Dante.Sindoni.Sc

Will journaling benefit you?

Journaling is a versatile tool that can help you
• Set and achieve goals.
• Practice mindfulness.
• Stay accountable in life, fitness, or work.

Key benefits of journaling
• Improved mental clarity.
• Progress tracking for personal or fitness goals.
• Enhanced self-awareness and emotional regulation.

Helpful prompts to get started

✏️ Morning prompts
• What am I grateful for today?
• What is my goal for training today?
• What is something I want to accomplish at work today?
* What is something I want to do for myself?

✏️ Evening prompts
• What went well today?
• What can be improved?
• How would I rate my day on a scale of 1-5?

I personally answer the morning prompts before starting my day and the evening prompts once I’m home.

📓 Types of journaling
• Gratitude journaling: Focus on the positives.
• Reflection journaling: Review and improve your day.
• Goal-setting journaling: Map out personal or fitness goals.
• Idea journaling: Capture creative thoughts.

You don’t have to do it all, tailor journaling to your needs.

Tips to stay consistent:
• Set a specific time for journaling each day.
• Start small and add more as you get comfortable.
• Don’t feel tied to prompts, write what comes to mind when needed.
• Missed a day? Pick up where you left off, no guilt!

Why Spinal Position Matters: Injury Prevention and Peak Performance

Here are a few reasons why this should be integrated within your training regime.

Injury prevention
- Organising your bracing and spinal position eliminates injury to your central nervous system. This is majorly important as an injury to this system will not just shutdown your ability to perform but also disrupt your daily activities and require prolonged recovery periods.

Mechanical integrity
- Incorrect positioning can lead to mechanical compromises, such as reduced range of motion, which can be misunderstood as tight muscles when in reality it’s the body’s protective response to a poor trunk position.

Maximised force production
- When the alignment of your spine, head, ribcage or pelvis becomes compromised force production can take a significant hit.
- This is a reason why many coaches emphasise cues like neutral spine, head forward/straight and rib cage stacked.

The body’s adaptability is absurd, but don’t rely on it
- The amazing thing about the human body is that regardless of your poor position the body will find a secondary stability structure to accommodate. (This does NOT mean rely on that and not fix your s**t, because you will break eventually).

Here is a little glimpse of what comp day looks like. Many people think you just rock up and perform, but that’s far from the truth. Competition day is the culmination of mental and physical preparation, starting from the very first day of your training program.

It is normal to feel anxious, excited, or even doubtful. But experienced lifters know that embracing these emotions rather than fighting them is key. Tools like visualisation, and curated music playlists can be utilised to create the ideal state of arousal needed to perform.

Whether you get anxious before a big event or need to reduce your arousal level, managing these emotions is crucial. Mishandling them can be detrimental to your performance.

This is where having a strong support system like your coach or teammates, can make a huge difference.

The moments before a big lift are intense, so having a few simple words before the lift or even just the steadying presence of someone who knows you well, can calm the nerves and ignite the fire needed to perform.

Celebrate the small and big wins from the day. Just because there might not be a medal hanging down your neck, doesn’t mean you haven’t achieved anything. Celebrate all the hard work and discipline leading up to that moment. Every training session, every sacrifice, and every mental battle you’ve faced.

Proving to yourself that you can do it and push yourself when s**t hits the fan is what makes the day worth all the effort.

Emily’s first powerlifting competition is in the books.

Here’s a little bit of info about her, she’s been training for over a year and a half now, and has had so many different goals ranging from, boosting her confidence, to running longer distances, losing weight and becoming stronger day by day and not just physically, but mentally.

Emily’s dedication shows in the way she consistently shows up for herself even when she has had a rough day because she knows she will feel better after.

This weekend she competed in the WRPF Power of Women, which is a women-only competition and is a key driver in supporting breast cancer awareness, a cause which resonates deeply with her. The motivation to compete wasn’t just about the lifting. It was about supporting a community and a cause that matters.

More than anything, this has helped her not only realise how capable she is of anything she sets her mind to but has also gained a larger sense of confidence.

Emily’s biggest win wasn’t placing 2nd (though we’re incredibly proud of that!) it was stepping outside her comfort zone and getting up on that platform. Watching her hard work and determination shine through on the day, despite the nerves and anxiety, was a true victory as her coach.

This moment is something she’ll carry with her, a story she can look back on with pride for years to come.

Here is her performance!
Push/pull

Bench press: 40kg
Deadlift: 100kg
Total: 140kg 6/6
2nd place 🥈

Also a very big thank you to Alex and everyone at Girls who lift for running such an amazing comp for a great cause.

Patience is a virtue.

For me this rings true and one I learned early in footy and continue to apply towards training, coaching and life.

In this post, I am sharing my deadlifts from over the years. From changing my deadlift stance every so often, to chasing pb’s and experiencing many fails. All of which brought me back to patience is key.

I understand the highs of getting pb’s, all while experiencing the lows of missing a lift.

It is easy to get discouraged by the lows and crack a tantrum (I’ve done this many times), but what you can do is focus on where you can improve and continue to move forward.

Set those small goals so you can build up and keep growing.

(Yes I am wearing polarised sunglasses in some videos 🤦🏻‍♂️)

Feb 2021
July 2021
December 2021
Feb 2022
August 2022
December 2022
April 2023
August 2023
April 2024
August 2024

Do you want to achieve bigger arms? Don’t know what exercises to do?

Here are 5 exercises to get you building bigger biceps and triceps.

1. DB hammer curl
2. DB bicep curl
3. DB rolling extension
4. DB skull crusher
5. Rope cable tricep extensions

Stay tuned for the best shoulder exercises 💪🏼

Building habits that allow you to be productive throughout the day will set you up for future success. This is important as many people struggle using their time efficiently during the hours they are awake, which cause many of you to delay tasks that are either time sensitive or just long tasks that you cant be bothered doing, until you are forced to be under pressure and get it done last minute. The most common excuse is ‘I don’t have time’, there are many ways you can create time within your ‘busy’ day to get the important things done.

Here is my number 1 way of setting my day up for success.

Using a calendar to block out times for tasks and events is one of the easiest and time effective ways to become more productive.

Colour coding your events will help prioritise and seperate tasks and activities so you don’t get confused.

Plus it’s free, so there’s no reason why you can’t do this.