Team MacDonald Fitness - Public Page

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Team MacDonald Fitness - Public Page

I am a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach aiming to help YOU achieve your goals. If you're interested in my services, go to my site. Thanks!

I will be going live once a week to discuss topics regarding health, fitness, nutrition, and life.

10/27/2022

I may not have been posting, but the work hasn’t stopped.

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Taking time each day to work on myself physically in order to get my mind right, mentally.

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Go out and win the day!

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01/12/2021

Looking to change things up a little?!⠀
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My goal of switching up to these kinds of exercises is to increase my motor unit recruitment within my body.⠀
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Why is this important? Let me provide an example. I'm learning that for a squat, it takes a conscious effort to focus on bracing, hinging your hips, engaging your glutes, quad, and hamstrings while going through a fluid motion.⠀
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Changing your exercises to contain variants of instability (the band pulling me from my center of gravity as well as the soft mats I'm standing on) will help your stabilizing muscles within your body but also teach you how to engage your core to maintain stability.⠀
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Holding weight above your head is ultimately more challenging than holding it in front of you. This is another variant that forces you to keep your core tight while at the same time learning to engage your lats and arms to keep the weight stable.⠀
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Oh, and then there's the lunge. Those are painful enough to begin with, right? These are progressions that can help you engage multiple sections of your body that you may not be used to working. I promise that once you learn to engage your core and do lunges in an unstable environment, a normal lunch is going to be a piece of cake.⠀
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Your brain is an incredibly important tool during exercise. You have to be in the game and thinking about what's going on in order to make a movement mean something. So when you get into the gym and have a hard time focusing, try an exercise like this that's going to force you to think about what you're doing. It should help!⠀
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P.S. sorry for the cut off video!⠀
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01/11/2021

First bald boy workout!⠀
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But seriously, I'm sticking to the plan. Flexibility and mobility training is of utmost importance for me right now and it's been helping my body feel a lot more loose and pain free. ⠀
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For my two main workouts, I worked on some deficit deadlifts and benching with controlled instability.⠀
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Deficit deadlifts used to tax my body because I feel like I wasn't able to get into my squat position as well as I would like, but I've been feeling better with them lately. Adding in a slight eccentric phase on the decline of the lift really helped the engagement of my hamstrings and glutes. I definitely felt it!⠀
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And then benching with 90lbs of weight suspended by bands. I know I showed this before, but I love doing these as they help me keep a fair tempo on my bench press and really make me focus on my mind/muscle connection. ⠀
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Remember, we all have goals in mind. But, make sure that when working out you're able to do so with good form and that you're feeling good. HEALTH IS WEALTH! Especially right now, so lets be taking care of ourselves out here.⠀
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What workouts did you start your week with?⠀
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01/08/2021

Today this was about mental strength.⠀
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After I wrapped up my workout, I wanted to see how strong my mind was. I was doing some eccentric rack pulls, focusing strictly on my hamstrings and mimicking an RDL motion.⠀
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I thought to myself "I should do as many as I can and push myself."⠀
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So, I got to the bar, and repped out 16 before I got tired and was able to pump out two more. Then I thought "I've got two more in me." I proceeded to rep that out.⠀
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Was I satisfied getting 20 reps? Yeah, it felt good.⠀
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What I wasn't satisfied with was that I think I could have pulled out at least 3 or 4 more. ⠀
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Your brain is a powerful tool. When you put a limit on yourself in place, you will live within that limit. So, being able to practice something as little as repping out your absolute max on an exercise will help train your mind to push past barriers that you set for yourself.⠀
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"Limits, like fears, are often just an illusion" is one of my favorite quotes from Michael Jordan. Something I think about a lot.⠀
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Don't get me wrong, I have a looooooong way to go. But, the progression within lifting, fitness, and anything in personal and professional live starts within your own head. If you can find ways to challenge yourself to push past the limitations you set on you, then you're going to see a lot of development.⠀
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Now go out there and do something difficult today! I'd love to know which ways you all are challenging yourself to push past limits.⠀
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Happy Friday!⠀
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01/04/2021

Knocked out my first workout of 2021 today!⠀
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Here's my advice to anyone who has fitness goals for this year:⠀
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If you've been working out for a long time, find ways to change up your workouts or find a program to help progress what you need development on. Keep fitness fresh!⠀
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If you're just starting, just stick to it! It's the hardest thing, but being consistent is the best thing you can do. You're gonna have great days, you're gonna have terrible days. They're all part of the journey so take it a day at a time.⠀
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If you haven't started and don't know where to begin, just ask questions! I'm happy to talk with people to help them figure out what can help with goals. Any fitness professional has started from the beginning. For me, as long as someone is looking to make a positive change, I'm here to help. ⠀
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No matter what your experience, don't take things too seriously!! There's not many of us that are working towards a competition of some sort. If you're looking to make a change for the betterment of how you live, then don't take things too seriously. Social media puts a lot of content that can cloud our thoughts with people that are where we want to be. Use it as a measuring stick for where you want to be eventually, not where you need to be now.⠀
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It's important to have a balance in life. Blending that balance of a healthy lifestyle and a healthy mind will make 2021 better than 2020, I promise that.⠀
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So, here's to a new year and building off what I've been working on. ⠀
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What are your 2021 goals??⠀
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01/02/2021

Protein cheesecake!

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Continuing my 2021 the way I ended 2020. Losing weight, gaining strength, and making fun, protein packed recipes. This cheesecake is dense and delicious!

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Recipe is as follows:

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8oz fat free cream cheese, 10oz plain Greek yogurt, 2 large eggs, 1/4 cup sugar (I would recommend 1/2 cup of 0 calorie sweetener), 1 1/2 scoops chocolate peanut butter protein powder, and a swirl of natural peanut butter.

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Mix in cream cheese and sugar, then add Greek yogurt, then add eggs, protein, and pour in. Swirl peanut butter after. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes and then allow to cool.

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Enjoy!

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Macros: 120 calories per slice (yields 8 slices), 2.5g fat, 12g carbs, 14.5g protein.

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12/28/2020

These photos are always a constant reminder of how far I've come and how far I have to go.⠀
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I remember back in December last year when the left photo was taken and how people told me that they still felt I was an example of fitness and health. Maybe it was because I lifted heavy weights and preached about taking vitamins.⠀
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Let me tell you what, by the photo I would say fitness and health wasn't the example I was setting.⠀
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It's been a year of changes. 8 years into my fitness journey and I'm still tackling this thing by trial and error.⠀
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I'm still taking the steps to learn more about this field. It's vast, complex, and very tedious. ⠀
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I'm taking steps to transform myself into the example I want set for my future clients. If I can train myself then I can't train others. Simple as that.⠀
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So, here we are. These two photos nearly a year apart (a little over). I've managed to learn how to develop my strength while cutting down my body to slowly get where I want it to be. I'm happy with the progress, no doubt. Still, I have more I want to work on.⠀
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For 2021, I'd like to cut down my body fat by at least 3%, I'd like to put on a few more pounds of muscle mass, and I would like to have a more healthy, athletic style build. Still strong, but able to be conditioned, agile, and more flexible. Some words that haven't been synonymous with me... ever.⠀
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I'm eager to see the photos I take in December 2021. I plan to be nearly the same weight, but the aesthetic will be a lot different. ⠀
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If you'd like to work with me, send me a DM. Lets get a time set up to just have a chat and see what we can do to help you reach your goals in 2021!⠀
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12/22/2020

Push through the pain and focus.⠀
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Had a morning of squats and some shoulder pressing. Since it was a shorter day of lifting, I had a more intense day of cardio.⠀
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I chose to hop on the spin bike today to work more on my legs on top of what I did already.⠀
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20 seconds really high intensity, 1 minute moderate intensity. Rinse, wash, repeat for 6-8 rounds and that's all you'll need.⠀
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When you have a plan and stick to it, you'll see results. Adding cardio to my routine more regularly has seen me progress. I weighed in this morning at 207.5lbs. Aiming to get down to 200lbs, which should see me at a nice, semi-lean place.⠀
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Chase your goals! No better time to start than now.⠀
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12/18/2020

Adding in instability training again today.

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I’m liking it a lot because it’s really forcing me to not rush through my movements and focus on my mind-muscle connection.

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Today I did these with squats. Worked up to this as my top set. 185lbs of stable weight with 100lbs of unstable weight to give me 285lbs for a double.

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I had done I think 5 sets at higher reps prior to this so I was a little taxed. But, it was awesome still!

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I’ll be incorporating this more upcoming, especially if I feel I need a reset on my feel of my movements.

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Hope you all worked on your goals today as well!

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12/17/2020

Controlled Instability. It's an oxymoron.⠀
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How do you control something that's unstable?⠀
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Well, in the case of fitness, it's creating an environment where there's instability within your movement. It's controlled because you have the ability to adapt the level of instability within a given movement. ⠀
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It has a ton of benefits and is seen as a prominent piece in some training models. If you're providing an unstable environment for you to complete a movement, you're forcing your body to use stabilizing muscles that wouldn't normally have to engage as much in a more controlled movement.⠀
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Case in point: bench press. Here I'm doing my best to mimic an elephant bar with a regular barbell. Putting weights on the end of the bar and having them hang on resistance bands created a lot of movement in the bar as I did my press. I was forced to take a decent tempo with my bench press because if I were to have lifted too fast, the bar would have been too unstable for me to continue with.⠀
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I did 5 sets of 8 reps. The total amount of weight on this press was 145lbs. Nothing too wild. Just enough to assure that I could get quality, controlled reps, while at the same time being challenged enough by the end of the set.⠀
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You could also use this same tactic on a squat to help with stability of that's a troubling lift for you.⠀
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Give it a try! I promise it'll be different than anything you've ever done if you've never tried this before!⠀
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12/15/2020

I was a little tired this morning when I woke up...⠀
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But for some reason, I felt great when I got to the gym and started squatting.⠀
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Little did I know I was going to feel good enough to work myself up to a squat number I haven't hit in years:⠀
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380lbs!⠀
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Last time I was able to get this up was around 3 years ago. I was wanting to do a lifting meet, I was eating 5,300 calories a day, was miserably full all the time, weighted around 225lbs, but got super strong.⠀
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Fast forward to now... I'm working for personal challenge, I'm working as a slow, slow, deficit at 3,000 calories a day, and am weighing in at 209lbs. I'm not feeling exhausted every day, but I don't feel great every day. I'm not always motivated, but the discipline I have to be better is what pushes me through when there's days I don't feel like getting in work.⠀
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So, to sum it up: work hard, stay disciplined, maintain a goal, be consistent, and be patient. ⠀
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If you do that, you'll hit your goals. I'd bet on it.⠀
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Happy Tuesday and get out and work hard!!

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Chapel Hill, NC

Website

https://www.macdonaldfitness.com/

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