It’s not that I wasn’t working out, on the contrary I was at the gym 3 times a week and training for my passion and desire of Rugby at least twice a week. However, I was training without a sense of direction, variety, targets or goals and stuck in a mundane routine. My mind was losing interest and I was losing the battle. I found it all too easy to come up with excuses not to train.

“Innerfight” changed all that and helped me set my goals and targets and introduced new workouts each day helping me maintain a focus and interested over what has now been a sustained period of approximately 7 months.

Now, if I miss a session (very seldom) I double up the next day, a good enough reason NOT to skip a session as one’s challenging enough. I cannot wait to get into the next training session and take on the next challenge – even if carrying a knock/injury I’ll work around it substituting what I cannot do, with other exercises etc.

I, although have not yet mastered, have a greater degree of control over my body and mind and when either begins to quit the other kicks in to pull me along. Results are not just pictorial (as depicted), some are not so easy to quantify and may take the form of results outside the gym – in work, sports or in any other facet of life.

Whether just getting up a little earlier, taking advantage of daylight hours or by achieving a higher rate of productivity in a shorter space of time at work, “Innerfight” is transferrable to all facets of life. For example, it’s made me question everything that goes down my throat and although I love food, I now feed and snack on things that are going to help me with my InnerFight, not be counterproductive. I never really appreciated what mine and I am sure all Mothers used to say, “You get out, what you put in”!!!!

I refuse to get old and at 34 I am by far the fittest I have ever been. My work, sports and life targets are now clearly defined.

Since being a teenager, I have battled with my weight and had been a smoker since the age of 14.  By the age of 21 I would have to wake up in the middle of the night to have a cigarette.  I would start my day in the office at 6 am and I would have already had 4 or 5 cigarettes.  The year I got married,2002, I was the unhealthiest person you could find.  No exercise, 40 a day, take away queen and of course always upsize.  I managed to keep myself slim but it was to be short-lived. 
 
Getting married made me think about someone other than myself. It made me think about the long term future and not "what take away shall we get tonight".  First step was to stop smoking. I never wanted to be pregnant and be a smoker.  So I did hypnotherapy over a month long period and it worked.  It is now 5 1/2 years since I last smoked.  The downside was all the kilos I put on.  As each year went on I put on the kilos and went from a size 8 to a size 16.

Just as I started to workout I then became pregnant.  I was thrilled and I tried to carry on with watching what I put in my body but the pounds just piled on.  As I was in my 6th month, all hell broke loose as I had emergency appendicitis when heavily pregnant and 2 weeks later my daughter was born.  Going through such a painful and scary experience made me realize that I could accomplish just about anything. I needed to make big changes to my lifestyle, to my thinking and my environment to get my self in shape for the sake of my daughter.

For the next 18 months I worked hard to get myself in shape, physically and mentally.  I thought about what I would eat, what it will do to my body.  I started to do classes and I even tried the gym but I was always alone and I needed help and I needed a goal.  I then discovered running through my sister.  She had three kids and decided to run marathons to raise money for Autistic children as her son is very autistic.    With this inspiration I built up my running legs and reached 25km.  It was a great feeling.  I did my first half marathon and decided I needed to do the Dubai one.  I got stuck into the training and followed a plan off the web and then it all stopped.  My knees just died, I could hardly do 100 meters without tears of pain.  I battled hard to run through the pain, have various physio and then it was crunch time and I needed to have an operation on both knees.

So three months ago I went alone to the hospital and had both knees opened, to repair a cracked tibia, cartilage issues and lengthen tendons.  If you can imagine it was the upsize of knee operations.  That same night the doctor told me I walk normally and it will be ok eventually.  I walked out of the hospital alone, all be it in terrible pain, hailed a taxi and came back home.  When I saw my daughter she just said, "mommy has bobo, it be ok".

I was more determined than ever to get back to running and lead a healthy life.  My time off the legs running meant I needed a goal and some focus and that is where InnerFight came in.  They helped me get back my confidence taking things slowly but by no means easily.  They built up muscles I never knew I had.  I was never able to do a single push up from my feet and now I can a full set.  I would never have tried weight circuits as they were too intimidating and now I take on the challenge with a smile and the odd cursing word.

It has made me think about the fuel for my body, the fuel for my mind and how to listen to my body.  The running has been brought in slowly and 3 months on I am running 10k + with no pain in the legs.  At 33, I am the fittest I have ever been in the mind and body.  I am so thankful for everything that I have and what InnerFight has taught me.  

I think life is meant to be tough and we are just meant to be tougher and InnerFight has really helped me understand that kilos do not count, the core does, the shape does and effort level.
 
I look forward to taking part and completing my first marathon at the end this year.

I got to a certain age and something deep inside me started to eat away at me. I was not sure if it was one thing or a mixture….guilt, rage, desire, pain, ambition, stress, love, hate, jealousy …I am not totally certain, but I knew that I wanted control of it and not the other way around.

It was not until I starting pushing myself and I mean really pushing myself – to the point of hyper-ventilating, not being able to stand up or move, and smashing through the ‘brick wall’ that everything started changing, and I started realizing, seeing, and feeling different. 

I used to be a quitter and writing that drives a knife into my heart, worse of all, at the time i did not even realize it – now it’s not even an option, I have removed it from my mind, the feeling, the weakness. It has taken some time, but I have grown and become stronger from within.

Since the age of 14 I have always liked and enjoyed training – but now at 26 it is different, i don’t even think about it – I know it is a part of my life, part of my routine. The way I live! 

I feel that the training principles and exercise of InnerFight are unique in such a way that they are individual. They do not follow the old text book, they might have however started somewhere near them, but I feel they have been taken to another level, a level of adaptation and realness. I say this, as it is what I have achieved and gained on a personal level from following these methods, training, and exercises that has changed me not only from the outside but from deep inside.

My life has changed, and the more I put in, the more I get in return. I love it.

Its not the sound of the alarm clock at what feels like the middle of the night, its not that fact that its pitch black outside, its not the drive to the gym, its not the sour faced security guard at the gym entrance, its not the hollow sound of the empty gym, its not the weight rack, its not the rowing machine. Its something much deeper, much more dangerous and much more difficult to control. 

Yes that’s right that’s the real thing that I am afraid of, that I worry about, that I have sleeplessness over, that makes me nervous to a point of disbelief. But the joy is that I have full control of it as its always with me, lives in side me, makes me who I am and helps me live my life. ITS MY MIND.  

For time I thought it was my body stopping me from doing that last rep, from eating the healthy food and from living a controlled life, when I finally realized that it was my mind my entire focus changed. My goal then was to have control over my mind, once I had that I knew all other things would fall directly into place. Once my mind is in gear there is nothing that my body can not do. It’s as simple as that. If I want to do it, it will be done. Failure terrifies me so I never flirt with it. Quitting can not be an option as it would eat away at me until I literally went insane. 

Having control over my mind I can control what I want to do in my life, be it physically in gyms and sports or be it in the work environment. For me this has been the key and through having this control I have been able to begin to test the power of the unbelievably designed body. Without this control many things that I have achieved would not have been possible. It was only when I was awoken to the fact that the brain is just another muscle that can also be trained and controlled that my life began to change. Having full control over my mind has transformed my life. I am achieving things that I only dreamt about in the past and now know that everything is possible once the mind is under my control. Such a simple thing but so powerful and what a result.

Do I really live, or do I just exist. I was asking myself these questions over a year ago. I was asking myself these questions until I found Crossfit. What a remarkable change that has come over me in the last six months. I have a new outlook on life, on my wife, my family my total existence. I have been looking for something that would challenge mind, body and spirit. I have now found it.  

My father passed away from cancer and heart related problems when he was 44 and his lifestyle was not as it should have been with three young children. For the sake of my wife, Renee and my two children, Jake and Chelsea, I needed to find something that would keep me healthy and strong – not just in body but in mind. Not only this but keep me revitalised, energetic and stimulated.  

After starting Crossfit, I was amazed at what some people were able to put their bodies through, how far they could push themselves and reach their limits both mentally and physically. I never thought I would be able to achieve these levels. I was wrong. Before starting Crossfit, I was in the gym for 1 ½-2 hours a day doing the usual routine of compound weight exercises and the occasional cardio session which was normally a 5K or 10K run. I got to the stage where I needed something more out of my time. I wasn’t able to do 5 pull-ups in a row, I was limited to around 20 push-ups and a muscle-up was way out of reach. I finished the Gold Coast Marathon in 2007 in just over 5 hours – a feat I thought impossible.

What a change a year makes. I have now lost 16kgs from my rugby union playing days. I am able to do 30 pull-ups and 50 push-ups without stopping and can now do 30 muscle-ups in less than 9 minutes. My body shape has changed completely. My body also knows what should be going into it and what shouldn’t. My entire focus of exercise, diet, wellbeing and life has all changed due to something that should have been second nature. It’s all in your mind and what you believe in yourself you can achieve, not what you think you can achieve.

I have trained on and off since I was 16, my interest and motivation has tended to cycle.  It would peak with morning training sessions happening daily often combined with bike rides in the evening and rugby training and matches too and a high level of strength and fitness.  Diet would be carefully monitored and everything would be good.

The problem was always the troughs; something would always happen to make me miss a session or get out of the habit of going, maybe a holiday or work trip away or even something as simple as a bad hangover and next thing you know 6 months or longer would have passed and I would not have even looked at my gym shoes, bike or rugby kit.  The diet would have gone to pot and with it strength and fitness too. 

Each time I hit a trough it lasted longer and became harder to crawl out of.  Where previously it would have only taken a couple of sessions to get back to speed it was taking a couple of weeks and then a couple of months, the troughs became deeper and the diet worse and the waist and weight bigger. 

In 2003 I weighed 130kg and had to sit down to put my socks on.  I was in a big trough.  I used my wife’s pregnancy and abstinence from alcohol as an opportunity to change my lifestyle (yet again) by crash dieting and a difficult training regime that included monotonous weights and treadmill workouts I managed to shift 25kg before the birth of my son.  I was fit and lean. The problem was this new lifestyle was not sustainable, my waist began to grow as did my weight again.  

After a two year trough of very little structured exercise or diet other than ad hoc rugby training and flirting with the gym I had to reassess my life once again I was now 125kg and growing I did not want to reach my earlier all time high. I had to find out why my previous efforts ultimately led to failure and ensure I did not fall into the same traps as before; a decision had to be made on how to move forward for a healthier sustainable lifestyle and body.  I was looking everywhere for ideas and motivation and then it occurred to me to look within.   

I realised it was not about what I did in the gym or on the bike or on the rugby pitch, it was not about what I ate before or after training it was about me and who I was.  It was then that I realised I had a choice, I could choose who I was and how I lived my life; I could to continue to yo yo with my fitness and be like all the normal people; slow, fat and unhealthy or I could choose to be different, better, leaner and stronger.  As soon as I realised it was my choice and had nothing to do with anybody and that the decision came from within I knew that I was not going to be that person anymore.   

I subscribed to a different lifestyle, one which is born of a totally different mental attitude and the fitness has followed.  I have taken control of my life.  I use my desire from within to help me maintain my overall choice which helps me when making little choices daily about what I eat or drink or how hard I push myself.   

I train every morning at six a.m. I eat well, I drink less.  Not because I have to but because that is who I have chosen to be.  It is not about what I do in the gym, it is not about what I eat but it is about me and the choices I make that come from within.  It is about everything I do from the moment I wake to the moment I go to sleep; it is about how I sleep.  It is about what is inside me and the desire to be me. 

Some people mock me and say “you can’t eat this” or “you can’t eat that” and I tell them I can eat whatever I want to, but I choose not to.  Some say “go on, just a little one, one drink wont hurt” and I look at them and feel stronger inside for being able to choose what I want to do and when I want to do it.   

I choose not to quit, I choose to work until it hurts so much and then work that bit harder.  I choose to keep moving the bar up, to row harder, and to push more.  I choose to ignore the pain and the nagging doubts from within, I choose to be mentally strong and that mental strength helps me make my choices that helps be to be mentally strong and so I get stronger. 

Now I have peaks and troughs because not every session can be the best session of the week, the difference now is that each trough is much higher than the last and lasts for far less time, it may be only for one set or one day or even one week but each peak that is reached is higher, and each corresponding trough is at a higher level than the one before.  The peaks are now timed to coincide with rugby matches or other such events and the troughs are to coincide with holidays etc, clear recovery plans are put in place and committed to before holidays or troughs and because of this each day, each week, each month I am stronger than before. 

Once you have control of your internal choices you can choose to be mentally strong, then by definition you are and you will enjoy the life that follows.