squat, deadlift and exhale on the exploding phase of your movement (i.e. pressing up to high plank and standing).
Practice #3: Prior to your workout, return to your why. Invest a handful of breaths in connecting to your intention for the movement session on deck. Make it your own ("to feel powerful," "to generate love," "to embody my calm,"). As discussed in Episode 001 of the pod, your deep why is the deep cavern of fuel you can tap when you feel tired or amotivated. So your intention from workout to workout will spring from this clear desire/set of desires. Please return to this episode if you missed it, as it will be key for your fitness journey.
Bonus Tip: To arrive at your unique intention, ask yourself: "what do I want to express?" and "how do I want to feel?"
Practice #4: Ask your Spirit what it needs to feel more alive, then pull from your movement toolbox to nourish it. What movement would make you come more alive? What pace, shape, amount of resistance, amount of balance? You are involved a process of physical expression from your spiritual center! Another way of Open up your Spirit, y'all, and give it a voice. The more trained you are in various movement patterns and resistance training techniques/principles, the more intuitive this practice can become.
Practice #5: Visualize and embody--so you may next cultivate, the peak feeling you'd like to experience. This is a no-holds-barred practice. You don't have to stop at happy and strong--why not ecstatic and fucking invincible? I challenge you to take whatever answer you first come up with and multiply it by 100, 1,000, then 1 million.
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エピソードを見逃しましたか？
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"Let It Go."
What do you feel when you hear this refrain?
Looser? More relaxed? Serene?
Clenched? Contracted? Constipated?
Personally, I hold on tighter when someone tells me to "let go."
I feel unseen and unmet.
I feel misunderstood.
Perhaps you can relate.
The things that we cling to most in our lives stem from the belief that we need them to survive.
This may have been very true at some point in our lives, though it may no longer stand true or beneficial to You.
It's so easy to inhale and exhale, we don't even have to think about it and we will continue to breathe. Yet, we struggle so much to exhale the 3 B's (Beliefs, Buddies, and Boundaries) which no longer serve us.
I just had this experience of needing to soften wax in my right ear in order to restore my hearing and flow of vibrations in and out of the ear canal. When the wax was finally removed, and the channel opened, I felt free again.
When we keep shoving beliefs, buddies, and boundaries into our life where there is no longer room for them, and/or where there is no longer alignment, we feel under mounting pressure and truly unnecessarily trapped, just like an inhale would feel if we never exhaled.
Another term for exhalation is "expiration."
On this episode of The AB Life Pod, I guide you on a journey in breath and in the moving (as well as removing) the unnecessary Resistance you may still be clinging to that has already expired. This season of Fall is an especially apt time to notice where we are clinging and what we are feeding that no longer serves us.
Notice what has expired for you. Notice what is holding you back.
And take my permission to let it go.
You are Infinite. You are Here and Now.
I believe in You.
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Tune out of the non-sense and tune into your inner sense of brilliance.
Please leave a 5-star rating and positive review, and share with fellow human beings who you have the inkling will benefit.
With Love,
Abbs
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IG: @abby_maroko
abbymarokofitness.com
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A broken heart.
We often identify this human phenomenon with pain and suffering. The slashes and cuts that dig so deep into our sense of self can be excruciating. And the brain knows no difference between physical and emotional pain.
No doubt, the potpourri of emotions in can accompany us in "The Guest House" experience of heartbreak can be terrifying and torturous. Unwanted, at the very simplest.
However, what we must realize is that this brokenness creates a space for OPENNESS.
As the wonderful Sufi poet Rumi once expressed: "the wound is the place where the light enters you."
Whether your heart was broken by someone else or you broke your own heart is not important; what is, is how you respond.
Do you dare to see the space that your most recent heartbreak and all heartbreaks past has created for you to experience, express, and enjoy even bigger love?!
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Tune out of the non-sense and tune into your inner sense of brilliance.
Please leave a 5-star rating and positive review, and share with fellow human beings who you have the inkling will benefit.
With Love,
Abbs
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IG: @abby_maroko
abbymarokofitness.com
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Sam Tooley is a fitness and business phenom rising up the ranks of his own life and into the upper echelons of leadership in the fitness coaching world. He is a 28 year old young man living in Westfield, New Jersey, owns and runs AlphaFit Club and The Garage Gym, coaches with the Ladder Teams: Fit. Together app, and trains for endurance running races.
Fitness trainer, business owner, business coach, real estate investor, and are just some of the hats Sam wears in his life. But on this podcast, we dive deep into the individual human being's story first, placing the spotlight on what key experiences and key responses have chiseled his character and drive.
I'd not met Sam in person before, simply conversed online about fitness and business. Admiring his drive and feeling my endless curiosity to understand what makes individuals tick, thrive, sacrifice, and consistently go where they have not gone before, I asked him to sit down with me.
In this heart-to-heart, eyes-to-eyes conversation, you'll hear Sam share:
How to Alchemize Pain Into Purpose--Sam's experiences with alcoholism, loss, and grief, turning him further inward to find even more resiliency that he knew before
The Alpha Mindset: How To Build It + Where It Pays Off
Becoming a Bold, Relentless Action Taker
Extreme Ownership and Self-Discipline As Paradoxical Doorways to Freedom
Sam's ideal pizza (carb up!), coffee, and seemingly unorthodox rituals for masterful performance in sport and life
Practical Advice From Sam To Practice Extreme Ownership and Experience Nonstop Progress Starting Today:
Write It Out: write down everything it takes to get where you want to go/to accomplish what you want to accomplish + track what you actually do.
Choose Trusted Advisors: have expert coaches, supervisors, mentors, and co-workers who will wisely instruct you and...most importantly, perhaps, hold you accountable to getting what you say you will get done done.
Both of these practical tips are a form of surrounding yourself with mirrors, essentially. See yourself and your actions for what they are, not what you hope they will be. Put in the work you say you will and show up how you aim to each day--and check in that you are aligned with your desired output with these external reflectors.
Resources:
Sam's Businesses and Coaching:
Alpha Fit Club, Sam's group fitness concept
The Garage, Sam's 24-hour fitness training facility
Books Mentioned:
-IronWar: Dave Scott, Mark Allen, and The Greatest Race Ever Run
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The Fitlosophers' Cast is a soul-charged series of conversations at the intersection of fitness and philosophy. Begun by Abby Shaye Maroko in May of 2021, each sit-down is a meaningful and illuminating, heart-to-heart, eyes-to-eyes conversation with human beings who marvel. Allowing curiosity to naturally select the guest and an insatiable drive for self-optimization and expansion to fill the inquiries, every chat is bound to offer immense value from the lens of learned bodies and open minds.
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Inspire (v): to breathe in.
We take approximately 20,000 breaths a day (inhale and exhale = 1), yet for most of us, the majority of these precious life-granting inhalations go by non-consciously.
It’s time to wake up our sights and psyches to value, benefit, and momentous gift of breath. Without it, we couldn’t live to do the things we love.
Today’s takeaway = begin noticing and appreciating each inhale and use the awake flow it generates to do something kind for someone else.
Turn small non-conscious acts into small conscious acts, and your whole life will change.
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Tune out of the non-sense and tune into your inner sense of brilliance.
Please leave a 5-star rating and positive review, and share with fellow human beings who you have the inkling will benefit.
With Love,
Abbs
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IG: @abby_maroko
abbymarokofitness.com
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“Yoga chitta vritti nirodha.”
Silence the fluctuations of the mind.
This yogic dictum has been revelatory and guiding for my life.
Seven years ago, when I entered the realm of yoga teacher training, I learned this words and molded my mind with daily meditation—for the first time ever in this body.
What I quickly learned is that, fluctuations of the mind are not all random. Though the disturbances can happen “spontaneously” or “on their own,” they most definitely are provoked by physical challenge.
Resistance training, running, hiking, calisthenics, yin yoga—you name it, all provide oceans of opportunity to volitionally interact with stimuli that will uprise disturbances in our mind.
The 25#-above-your-mental belief in “I can” back squat.
The 5-min pigeon pose in complete stillness.
The Everest-feeling hike.
Of course, our tolerance for discomfort is relative, individual, and situational.
However, we all GET to utilize physical challenge as a way to create disturbance in the mind.
The disturbances speak up as everything from little whispers of doubt to persistent moaning and beyond:
“I can’t.”
“I won’t.”
“Why should I?”
“Blah, blah, blah...”
When these disturbances arise, how do you deal?
Do you quit and flee? Stay and breathe?
All of us who want to become more peaceful and resilient as organisms as a whole will need to develop a toolkit to still the fluctuations of the mind. To not react, rather to notice and keep doing your thing.
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Thank yourself for tuning into your inner sense of brilliance.
Please leave a 5-star rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
and positive review, and share with fellow human beings who you have the inkling will benefit.
With Love,
Abbs
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IG: @abby_maroko
abbymarokofitness.com
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So you want to get fitter but you don’t know where to start?
You are lost in the “What Should I Do?” Woods of Fitness.
You are not alone. And, you don’t have to stay feeling lost
It is time to blaze your trail.
Stop hacking away at the branches of opinions of the hundreds of fitness experts and influencers + subtle societal pressures of peers and magazine headlines.
YOU KNOW BEST WHAT TO DO NEXT (you just may have need to be guided within).
In this episode, I’ll share three clues that will lead you to where you want to start your fitness journey.
Then, it’s on you to just f*cking take the first step.
You have what it takes to be your own Guide, a latent role inside of you that has been patiently waiting to be awaken.
In case you needed to read it again: YES, YOU CAN!
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Today, WE TALKIN' BOUT PRACTICE!
One of my favorite quotes stems from the philosophy of K. Pattabhi Jois, "mid-husband" of Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga: "Practice and all is coming." He found it very essential to manifesting success and growth.
Allen Iverson had a very different value judgment of practice: "who needs it?!"
The answer: EVERYONE WHO EVER WANTS TO BE THE BEST VERSION OF HERSELF/HIMSELF/THEIRSELVES.
In today's solo-sode, I will tell you how to bridge the gap between who you are and who you want to be. How to go from desiring self-development to *being your living, breathing, developing self* continuously. Namely, how to become You 2.0.
Our fiery desires to become the next level version of ourselves are great, but not enough to create transformation.
We have to fill that gap with...you guessed it: PRACTICE!
Not any practice. Intentional, directed, and smart practice.
I utilize a personal example of my own process of self-development: my vision to become Abby The Speaker 2.0.
Feel free to follow my template to becoming You 2.0:
Visualize & Feel: Who is You 2.0? What is she/he better at? What qualities does she embody and emanate? Where is she doing her better-ness?
Research & Define: What do you need to practice to become the specific vision of the better you? What work/reps will it take to become that future person, already nestled inside of you today? What arsenal of skills do you need to acquire and sharpen? What emotional and mental barriers or zones of discomfort will you have to accept and break through?
Position Yourself Accordingly: What environment do you need to be in to become You 2.0? When you surround yourself with like-inspired and like-focused community, you will develop that much faster and that much more powerfully.
Simply Practice, Again and Again: Do the intentional, directed, and smart practice over and over again.
+1: Practice of the Pod (POP): Get out a pen and a journal. Focus on your breath for 1-10 minutes allowing your third eye (imagination, intuition, insight) to run free. Then answer these questions:
Leftmost: 'what do I want to become better at?' 'who do I want to evolve into?' I want to become better at (fill in the blank). I want to evolve into a person who embodies (fill in the blank) and emanates (fill in the blank).
Rightmost: Write that identity and embodiment in the present tense. 'I am an excellent (fill in the identity).' 'I emanate (fill in the quality/qualities).'
In the gap: fill in all of the skills you can practice on a daily basis to close the gap.
Bonus: Set a reminder in your phone to do one of those things in one small way, starting TODAY.
🙏🏼 Thank you for your patience with the audio quality--this earlier solo-sode was recorded while on the road.
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Tune out of the non-sense and tune into your inner sense of brilliance.
Please leave a 5-star rating and positive review, and share with fellow human beings who you have the inkling will benefit.
With Love,
Abbs
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IG: @abby_maroko
abbymarokofitness.com
Resources:
The Speaker's Playground
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‘Fitness Flowetry,’ as I call my genre of spoken word/freestyle, soul-centered speech is a child of the harsh criticisms I received about my writing style as a youth and adolescent.
Rather than fold to the ongoing opinions of person after person—a rhythm of external validation, I realized I had to turn into my own heartbeat and unique subconscious tapestry.
So, hear—here, we go.
Listen in as I express the connections I draw between seemingly unrelated topics to the cadence of my poetic dance.
Line into line, I hope it sparks some sense of the divine in you.
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ONE breath, my friends, can be the great wedge that takes you from low to high, sad to happy, angry to calm.
Herein rests the epic secret that we all forgot about at some point in our lives: your physiology directs your psychology.
With a single breath, we can shift ourselves from our default state to our elevated state--recalibrating to who we want to show up in the world as.
If you ever feel that you do the following too much:
-lose your cool
-react to unimportant things
-project onto people
-get overwhelmed
THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU.
We all have room for improvement in being our highest selves more consistently.
One way that we quite easily get misaligned and fall into the pockets of in behavior is when we REACT rather than RESPOND.
Both a reaction and a response can only be expressed at the level of our current physiological state. This is the highest common denominator/great equalizer for all of our best communication practices.
Without creating a better/worse dichotomy, we can agree that we have the opportunity to behave in better alignment with our highest selves when we RESPOND RATHER THAN REACT--this is precisely what I'll empower you with the guidance to do today.
A very simple way to get great at responding is by practicing conscious breathing.
By taking ONE breath you can expand the space between trigger and response, and reset your system to the conditions you need to thrive as your highest self.
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+1 Practice of the Pod (POP): Be the steadfast scanner of your body throughout the day. Notice when you feel your nervous system getting excited to the point of "I feel overwhelmed." When this emerges, perform this protocol:
a) Notice your physical state:
-what color are you filled with?
-what color are your emanating?
-what is the temperature of your body?
b) Take ONE complete breath into your low belly. Repeat if it feels welcome by your body.
c) Notice the shift:
-what color are you filled with?
-what color are you emanating?
-what is the temperature of your body?
-do you even care anymore about what was bothering you? do you feel unattached now?
YOU did that! By tapping into your inborn machinery. Good work :D.
If you take no more than this from this episode, I'll be wildly inspired: YOU ARE ONE BREATH AWAY FROM REMEMBERING WHO YOU ARE.
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Episode Resources:
Book: Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Quote (from above book): "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
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Tune out of the non-sense and tune into your inner sense of brilliance.
Please leave a 5-star rating and positive review, and share with fellow human beings who you have the inkling will benefit.
With Love,
Abbs
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IG: @abby_maroko
abbymarokofitness.com
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Do you feel lost and confused when you ponder your pathway in life?
Do you feel disconnected from your goals and disoriented from the work/play you do?
Do you feel empty and unenthused when you think about what you are after these days?
Do you feel slave to the habit of starting things and not finishing them?
Or perhaps it's come to the point where you simply do not feel the fuel to get up and take action.
Don't fret. I gotchu.
In today's episode, I'll give you the single question you need to ask yourself for lifelong energy in any pursuits you choose.
WHY?
Be as robustly and relentlessly curious as a little kid in asking this question within.
Regardless of your goals--which will change with time, you must begin with anchoring to your intimately personal, deep WHY. We all have incredibly personal reasons for what we do--and while often rooted in pain, they can be transmuted into power. Yes, that power being your Why.
Your unique why will change over time, yet a strong knowledge of your Vitamin P (Purpose) will galvanize your spirit and energize your body into action.
Skipping this hard-but-rewarding exploration will lead you further into pockets of confusion and pits of doubt; tackling it *today* will give you the spiritual insurance you need to tackle any pursuit of your choice with confidence.
+1: Practice of the Pod (POP): Get out a pen and a journal. Focus on your breath for 1-10 minutes. Then answer this deep inquiry: 'what is my why?"
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Tune out of the non-sense and tune into your inner sense of brilliance.
Please leave a 5-star rating and positive review, and share with fellow human beings who you have the inkling will benefit.
With Love,
Abbs
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IG: @abby_maroko
abbymarokofitness.com
