Spartan Up! - A Spartan Race For The Mind!

We may wish it weren’t true but it is: You can’t control how you feel at any given moment. You CAN however, control your response to how you feel. And you can absolutely learn to control your emotions. When we don’t control our emotions, we run the risk of letting them control us by impacting our choices, decisions, and next moves without our consent. Learning how to control your emotions is a key element of having a tough mind and shifting your mind into the position of driver rather than passenger. The STOPP method is an excellent place to start. LESSONS: STOPP method for controlling emotions: Stop Take a deep breath Observe Pull back and take perspective Proceed with the next right move Remember, the more you practice the STOPP method during more even-keeled times, the more likely you are to remember to use it during stressful times. SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay FOLLOW SPARTAN UP AND DR. L: Spartan Up on

Joe DeSena interviews Charlie Rocket at the Fenway Park Spartan Race.  “CEO Charlie” was successful in business, he managed the artist 2 Chainz to a Grammy! But he found himself overweight and seriously ill with a brain tumor, none of that so-called success mattered anymore. Charlie made a massive pivot from “CEO Charlie” to “Charlie Rocket!” In an honest, human and incredibly energetic and optimistic way Charlie Rocket is sharing his journey. Everyone told him it was impossible, but he’s now a Nike sponsored Athlete. Charlie Rocket is unstoppable, or as he says “I’m on a WINNING STREEAAAK!!” We recorded this interview in November, and Charlie’s been killing it since then! LESSONS Call yourself the person you want to become Believe it’s going to be easy, even through the hard parts Train like an 8-year old (full of fun!!) Even water, if it’s still too long, begins to stink! Walk your walk This episode of Spartan Up! is brought to you by Tiger Balm Active. Trust Tiger Balm Active for proven pain relief. Get ne

If you say you are going to do something, then do it. Not a version of it. Not some approximation. Do exactly it. Not to is to set the new lowest standard or to invite confusion.   Look for those tiny simple things that you might do that create inconsistency with communication and action. It could be using the word ‘try’ or ‘maybe’ when establishing a performance metric. It could be punching the snooze button which suggests you either didn’t really mean what you said or that you can change your tune with your mood. No matter how simple is may seem they are sure foundations for some of the less obvious and more intrusive places you allow dissonance to reside.     When you find yourself confronted with someone that has trouble with saying and doing, get them to specify measurable factors of performance or action to eliminate confusion or opportunity for disappointment.   LESSONS: Do what you Say Say what you Mean Mean what you Do Do what you Mean SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTub

Magnesium has some amazing properties for your brain and body. It also makes important contributions to many important processes in the human body. Two things that many of us have experienced are stress and muscle cramps. First, let’s look at magnesium and its impact on stress, especially in relation to cortisol. Cortisol is the body’s principal stress hormone. This hormone helps to keep us alert during stressful moments or emergencies. But when stress becomes chronic, cortisol levels can stay high for too long which can lead to damage a part of the brain called the hippocampus; this damage leads to further creation of cortisol – and even more stress! Luckily, magnesium can help to reduce the ability of the hippocampus to go into overdrive with the production of cortisol. Second, magnesium has many therapeutic and restorative effects on the brain. For instance, it helps to keep the neurons in the brain healthy by reducing the stimulating effects of calcium and glutamate on neural receptors. A lack of magnesiu

Kevin Gillotti talks with John Yatsko, an athlete not often seen on the OCR circuit but one who has the historical results & credentials to put worry into his competitors when he does show up. Kevin & John talk about staying elite level fit while living a nomadic lifestyle. LESSONS: Be resourceful If you are creative & dedicated, you can train anywhere Be disciplined with your time Consider phases - mountain, speed, etc. SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay FOLLOW SPARTAN UP AND KEVIN G Spartan Up on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spartanuppodcast/ Spartan Up on Twitter https://twitter.com/SpartanUpPod Kevin Gillotti on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kevingillotti/ Kevin Gillotti on The Web www.kevingillotti.com CREDITS: Host: Kevin Gillotti Show Notes & Artwork: Kevin Gillotti Producer: Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Videography: Madison McGahan, Mike Isabell, Alberto Campos Editing: Heathe

For better or worse, life is filled with struggle and challenge. We, as humans, were built with a wide emotional range and often experience a variety of feelings, both joyful and painful ones. Nevertheless, we are bombarded with the message that one’s life goals should be a constant state of happiness; that the pursuit of happiness should trump all. The problem with this goes back to that first sentence, life is filled with struggle and challenge. And it’s normal for us to experience hardship. Good for us in fact. But when we have the misbelief that life should always and only be happy we can end up comparing our current position to a false and manufactured ideal.   LESSONS: The Happiness Hoax: Ascribing to the misbelief that life should be all happy, all the time. Struggle, challenge, and hardship are a part of life. Stop judging your own position against a false ideal that is impossible to achieve. Remember, the struggles that you encounter are there for a reason and are no measure of how capable you are o

The Youngest GM in baseball history, Theo Epstein took the Red Sox to the World Championships after 86 years then did the same for the Chicago Cubs after a 108 years! What techniques did he use to change the culture of his organization? In this interview he explains how he chooses players (it has a lot to do with their mindset and resilience!), his theory on taking and giving credit, and the three things you should do if you want to improve your team culture. LESSONS Understand foundational elements of success Study your mental makeup Look inwards for motivation List strengths and weaknesses to make your development plan Know your foundations to be able to make adjustments Have a “mirror & window” business/ personal culture Don’t just talk about the values that you want - demonstrate them Character & connectedness is key LINKS Save $50 on the Misfit Vapor2 with the code SPARTAN50 at www.Misfit.com/vapor2 Misfit Vapor2 is the mudproof, sweatproof smartwach that’s great for Spartans. TIME STAMPS: 0:00

Highly Competent: know your job, do your job, be quick to develop and eager to assume responsibility. Competence is acquired through training, practice, time under tension, experience - for sure. Let’s just not keep making the same mistakes over and over, being told to do things repeatedly, and be happy with minimum standards. Low Maintenance: don’t require a lot of special handling or attention. At times, things will come up that need to be handled or addressed in order to not distract us from performing. The key here is frequency. If it is a daily maintenance task to get someone to do their job, then I’m looking for someone with a weekly maintenance cycle. And then, I’m already looking for someone with a monthly cycle, and then a quarterly… No Drama: we already have enough as it is to get along, understand and appreciate differences, and try to figure out how to lead dozens of different personality/talent patterns. If you like to gossip, invent truth, pass judgment, make gros assumptions too quickly, be ove

Today, we’re going to clear up a misconception about muscle and metabolism. It’s become common knowledge that muscle burns so many more calories than fat. If you put on more muscle, the story goes, more calories just burn along with it. So increase your muscle mass! Right? In this episode of Spartan Health we’re gonna’ look into that… WHAT WE TALK ABOUT While it’s true that muscle does burn more calories than fat, the importance of this difference may be quite exaggerated. As it turns out, resistance training (which is often the preferred way to build muscle) is important in keeping many of our body’s functions healthy and vibrant … but it’s not best way to lose weight. Not convinced? Here are some things to think about-- Many studies that demonstrate how muscle mass increases your calorie consumption measure your body’s total metabolic rate as a way to determine how new muscle mass burns calories. But that metabolic rate is a measure of all of a person’s daily activities, not just that of muscle mass. It tur

Kevin Gillotti talks with Kirk Dewindt, a personal trainer (PT), a collegiate All-American in track, a handsomely popular “The Bachelorette” contestant, and a strong & respected member of the Spartan Pro Team about common injuries amongst endurance athletes.   LESSONS: Overuse & repetitive injuries are most common Work on hip stabilization Wear a properly fit shoe For grip, improve your holds by adding weight   SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay   FOLLOW SPARTAN UP AND KEVIN G Spartan Up on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spartanuppodcast/ Spartan Up on Twitter https://twitter.com/SpartanUpPod Kevin Gillotti on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kevingillotti/ Kevin Gillotti on The Web www.kevingillotti.com   CREDITS: Host: Kevin Gillotti Show Notes & Artwork: Kevin Gillotti Producer: Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Videography: Madison McGahan, Mike Isabell, Alberto Campos Editing: Heather Knox

We all go through times in our life where we second guess ourselves. The way to get out of that phase is to do the work. The work will remind you what you’re capable of. The mere fact that you’re doing the work will help you put “points on the board” and build confidence again. LESSONS: Get out of your normal environment and demonstrate your expertise. Staying in your same environment builds complacency. Complacency kills your confidence. Get out there and DO something to share your expertise. LINKS: More about Zach https://zacheven-esh.com Read “The Spartan Way” https://www.spartan.com/en/race/learn-more/race-types-overview?article=the-spartan-way-book SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay   FOLLOW SPARTAN UP & Zach: Spartan Up on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spartanuppodcast/ Spartan Up on Twitter https://twitter.com/SpartanUpPod Follow Zach on Instagram https://instagram.com/zevenesh Follow Zach on Twi

Feelings can be powerful and even more so when they create discomfort. Anxiety, worry, and concern are three feeling states that can initiate a way of thinking that can very quickly create a barrier to you moving forward with whatever task is at hand. How you feel today is not necessarily a marker of how you will feel in the future but we can sometimes fall into the mind trap of believing this to be true. Think about it, if signing up for a Spartan race induced a tremendous amount of anxiety you may have the tendency to feel into the future and believe that your nerves on race day will be twice as bad. It’s important to remain in the present as much as possible and not make assumptions that how you feel now will be your emotional state moving forward. LESSONS: Feeling into the Future: When you make the assumption that how you feel now will be the same emotional state in the future. Feelings are out of your control but how you respond to them very much IS in your control. Try not to let painful feelings be a m

Angel Sanz is humble, hilarious and always smiling mastermind and Country Manager of Spartan Spain whose up each day by 3:30 am. Sport has always been an integral part of his life, from playing basketball at University of Houston to teaching physicality and obstacle racing as a perfect analogy for entrepreneurship. Sport is what drives his pedagogy in education, with how he interacts with his family, how he gets better at business, how he to made his new business and now how he makes people better by ripping them off the couch. He may or may not be wearing a dark mask in a dark van and show up at your door in the middle of the night. Lessons Be humble enough to know what we need Be generous enough to give what we need to give Be smart enough to bring the people we need to grow beyond our talent LINKS TIME STAMPS 0:00 Col. Nye, Johnny Waite, Sefra & Guest Host Mike Miller introduce this week’s episode 0:40 Interview with Angel begins 1:30 the multi-faceted uses of sport 3:00 obstacle racing is the same as

The complex, flashy, super sexy solution rarely survives substantial contact with any situation less than the ideal it was created for. It’s safe to say that ‘The Basics’ are just that, basic. The reasonable extension of this conversation then suggests also timeless. Let’s look at the lever, wedge, wheel… half of humankind’s inventions wouldn’t work without these simple machines. There’s a saying that goes somewhat like: “Why use an expensive whatnot when a hammer will suffice?” When faced with problems I like to reduce them to their simplest terms. Complex problems require complex solutions and complex things get increasing hard to pull off when we are tired, afraid, cold, wet, it’s dark… And even then, complex things are typically built on the foundation of the basics. So it stands to reason we should be absolutely brilliant at the basics to even set conditions for the fancy to manifest. At a minimum, the basics can serve as a last resort. If it’s a last resort you should have the greatest of confidence it

When things run well, we often assume, they run regularly. From the pistons in a car to the daily changes in the tide, we often expect that processes run optimally when they progress or move forward in the same or a uniform way. Or if they change, the change is gradual and moves slowly from phase to phase – like the seasons or the way the sun rises and sets. One important body function is an exception! WHAT WE TALK ABOUT: While it may seem crazy at first, it turns out that all this variability … is good! Heart rate variability (HRV) is a strong indicator of health – of good mental and physical health as well as the potential or resiliency of the body to survive problems, stressors, and illness. It’s a big topic but today I want to introduce the concept and make you aware of what it is and how it can help you both short and long-term. Your heartbeat is controlled by your body’s autonomic nervous system (ANS). This system runs and regulates parts of your system that are always “on.” Things like your breathing,

This week Kevin talks with 2015 Spartan Race World Champion, and all around prolific badass multisports racer Robert Killian, about what it takes to be and stay on top of such a demanding sport like OCR. LESSONS: Being prepared puts you in the best possible situation & can reduce pressure Motivating others can motivate you to be better The importance of sleep, mobility and nutrition Grit, determination can carry you through, not biceps SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay FOLLOW SPARTAN UP AND KEVIN G Spartan Up on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spartanuppodcast/ Spartan Up on Twitter https://twitter.com/SpartanUpPod Kevin Gillotti on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/kevingillotti/ Kevin Gillotti on The Web www.kevingillotti.com CREDITS: Host: Kevin Gillotti Show Notes & Artwork: Kevin Gillotti Producer: Marion Abrams, Madmotion, llc. Videography: Madison McGahan, Mike Isabell, Alberto Campos Editing:

Inspired by former Navy SEAL & 1 of the world’s best CrossFit competitors, Josh Bridges. Josh constantly talks about #PayTheMan - meaning, you gotta earn it! If you want something, you gotta EARN it. You don’t deserve anything. You get what you Earn! LESSONS: Most successful people will tell you that the majority of their victories and success stories are on the other side of hard work, aka Paying the Man. You can #PayTheMan and apply this lesson to any area of your life. Set small goals that you MUST accomplish that earns you the right to do something. LINKS: More about Zach https://zacheven-esh.com Read “The Spartan Way” https://www.spartan.com/en/race/learn-more/race-types-overview?article=the-spartan-way-book SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay   FOLLOW SPARTAN UP & Zach: Spartan Up on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spartanuppodcast/ Spartan Up on Twitter https://twitter.com/SpartanUpPod Follow Z

The future can be scary for some of us. It’s normal to be uncomfortable with the unknown and uncertain. But future tripping, the act of making your way into the future and tripping over what exists, is not an effective way of handling your worries. This kind of thinking can easily create more worry and concern for what lays ahead. Though it may be hard, working to stay in the present and remain focused on the task right in front of you is a better way of handling what you may be anxious about.   LESSONS: Future Tripping: When you place yourself in the future and trip over, or imagine yourself failing, before you have even begun. Work to remain present through deep breathing and focus on the next best thing that you can implement to move your forward. Remember, the future is out of your control but your present state is very much available to you. SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpShow YouTube: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpYT Google Play: http://bit.ly/SpartanUpPlay   FOLLOW SPARTAN UP AND DR. L:

A former Celtics NBA player, Chris Herren speaks honestly and openly about his addictions and his path to recovery. Whether dealing with addiction, or the day to day problems of life, Herren advocates doing things the hard way. He believes kids need to learn to deal head-on with the real and difficult emotions life can bring, this will reduce the temptation to mask and avoid them with drugs and alcohol. Just like physical and mental resilience - emotional resilience is a key building block for success. Overcoming addiction has been his greatest obstacle. His sobriety, his greatest accomplishment. His dedication to helping others led him to found the Herren Project: to Support. Recover. Overcome. Sometimes the hard thing is asking for help. This episode reminds us to reach out for help when we need it, because extraordinary resources are available. LESSONS Ask why, rather than who or how, when it comes to substance use and abuse. Celebrate the kids who are doing it right, their voices should be heard. Learn e

I often find myself giving other’s opinions, especially a stranger’s, more value over what I find valuable or purposeful. In this episode I introduce and toss around a few thought processes that help me defeat falling into that trap.   Who has authority over how we feel? Who lends the ultimate approval on what it is that fills us with purpose or value? Is it your ‘why’ or is it someone else’s ‘why’ that gives us energy and direction? If it isn’t each of us ourself, then why are we always looking for the thumbs up from other’s to be our authentic selves and hesitate to be when we receive a frown; especially from a stranger?   Being conscious and aware when someone else is making you feel guilty for doing right, being good, or enjoying what moves you will empower you to refuse being a victim or held captive by a weaker person.   LESSONS: YOU are responsible, YOU have the authority to approve of Yourself. Know what is right, know what is wrong - Do right, don’t do wrong; you don’t need. approval or permission f