The Primal Swoledier recently gave an interview to Onnit Chief Fitness Officer John Wolf (who also happens to be one of Leija’s earliest mentors) for our Onnit Stories series, where we talk to people on camera about how they changed their lives with Onnit’s help. See Leija’s interview below, along with an edited transcript of the highlights, time-stamped so you can find those moments in the video. You can stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV).

Eric Leija Show Notes

3:45 – How Eric Got Onnit

My older brother [Juan Leija] was good friends with the former CEO of Onnit, Aubrey Marcus, going back 10 or 12 years now. We all trained MMA together in what we called El Garaje—Aubrey’s old garage gym. We would all go in there, beat each other up, and that’s where I first met Aubrey. He actually gave me a bloody nose. I was only 12 years old at the time, and he beat me up [laughs].

No, just kidding, I was in high school at the time, and I had it coming. I was like, “I’ll take this guy,” but then he gave me a bloody nose. Aubrey’s got reach! [Laughs]

We all connected originally through our mutual friend, Roger Huerta, who was a UFC fighter back in the day. He got us into all the unconventional training methods, like using kettlebells. We all gravitated toward the strength and conditioning that was a little bit more unconventional at the time, and maybe still is.

8:05 – On Being Internet Famous

I’m grateful for the attention and the eyes that I’ve been able to get. A lot of people say I’ve helped them get back into movement, back into working out, when they had previously gotten injured or just fell off the rails. They appreciate the content and the videos that I put out, and it motivates them to work out and get back in shape. When people recognize me on the streets and they tell me stuff like, “Oh, you helped me get through COVID; you helped me stay sane with your workouts,” it’s super humbling. I want to keep that up. I want to keep trying to inspire people while also being the best that I can be. The more I focus on myself, staying healthy, and doing good things, the more people see that and do similar things, and we all get better together.

At Onnit, we have such a huge platform. I try to make the most of it, because our community is amazing. One of my goals, personally, is to start traveling more and teaching more workshops and connecting with even more people. So, people out there, let me know where you want me to go!

10:35 – John and Eric Discuss Eric’s Early Days at Onnit

John Wolf: What some people may not realize about you is that you maintain humility. You’ve always been willing to help everybody at any time. You’ve never tried to act as if you’re above doing the hard work. I remember when I came to Onnit. I interviewed with Aubrey and he said, “All right, show us what you know.” So I started leading a kettlebell workout, and you were in it. You busted out set after set, and then you said, “I gotta go back and pack more kettlebells,” because at that time you were working in our warehouse. 

Eric: Yeah, dude. Aubrey was my friend back in the day, and when I graduated high school, I went to college but I needed help paying the bills. I asked Aubrey, “Is there any opportunity for me at Onnit?” He said, “Yeah. Come work in the warehouse. We need your help. We need your muscles.”

So, I started off in the warehouse, taping up boxes and sending off kettlebells to people. I’m grateful for that opportunity because it’s led to all this. Now I’m all about trying to make sure that I keep giving back. I feel like, in general, that’s how life should be—you should always give more than you’re receiving. Eventually, the tides will turn and you’ll end up getting things that you never even dreamed of to come your way. I always try to say yes to opportunities and do what I can to help, and I’ve found that it always comes back to me when I do.

17:10 – How Onnit Certs Helped

The most important phase of my life was all those weekends I spent learning from you, John, at the Onnit certs we put on. For a while, it felt like we were doing a certification or a workshop every other weekend, and it was awesome. I got to see movement practiced from different perspectives, and I expanded my knowledge on training and so many other things. To this day, I’m still incorporating those things that I learned, and expanding on them. The goal going forward, especially after the pandemic, is to continue teaching my own workshops, but also get more education. For me, the most enriching part of being a trainer is connecting with other coaches and also regular Joes who just want to learn how to move. We learn so much from each other because everybody’s got their own way of looking at things.

Through my role as a coach, I’ve gotten to connect with leaders in our industry—people like Dr. Mark Cheng, the FRC crew [Functional Range Conditioning certification], and Dr. Andreo Spina. Ken Blackburn put me through my first kettlebell certification, the IKFF one. I took Dr. John Rusin’s PPSC course. Then, of course, you, John, and Shane Heins [Onnit’s Director of Community Engagement], have been huge influences. Without you guys, I wouldn’t be here. You showed me the way. I’m so grateful to have met you, trained with you, and had you both as mentors. 

Before you guys, I used to be scared to ask for help. I had the fake-it-till-you-make-it attitude. But when I heard you and Shane speak at these certifications, you’d say, “Empty your cup, so you can fill it and have more to share.” That made me not afraid to ask questions and get help. All fitness coaches should combine forces and work together. Apart from all the movement skills I learned at the certs, the underlying message was always to be open and non-dogmatic in your thinking. 

24:47 – How Primal Swoledier Eats

Right now I eat a lot of white rice. I’ve been training really hard and I make this garlic rice to help me recover—it’s so delicious. For protein, I eat a lot of chicken, steak, and fish. I try not to eat a lot of processed carbs. I’ll eat white rice, especially post-workout, and then tons of veggies. Every now and then I’ll have a cheeseburger if I’m in New York City and I’m like, “You know what? I’m just going to eat this burger or eat this pizza.” But, 90% of the time, I like to do home-cooked meals.

30:55 – Eric’s Favorite Unconventional Equipment

Definitely the kettlebell. OK, also the slush ropes [a hybrid jump rope and battle rope that can be used in flows to work mobility and conditioning]. They’re fun, man. I’m connecting with AJ Londono, who’s @flowwithaj on Instagram, to learn more about slush ropes. He’s coming with me to New York this weekend to help me coach a workout at the Adidas store. We’re also going to be in the Dominican Republic in September, teaching people how to rope flow. We’re going to have some fun out there in the DR.

34:05 – Erics’s Favorite Supplements

It’s a toss up between the Total Nitric Oxide^® and Shroom Tech^® SPORT. I can really feel my endurance when I take Shroom Tech SPORT and I ride my bike around the neighborhood, or when I’m doing boxing on the punching bag. When I don’t take it, I feel like I’m moving through cement. So I take four capsules in the morning before I do my cardio. And I like to take the nitric oxide before my weight training, because it gives me some sick pumps, and I like looking vascular when I’m working out [laughs]. I also love Onnit’s protein powders—the grass-fed whey is super high quality. The new Protein Bites too. The Cookies N’ Cream flavor… the white coating around the chocolate is delicious. I didn’t know I needed that in my life until now. 

38:25 – Bike Recommendations

I’m not a bike expert. I just got into riding about a year ago and I have a gravel bike—but I don’t even know what that means. It was a gift, and I ended up getting another one for my mother recently. A gravel bike can be a little bit pricier than a road bike because it’s supposed to be able to go onto the road and on the trails. I got my mom the gravel bike because I want to take her on the trails with me. She’s pushing 56, and I’m trying to get her back in the gym, but also riding with me. She says that riding a bicycle for her is a little bit more fun than picking up kettlebells. She likes to ride around at sunset and we’ve been trying to hit it at least two or three times a week in the evenings.

40:30 – The Last Movie Eric Liked

Cyrano. It has the guy who plays Tyrion Lannister on Game of Thrones in it [Peter Dinklage]. It was so good. I hadn’t read that story before, so it caught me by surprise how good it was.

42:00 – Does Eric Take Caffeine?

I love caffeine. But I go through phases. I’ll go really hard taking it for a few weeks and then I’m like, “OK, I’m starting to burn out a little bit. I’m consuming way too much caffeine. Let me take a little bit of a break.” I’ll take a week or two off from it to let my adrenals reset. Then I’ll do only Shroom Tech SPORT, since it doesn’t have a lot of caffeine, but it still helps me get that energy that I need. I hate having to drinking 1,000 milligrams or more of caffeine just to feel something. You got to cut back and try to take it easy when it gets to that point.

I make sure to stop taking caffeine no later than two o’clock. Before bed, I’ll take some New MOOD^® or some magnesium. That always helps me unwind and relax before bed, and it gives me some cool dreams too.

44:00 – How Eric Does Kettlebell Flows

When I was starting out, I was just having fun and putting together movements that felt natural. I’m really into superheroes and comic books, so I was like, “Oh it would look so cool, and I bet it would feel badass, if I did this with the kettlebell, and then landed in a kneeling position, and then cleaned it over here, and then snatched it.” I was just trying to be creative like that. Now I’ve nailed down the movements that I like, but I want to add more to the arsenal and expand it. And so that’s where I’m at right now—I’m trying to be even more creative again and step it up.

46:15 – His Workout Playlist

You don’t want to listen to what I’m listening to [laughs]. I have a whole lot of Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez. No, I’m just kidding. Honestly, my friends send me playlists. I listen to my friends’ playlist because I’m so bad at creating my own. If I make one, I’ll listen to the same stuff for years. That’s why I just ask my friends, “Hey, send me the dope stuff you’re listening to now.” Go look at @flowwithaj. Just go through his reels and look at all his tracks. 

47:35 – Surviving COVID-19

It was rough. If you’re coming back from COVID, I would suggest not worrying about working out. Make sure you’re eating, drinking plenty of fluids. I’m no doctor, but you don’t want to stress your body out more than it’s already being stressed out when it’s sick. So talk to your doctor and see when it’s OK to start working out again. I listened to my doctor and she said, “If you can breathe, if you’re not coughing, then it’s OK to start doing some body weight movements and just make sure you’re not pushing yourself too hard, too fast.” 

50:10 – Kettlebell Weight Recommendations

John: We have a viewer who asks, “I’m 5’6″ and weigh 150 pounds. What size kettlebell should I use?”

Eric: For most males I recommend starting off with a 12 kilogram bell, which is about 25 pounds. That’s pretty standard. The 16kg can get heavy with overhead pressing, but you may want to get a 12 and a 16kg, because eventually you want to be able to do some swings with a heavier weight.

52:10 – What He Eats On Cheat Days

There’s no crappy food, in my opinion. It’s all amazing and delicious [laughs]. But if I cave in, I’ll order an Italian sandwich with tons of cheese. I’ll get three different cheeses, all the meats, and just eat that all day—this huge sandwich. I love sandwiches and burgers and pizzas.

Oh, man, there’s this pizza that I had recently in New York. It was a tie-dye pizza at this place called Ruby Rosa. It’s New York style pizza, thin crust, but it had three different sauces. And I added pepperonis, which apparently you’re not supposed to do, but I love pepperoni, so I don’t care. It had pesto, vodka sauce, and tomato sauce. Oh, dude, it was amazing. Best pizza I ever had.

But I don’t really have cheat days. I feel like having a cheat day makes me look at food as punishment, or a reward, when it should just be looked at as nutrition. Healthy foods can taste good, so when I cook at home, I try to make things taste good. A cheat meal for me is not necessarily something that’s fast food. When I cheat, I’m usually just indulging in a little bit extra of what I’d normally have. I’ll have an extra helping of some rib eye with some avocado. Just eating more than I usually would is like a cheat for me. I still try to make sure I’m eating high quality foods.

You pay a price for eating processed foods like junk food, fast food, and drinking alcohol… I feel like crap for a long time afterward. Especially as I as get older. When I was 21, 22, 23, I could eat whatever I wanted and feel fine. Now, I’m like, “Whoa, this is what the older guys were talking about. This sucks.” So be more mindful of what you eat, but you also have to level up your cooking game. There’s this funny reel that I shared the other day of this big Mexican guy cooking some fish. The narrator says, “Marry somebody who can cook, because beauty fades, but hunger doesn’t.” [Laughs]

56:10 – How He Trained Before Kettlebells

I grew up doing barbell training and dumbbells, but it wasn’t until I started using kettlebells that I really learned the proper mechanics of how to move. Kettlebells allowed me to condition my body using lighter weights. Then, when I went back to training with barbells, I was stronger than ever. Now, I like to combine both kinds of training so that I can keep maximizing my gains in all areas—mobility, strength, and conditioning. That comes from using all the tools at your disposal.

57:30 – Does Eric Ever Get Off Track with His Training?

I used to when I would train solo. But now that I’ve created a training group where we hold each other accountable, it’s a lot harder to fall off track. You have to find a team and surround yourself with them, even if it’s virtually. Connecting with people online can be just as powerful. You can check in with each other on Facebook and support each other [Editor’s note: the Onnit Tribe exists for this reason]. Check in, like, “I did the workout today. How did you do? How was it? How’d you feel?” It’s so much easier to stay on track when your peers are also there with you because you’re like, “Damn, I can’t give up because I’ll let down my team.”

59:10 – How You Can Train with Eric In Person

Stay tuned to my social media channels. I’ll be pumping out events that I have coming up. I’m currently planning workshops for the rest of the year, and you’re totally welcome to come to any one of them. You can also come and work out with me and we can hang after and have a Q&A. Sign up for my email list [at ericleija.com].

1:00:50 – One Training Tip for Everybody

Keep showing up. Even if you’re not feeling it, just show up. Obviously, if you’re hurting, don’t injure yourself further, but show up and be consistent with your training, because you’re not always going to feel motivated. You’re not always going to have all this energy to crush it, and you don’t need to. You can go hard some days, and focus on mobility other days, but do something. That’ll keep you on track.

When I used to think, “Go hard every single day,” I used to get hurt a lot. I used to burn myself out. Now that I’ve balanced it out, I’ll go hard some days and then I’ll do an active recovery day where I just go cycle around the neighborhood. As long as you’re doing a little something every day, that’s enough.

See our profile on Eric Leija, chronicling how he went from a chubby kid to the beast he is today.

The post “Give More Than You Receive”: Eric Leija’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Sean Hyson, Editor-in-Chief of this blog, speaks to Onnit Chief Fitness Officer John Wolf about how he integrated unconventional training with old-school strength work for greater longevity. See the video of Sean’s interview below, along with an edited transcript of the highlights, time-stamped so you can find those moments in the video, and stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV), where a new one appears every other week.

Sean Hyson Show Notes

3:45 – What Sean Does at Onnit

I was brought on in 2016 to run the Onnit blog. I’ve been writing and editing fitness, nutrition, health, and lifestyle content for almost 20 years now, and the latest, greatest stuff is on our blog, so check it out at onnit.com/academy. I’ve evolved from that role to where I’m doing a lot of the copywriting as well—landing pages for our products, including the new Alpha BRAIN^® Black Label and Focus Shot, and our fitness equipment. A lot of the stuff you see up on the main Onnit site now has been written or edited by me. I also do emails, social media copy, and whatever else needs to be written around here, as needed. The Onnit team usually rings me up to do it. [Laughs]

It’s been an honor to work here, and it’s been a lot of fun. I like that Onnit allows you to use a voice that has some humor and lightheartedness to it, so it’s not just straight science all the time. Onnit as a brand has a lot of personality—and a lot of personalities behind it—and it’s great to be able to bring those to the forefront with articles and interviews.

6:05 – How Sean Found Onnit

I was the fitness editor and then the training director for Men’s Fitness and Muscle & Fitness magazines for many years, overseeing all the fitness content, and living in New York City. I was in the magazine world for a long time and wrote a book for the Men’s Fitness brand—101 Best Workouts Of All Time. I’d been a fan of the Onnit brand for a while, having found it through Joe Rogan, of course, and some of the UFC fighters that Onnit sponsored at the time. In the summer of 2015, I was attending a fitness conference, and I happened to meet you, John, and a lot of the other people at Onnit—Aubrey Marcus was at that conference too. We started a connection there, and about a year later, I spoke to Aubrey again.

I was writing an article for Men’s Fitness about up and coming supplement companies to look out for, and I said to my editors, “Let me write about Onnit. I know some of the guys over there, and I like what they’re doing. They have a different take on supplementation. Their products are clean, well-sourced, and they work. This is something that people should know about.”

I ended up interviewing Aubrey for that article over the phone. I guess we hit it off, because he practically offered me a job right there. He was talking about how well Onnit takes care of its employees, and how happy everybody is there. They have a gym on site and all these great amenities and perks. I said, “Well, if you need any help, if you have an extra seat around the office, I’d love to come down.” He said I should come interview for a new position as blog editor, and, very shortly after that, I showed up in Austin, Texas.

7:45 – How the Jerky Boys Brought Sean and Onnit Together

John: I remember hanging out with you at the conference where you first met the Onnit team. I remember you and some of the other guys who were attending quoting The Jerky Boys comedy prank phone calls all night.

Sean: [Laughs] Well, that’s always a strategy I use to make a good impression on people when I meet them for the first time. I try to bring up obscure 90s comedy sketches, and if they can talk about that, I figure we can talk about anything.

John: I think I liked your guys’ version of the phone calls better than the original recordings.

Sean:  I’m still available to do Sol Rosenberg impressions upon request.

10:10 – Did Onnit Live Up to the Hype?

I can honestly sit here and tell you that everything that I was promised about Onnit came true. The work/life balance was great. The amenities were great. I remember walking into the building the first time and seeing all the women wearing yoga pants. Everybody was in gym clothes—not just in the gym, but at their desks, too. It was just such a casual, friendly environment. Coming from New York and the very formal world of publishing, to see people just being themselves and dressing casually and living that workout lifestyle was really exciting.

Most of the staff at the fitness magazines I worked for were just professional journalists. They were just there to do a job. They didn’t care what magazine they worked for, and most of them had no passion for fitness or health. We used to kid around by saying, “How many packs a day does the average Men’s Fitness employee smoke?” Because many of them were smokers as well. Here, these people were writing articles about how to be healthier, but virtually none of them were really living by those guidelines.

At Onnit, everybody was living the lifestyle they were promoting, and they were also having a great time, too. We had a massage room, and kombucha on tap. Some of those perks have morphed a little bit since the pandemic hit and many people are working remotely now, but I still think it’s the best job I’ve ever had and the best office environment I’ve ever been a part of.

We’ve had so many brilliant people coming in there to offer services—whether it’s dry needling therapy, massage, or seminars or workshops—and these people became part of the Onnit community, too. They got absorbed into our world, and we all became friends. This enormous community has developed so naturally from the unique kind of office that Onnit created. 

15:25 – Sean’s Best Interviews

How many times have I interviewed you, John? I’ve done articles with you and Shane Heins [Onnit Director of Education], Juan Leija [former Director of Fitness Programming], and Eric Leija. I’ve interviewed a bunch of our influencers and sponsored athletes, including Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone and Tim Kennedy. That’s been the best part of my job, probably—the networking and the ability to have these conversations with interesting people and learn something new from them. I can remember tips I got from coaches that I interviewed many, many years ago that I still use in my own workouts today—diet tips and general health stuff, and life advice as well. It’s amazing what you pick up being a journalist for so many years. Although I wish I remembered more of it than I do [laughs]. But what I have retained has been life-changing.

For anybody who doesn’t know, go to our blog and check out Angi Sanders’ story. She’s works in our customer service department and is a moderator for our Onnit Tribe now on Facebook and Discord. She’s come that far along. She has an amazing story. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll walk away with a new perspective on life. She’s just one of many people I met through Onnit that has been amazing to talk to.

18:40 – How Sean is Helping to Change the Public’s Perception of Onnit

I think when I started, the perception most people had of Onnit then was that it was a brand for hardcore MMA fans and Joe Rogan listeners—something that was just for guys who wanted to swing the mace and the kettlebells around. I think we’ve done a lot with these Onnit Stories to break down that stereotype and make it clear that Onnit can be for everyone. Or at least for a lot more people than it had been serving. Onnit can be for women, for men, younger people, older people, people with injuries, people who are lifelong athletes, and people who are not athletic at all.

I think we can all improve with the information that Onnit is putting out. Being able to meet so many people and talk to them, I found out that one person is just as interesting as the next. Somebody who may not seem super flashy on social media, may not have a great body or a bunch of followers, that person can be just as fascinating to talk to as the classic fitness influencer. You can learn as much or more from that kind of person.

When you talk to enough people, you find out that we’re all basically the same. It’s a shared human experience. To find out that you have something in common with somebody who, on the surface, you would think you could never relate to creates a very human moment. It really makes you feel connected to other people in the world, and it reminds you not to take people on face value or be judgemental.

23:10 – Sean’s Other Writing

​​I’ve done two print books—one for the Men’s Fitness brand, called 101 Best Workouts of All Time, which is just what it sounds like, and one for Men’s Health, called The Encyclopedia of Muscle, which is about all the different training techniques that have been handed down for generations. I’ve done a couple of e-books on my own as well, including The Truth About Strength Training, which includes a 12-week workout program, and I’m working now on a fitness business book with a co-author. 

One of the things I love about Onnit is that they respect the individual. We’re all cogs in a wheel to an extent, trying to serve the greater good of Onnit and the community, but we’re also still individual people with our own needs and interests in things that might lie well outside of what is being sold at Onnit. The top brass at Onnit doesn’t give you a hard time about that. You’re allowed to be yourself and do your own projects as long as they don’t conflict with work, which I think is just common sense. It’s been amazing to see so many people in the gym create these online training businesses using Onnit as a platform. They might go on and do other things, but most of them, to my knowledge, have remained loyal to Onnit. They still show up at Onnit. They still maybe train clients or teach classes at Onnit, and that relationship is maintained. It’s not like we’re all using this place as a springboard and then leaving it behind. It’s more like bringing other things in to coexist with it.

26:15 – What Sean Has Learned From Onnit About Training

One of the first things I learned, and I’m still learning it, is just how to move. The simplest concept ever, right? You’d think it would be the foundation of all fitness education, but so many other places, other authorities in the fitness world, don’t talk about it. How to stand, how to breathe, how to move. These are things that we really should be learning in gym class when we’re kids, but they don’t teach them.

I remember you, John, giving me cues like “level pelvis,” “proud chest.” These are great cues that you have to be mindful of all the time when you’re sitting, when you’re walking around, when you’re exercising. These little things make a big difference as far as the alignment of your body, and they go a long way toward preventing an injury.

I used to take Durability classes at Onnit Gym. A lot of the people who went at that particular hour were bound up, muscular guys who didn’t move so well. I’ve been missing that so much since the pandemic, but I’ve found through the Onnit In 30 programs that are on the website now that I’ve been able to rekindle that fire. I’ve gotten back into the mobility in such a hardcore way, and it makes such a difference. Learning to improve movement skills and range of motion is such a great complement to all the hard strength training that I’ve done over the years.

I’m very bound up in my hips from years of sitting at a desk and writing articles. All the hip series stuff John used to take us through, and that is available in the Morning Mobility and the Move and Groove programs we have in Onnit In 30, can absolutely be like strength training. You’ll be sweating, you’ll be sore, you’ll feel it burning while you’re doing it.

For some people, those exercises very well could be a strength workout all on their own, and that’s totally fine. If that’s challenging you to the point where it feels like a weight workout, that means you need to get stronger there. Once you do, it’s amazing how much better everything else you do feels.

If I can sum up Onnit, it’s that the holistic way is the only way. If you’re in this fitness world long enough, you’re going to find out that you can’t just do the stuff that you like. You can’t just eat the foods you like or do the one or two exercises or workouts that you like. You have to take a little bit of everything and really come at it from a more well-rounded perspective. It’s the only way you’ll be able to sustain it over time. So learn from everybody, take a little bit of this and that, and blend it in a way that works for you.

31:55 – Sean’s Favorite Supplement

It might not be a sexy answer, but I’ll throw it out there, because I think it is helpful. I’ll preface it by saying that for years I tried to gain weight. I was a skinny kid who got into fitness to get bigger, so I would pound food and protein for years and years on end, and it got hard to unlearn that behavior when I wanted to stop. I’m so used to shoveling the food down and trying to eat higher glycemic foods so I’d be hungry enough to eat again soon afterward.

I feel like so much time doing that did some damage to my ability to digest food now. As I’ve gotten older, I feel like, “Oh, it’s harder to break this meal down and come back from it than it used to be.” I get bloated and gas and all that fun stuff more often these days, so DIGESTech^® has been a big help to me in the last couple years. I’m a big believer in the digestive enzymes we have in DIGESTech^®. So I would say start with that, if you’re somebody who likes to eat a lot, like me.

We won’t say that taking enzymes excuses your ability to eat junk food, but when you do eat a big meal or you eat something that’s on the junkier side, it does make it go down easier. You do feel less bad afterward, I think, than you would otherwise.

I remember I interviewed a nutritionist about overeating and strategies for dealing with that. She made the point that you never want to feel like an anaconda that’s just swallowed a deer—and the little legs are sticking out of its mouth. If that’s how you feel and look at the end of a meal, you’ve gone too far. [Laughs]

37:00 – Sean’s Favorite Unconventional Training Equipment 

Being an editor at Muscle & Fitness for years, I was a very conventional trainer doing weightlifting, bodybuilding, and powerlifting. That was my background, and that’s what I trusted. When I got to Onnit, I found that they do all that stuff too at Onnit Gym, but they also do this whole other world of unconventional training. I was kind of reluctant to embrace it at first, since I didn’t really understand it, but I’ve come to respect it. I see all the different gaps it fills that conventional training leaves, and the way that it improves stability and grip strength and, again, movement skills.

I remember when we were beta testing the Onnit 6 Kettlebell program. I was in that first group of people who tried that program, and found that the rotational aspect of moving with the kettlebell was something I really hadn’t done before. I’ve carried that with me to this day. I still throw some kettlebell moves into my training here and there.

The steel club is another one. You meatheads out there like me, if you have tight wrists or a tight back and shoulders from years of pressing exercises, pull out the steel club. Get a light club and do wrist rotations with it. That really helps open up the forearm, the wrist flexor muscles. Pullovers with the club really helps open up the shoulder and the lat. These are things that you don’t have to be a full-blown, die-hard steel club or unconventional training enthusiast to just incorporate into what you’re doing, and they’ll help you get more out of what you’ve been doing. They might open up a whole new path for you, too.

Going back to that pullover with the club, when I learned that exercise, I was like, “Alright, I can use this as a warmup. I can use this as part of a cool-down. I can use this in place of another back exercise on my back or pull day.” Not only is it opening up these muscles, but it’s also teaching me how to move overhead properly. The “ribs down” cue comes into play with that exercise, and it’s such an important one, and something that I really didn’t fully grasp until I got to Onnit. Driving the ribs down, tucking the pelvis under, engaging the core, keeping the whole torso a solid column. That’s so valuable for protecting the lower back and protecting the shoulders, especially when you’re doing any kind of hinge movement or overhead pressing movement.

These are things that you don’t fully learn when you first get into lifting, or nobody really clues you into, but you learn from mistakes—and through pain over time—what not to do. If Onnit helps save you that trouble by teaching you those things with the unconventional equipment, then that’s great. You’ve done yourself a world of good.

44:00 – Sean’s Favorite Article to Write

Angi Sanders’ story is one. This is a woman who had a weight problem for years, and she was very unhealthy and unhappy. She, totally on her own, got into fitness and lost a bunch of weight and has transformed her life to the point where now she’s a fitness coach and a full-time Onnit employee—which had been a longtime goal of hers. She’s just found her niche and has transformed herself so amazingly. You couldn’t help but be inspired by that, no matter how much of a hard-hearted cynic you might be. She’s a great one.

Tim Kennedy was another great interview. MMA fighter, TV star, patriot. I’ll tell you one thing I learned from Kennedy. I asked him, “How are you able to step up and do these UFC fights and go into battle and all these incredibly intense things that you do? Things that most people can’t bear?” He said, “It begins and ends with these little decisions you make every day.” Like going to bed 10 minutes earlier tonight. Drinking water when you first get up in the morning. Deciding not to drink alcohol today. Getting your workout in no matter what. These things seem kind of minuscule and unimportant at the time, but they will add up to massive results over the course of your life, and prepare you to do things that seem impossible.

The post “The Holistic Way Is The Only Way”: Sean Hyson’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Michelle Spain, a wife and mom in Preston, Maryland, used to beat herself up about the number she saw on a scale, but with the help of the Onnit Tribe—our private Facebook support group—and the Onnit 6 Challenges, she was able to accept her body while changing it at the same time. She even quit smoking!

See the live video interview Spain did with Shane Heins, Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education, below. It’s part of our ongoing Onnit Stories series, in which we profile a person who has made an inspiring life change with Onnit in their corner. There’s also an edited transcript of the highlights, if you prefer to read.

You can stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV), where a new one appears every other week. 

Shane Heins: At what point did you start following Onnit, and when did it start playing a role in your progress?

Michelle Spain: I first heard of Onnit many years ago through Joe Rogan’s podcast. I had been ordering Onnit’s MCT Oil for my husband for years since then. Then, in 2020, we all know what happened in the world.

I wondered if I had gained weight since the pandemic began, so I stepped on a scale one day… I had gained seven and a half pounds in a month! I was like, “Oh, my goodness. I need to do something.” I checked my email a few minutes later, and there just happened to be something in there from Onnit. It said, “This is your last chance to sign up for the Onnit 6 Challenge.”

I started checking out the Onnit 6 programs on the website. I didn’t own a barbell, kettlebell, steel club, or steel mace, so I thought, “Well, Bodyweight it is.” I signed up for the Onnit 6 Bodyweight Challenge. I did the program, and, afterward, I was selected as a semi-finalist. Then, I did the next Challenge you offered after that, and I was a finalist in that one.

I learned that these Onnit 6 Challenges are about so much more than just fitness. First, you get to join the Onnit Tribe, which, I think, is like the heart of Onnit. It’s a community. What I found in the Tribe is probably the best thing on the Internet—a group of people that are loving and supportive, and who act as each other’s champions. I’ve learned so much from the people in there—everything from great recipes to great life advice. There’s no talk about politics or anything else that’s controversial, and that’s a breath of fresh air. It’s a genuinely judgment-free zone. 

One thing I learned from the Tribe is that fitness is a journey and not a destination. I used to think that when I got to a certain place, when I lost 10 pounds, when I gained muscle, then I would be happy or satisfied. But that doesn’t happen. You’re always striving to improve and grow. It’s funny that stepping on the scale is what sent me to Onnit, because now I know that the scale is one of the least important parts of your fitness journey.

We had a challenge in the Tribe to write a love letter to yourself. It’s weird how difficult that is to do. But I wrote one in Sharpie, saying, “You got this bitch.” Fitness is more about the mind than the body. It’s like, once you’ve got things in your mind right, the body follows suit. It comes along for the ride.

Sometimes, by giving yourself space to do the physical, and view the physical as a vehicle for everything else, you get the ball rolling to improve lots of aspects of your life.

Yes! Another thing I learned was grace and acceptance. The kind of love and grace that we give so freely to others, why is it so hard to give that to ourselves? And that’s not to say that doing that suddenly makes everything perfect; you’re just better equipped to know how to cope and handle the sticky, icky things in life when you do.

One of the ways I cope is by working out. I love my steel mace! I used to think weight training was boring but I love the mace.

However, before you found Onnit, you were fit. You even taught yoga.

Yes, I taught yoga and a bunch of cardio classes. I didn’t like weight training, so I just told myself I’d burn more calories by doing a ton of extra cardio to get lean. But lifting heavy stuff is fun if you find a program you like.

I love what you’re saying because, traditionally, Onnit has had a mostly young male audience. But inside the company, we’ve always had a super-accepting atmosphere that welcomed all people and fitness levels. We all work out together. One of the pillar principles of the Onnit education system is Unity in Diversity. We all have various strengths, and we want to bring them together and offer a much more holistic brand of fitness.

It’s been so cool to see our audience evolve to represent more of what Onnit really is—which is you, me, him, her, them, they, and everybody. 

I happen to know that you kept a “dark secret” from the people you were training before you took your first Challenge. Would you mind sharing that secret, and how going through your second Onnit 6 Challenge helped you with that?

Yeah, I was a yoga teacher and a cigarette smoker. I had gotten busted by one of my students—she caught me in my car puffing! It was super embarrassing. But by the end of my second Challenge, I was able to quit smoking. Halfway through it I was thinking, “What am I doing? I’m smarter than this.” When the lady who caught me found out I finally quit, she was more excited about it than I was. 

Having all the people who support you in the Tribe was a big part of my being able to quit. And recently, I had a lady in the Tribe reach out and tell me that reading my story helped her quit cigarettes as well. It goes to show that opening up and sharing your story will affect somebody else. Not “might” affect—it will. And it may even inspire that person to be one percent better today. That small percentage of improvement is what it’s all about. I used to be under the impression that if I couldn’t go gung ho today, I might as well not do anything. But I learned that one percent, or even half a percent, if that’s all you have to give today, is totally fine—as long as you give it. That’s progress. Keep moving forward.

But you have to accept that everyone’s a human being, and we’re not all going to do what’s best all the time. I’ll give you another example of acceptance. I had a phone call with a member of the Tribe one time, and I was telling him that I don’t understand why my husband and son won’t work out with me. “Why don’t they want to do the Onnit 6 program with me? It’s great. I try to get them to do this and do that but they won’t.” And that’s when he said, “Well, there’s your problem. You’re trying to get them to do things.” He told me to use the time I work out for myself, and if my family sees it and they say, “I want to try that too,” then great. But I have to accept that it may not be right for them at the moment.

The biggest thing for me is gratitude, and being grateful is something we’re reminded of every day in the Tribe. I like to say, “EAT PIE,” which is an acronym for “Ever and always thankful; perspective is everything.” Having the attitude of gratitude opens more doors for you, in ways you can’t understand. It’s like the universe goes, “Oh, you’re thankful? Here’s more abundance for you.”

Another thing about perspective. A lot of people don’t want to videotape themselves. That was actually the first hurdle that I had to jump over in my first Challenge. I had seen all these other people posting all these great videos where they’re working out. I was like, “I want to do that.” But I was afraid. I was afraid to show myself—to show my physical body like that. So, once I got past that hurdle, there was a little piece of me that was like, “Well, hey, that wasn’t even that bad.” Everybody was super kind and really cool and supportive about it, saying, “Great video. Get it, girl. Way to go.” All these positive comments started coming in, and I thought, “Wow, I can do this.”

I feel like it’s a similar process for many people in the Tribe. They go on and type, “This is my first time posting. I’m a little nervous about posting here.” They don’t put up any pictures or videos. But once they do, they can’t stop themselves. So I want to tell people, don’t be afraid to post in the Tribe. I can understand if you don’t want to post on other Facebook pages, but the Tribe is a place where you can put it all out there.

I posted about losing my best friend. I put up a video of me working out with the mace and just sobbing at the same time. What I did when I started posting videos was I did not look at them. I’d just shoot them and then put them up. Because if I looked at the video, I’d say, “Well, there’s a little bit of jelly roll hanging out there.” Instead, I just posted. Like, whatever, it’ll be fine.

We’re running out of time, but I always like to end by asking the person what Onnit products they’ve tried and what has worked for them. So what are your favorites and go-tos? Let’s start with supplements.

Total Human^®.

Food?

My hubby has been using MCT Oil for years. For me, personally, the Cookie Dough Protein Bites.

Fitness tool?

Steel mace.

Fitness program?

I love the steel mace Onnit 6 but I feel like the Bodyweight program is the best one for me. It’s well-rounded. You don’t need any equipment to do it. All you need is you.

What advice would you give someone going through their first Onnit 6 program or Challenge?

Get in the Tribe. Don’t be afraid to share, because whatever you share will help someone else, and it will inevitably help you as well. If you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask them. Don’t give up. I know some days are hard, but trust me, they get easier. Self-care is not selfish.

Funny you say that, because this was a theme in our last Onnit Story: the idea of self-care versus selfishness.

They’re opposites. If you take care of yourself, you are a better partner to your wife, husband, whatever. You’re a better parent. You’re a better community member. If you are taking care of yourself, you’re going to be happier. Therefore, everyone else around you will inevitably be happier. It just blooms and blossoms, and it’s wonderful.

See a previous article we did with Michelle HERE.

The post “Grace and Acceptance”: Michelle Spain’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Stanford shares his journey of turning passion into profit with Onnit’s Director of Fitness Education, Shane Heins, in the latest installment of our ongoing Onnit Stories series—live interviews with regular people who have allowed Onnit to help them make incredible life changes.

See below for the full interview, as well as an edited transcript of some of the highlights. And stay up to date with Onnit Stories by following Onnit’s Instagram TV (IGTV).

Shane Heins: What brought you and Onnit together?

Kenny Stanford: It was 2012, and I was about to turn 30 years old. I was overweight, out of shape, and was not living up to what I knew to be my true potential. I had two small children, and I wanted to be somebody they could look up to. So I kind of had this moment where I knew something had to change. Then I found this thing called Spartan Race.

I did one of their races, and I was just completely hooked. I started scouring the Internet for other races, and I was training like a madman, thinking, “I’m going to be the best obstacle-course racer of all time.” So, just like anybody else, anytime I would do something super cool in training, I would put it on Facebook or Instagram. I would post about it. [Laughs]

Now, all throughout high school, I was the opposite of athletic. I hated anything sports-related. People knew I didn’t like to sweat. And now, all of a sudden, through social media, they see me crushing these Spartan Races and other obstacle-course races and local 5Ks, and they’re like, “What happened to you? This is not the same person.” They started seeking my advice. Like, “Hey, how can I get involved in this? How do you train for this? How do you do that?” I began looking for those answers, not just for myself, but for others too.

One of the things that really motivated me to start getting in shape was my sister-in-law. She went from being overweight and out of shape to being this personal trainer. So I watched her do that, and that made me think I could do it too. One thing led to another, she started a gym, and I asked if I could coach for that gym. That ended up being my first experience in coaching.

I had no training other than participating in the classes that she taught, so I thought, “I’ll just do what she did, and that’s how I’ll coach.” I coached like that for roughly two years. I built up a group of about 20 clients, and they were consistent. Then my sister-in-law came to me and she was like, “Hey, we’re moving the gym.” At that point, I was getting kind of burned out on the coaching, so when she told me she was moving the gym, I said, “I’m going to stop coaching for now.” But when I let my group know that, they said, “No, that’s not going to work for us. You’ve got to keep coaching!” So I thought, “OK, I’ll open my own gym.” In January of 2016, we opened Grit Fitness.

From everything that I had tried, and scoured on the Internet, and learned from other fitness coaches in the area, I pieced together the programming for Grit Fitness. But I still wasn’t a certified trainer. 

So I started doing my research, and I’m looking for a certification that I want. I wanted something that I can really use, not just a piece of paper. I didn’t need the credentials to attract clients—people were walking in the door every day, and they aren’t asking about my certs. I had about 80 members by April 2016, but I still wanted to get the best education I could. 

So, I believe it was May of 2016. I went to Onnit for the first time. It was me, and, I think, three other coaches from Grit who weren’t certified. As soon as I saw the Onnit Gym, right away, I thought, “This is spot-on exactly what I’ve been looking for.” I took the kettlebell certification, and it was amazing. 

For those who aren’t aware, Onnit offers an education system that teaches a foundational baseline—not only around fitness, but around understanding movement and coaching and using movement for personal development. What were some of the key things that you took away from that certification course?

I knew what I wanted Grit Fitness to be about, but I did not know how to articulate it in the way that Onnit does so well. So prior to opening Grit Fitness, I was more about go, go, go, faster, faster, faster, stronger, stronger, stronger, all day, every day. I hadn’t quite stumbled upon the importance of recovery yet. I didn’t realize the toll that hard training can take on you if you don’t have recovery as a part of the program.

When I got to Onnit, I saw there are messages on the walls of the gym. It says, “Longevity,” “performance,” “Total Human Optimization.” I realized then that that’s what I was after—not how much I can beat myself up every workout, but how I can train intelligently to get stronger over the longest period of time. I want Grit Fitness to be a place where people can come and get the tools that they need to be the most well-rounded person that they can be. And it’s not always just about your mile time or your belt line or anything like that.

When my trainers and I went to Onnit, the lights came on for everybody. I was literally able to say, “This. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you guys Grit Fitness should be about.” Honestly, today, a lot of coaches and gyms are pushing this stuff, these ideas, and I think it’s in large part thanks to Onnit.

But as far as specific takeaways from the Onnit cert? I’ll tell you one major takeaway: you think you know how to swing a kettlebell until somebody who knows how to swing a kettlebell shows you. For the first several months that Grit Fitness was open, I did not know how to swing a kettlebell properly. My back hurt for the better part of two to three years, and I could not get that lower-back pain to go away. But within 30 days after leaving the Onnit Academy the first time and being coached by you guys, my back stopped hurting.

In terms of opening up your space and growing your business, you went about it a very different way. Maybe you can share a bit about that.

Yeah, it’s funny that you say, “a very different way.” I didn’t know a way. I was new to all of this. I had no clue what I was doing, so I just made up a way.

None of our coaches at Grit have a fitness background. They are members of our gym that have come up through the ranks and showed themselves to be proficient in everything that we teach here—all the way from the movements to the discipline to the mindset. They become those go-to people that other members seek out for help and information, even if they aren’t a coach. The same way that I started!

So we take those people and we ask them, “Hey, do you want to be a coach?” We use part of the Onnit system to train those coaches now. The first thing they have to do is go to the Onnit Academy. That is the entry point for all of our coaches. And they always have the same experience that I did when I went there. The lights just turn on for them. And it’s kind of bittersweet for me, because I’m like, “What am I not saying to you that these guys are saying?” Because I’m trying to say the same thing [laughs]. Onnit just teaches these ideas so well.

It’s a testament to what you’ve helped create, Shane, and just what the Onnit Academy embodies. Your educational system is just… it’s tops. So, our coaches would have this epiphany and they would come back and be even more on fire. I’ve been to the Foundations cert six times. I’ve done several of the other certifications and taken people every single time I’ve gone. We pay for it each time. Between all the coaches in my gym, we may have 30 certifications through the Onnit Academy. Maybe more.

What is the extent of Grit Fitness now? How many locations do you have?

We started with one 1,800 square-foot location and now we have three locations. We’ve got a new building at the original location, 6,000 square-feet here in West Columbia, and it’s very much Onnit inspired. We’ve got the same big green turf. We’ve also got a location in Bay City, just 30 minutes down the road, and then, 30 minutes down the road in the other direction, we’ve got another location in Lake Jackson. So, three different gyms total. They are all doing very well. Made it through last year nice and strong and things are looking real good this year.

Amazing. It all started with you wanting to set a better example for your family, so can we swing back around and you can share how this all has helped with your children?

Yeah, absolutely. I had two kids when it all started and now I have five. The youngest is five, and the oldest will be 15 in August. We have a kids program here at Grit, and they’ve all been a part of that. Fitness is integrated in every part of our family life.

We’re always pushing our kids and leading by example so they learn to do things that are kind of outside of their comfort zone, but with intention and purpose. That word “intention…” I can’t help but think of you, Shane, and Onnit, because you use that word and articulate the meaning so well. You’ve taught me that, basically, everything you do in training needs to have some sort of purpose. So even our suffering, when we get uncomfortable, it needs to have some sort of purpose.

My kids, they’re normal kids. They fight me on it sometimes, but I’ve taught them, through fitness, to stick to things that they said they’d do. I will tell you, all of the things that I’ve learned from Grit, from opening a business, to fitness, to all the different races I have done, it’s all helped in the parenting side of things. They give you perspective, and to be a good parent, you need lots of perspective.

It’s funny you say that, because I get asked about my kids all the time. People are like, “Oh my gosh, your kids must be in crazy shape. Do you get them to do all these different fitness things?” And I have to explain that, just like anybody else, my kids are their own individuals. I want to provide an example, and, like you said, they’ll often fight me on it, but I still show up for them. In this day and age, to give the kids an opportunity to be uncomfortable, to suffer with intention and purpose for some kind of fitness goal, can really be valuable.

Yeah, and I’ll give you just a quick example. We do a lot of events here at Grit Fitness. We’ve got Crash Dash, which is an obstacle-course race. We’ve got the Grit Games, which is like the toughest obstacle-course racing event of all time—five events in one. And then we also have the Grit Ultra, which we host every year on New Year’s. So it starts on New Year’s Eve at noon, and we run until noon the next day. It’s a 4.16-mile loop course, and every hour on the hour, you start another loop. If you can’t finish it within the hour, you’re out.

So, anyways, we had that event this past year and my kids put together a relay team. My two oldest kids, they’re 14 and 12, put together a four-person relay team for this 100-mile race. It started raining the second the race began, and it was chilly. By the third loop, it was pouring buckets of rain, and we’re all running in mud. There are a couple of creek crossings on the route, and when we got to them, they were so flooded that if you wanted to cross you had to swim. So people were swimming across the creek.

It was 2:00 a.m., and I just remember thinking, “When I was 12 years old, if you had told me, ‘Hey, Kenny, you should do this race,’ I wouldn’t have done it for anything. But here I was, sitting there shivering, freezing, and thinking, “My kids are crazy. What have I created? They’re doing this!” But I told them every lap, “Hey, if you want to quit, quit. But I want you to think about how you are going to feel about quitting later.”

Sometimes we quit things when we still have it in us to do them. I could tell my son wanted to stop, but at the same time he was saying, “I don’t want to be the guy that lets my team down.”

No one ended up finishing the race, because of the weather. But my kids held on all through the flooding and were the second to last team to drop out.

Where can someone get information about Grit Fitness and the events you put on?

Grit Fitness TX on Facebook. That’s the best place to find out what events we have going on. The next event we have coming up is July 31st and August 1st and it is the Grit Games. We also have a series of obstacle-course races that we will be putting on throughout the year.

See more Onnit Stories HERE.

The post “I Made Up A Way”: Kenny Stanford’s Onnit Story appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Just completing the workouts would have been enough for most people, but Marcus managed to gain eight pounds over the course of six weeks, and won the whole contest. “Truthfully, [the training] was more therapeutic than it was challenging,” says the 33 year-old Denver man with a smile. “Exercise is the best medicine.”

You Never Think It Could Happen To You…

Marcus wasn’t the type to take life for granted. The CEO of his own startup media company, he was also a business coach, musician, yogi, outdoorsman, and, as his friends would tell you, the gracious host of many a pool party and backyard barbecue. “Until August 2019, I was in great shape,” he says. That’s when he was diagnosed with cancer.

It had started as stomach pain after dinner at a friend’s house, so, at first, Marcus suspected he had food poisoning. But the agony built throughout the night and into the next day until he was forced to go to the hospital. There, doctors examined him and discovered a growth in his chest. He was sent to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for special treatment.

“It doesn’t serve me to think about why it happened,” says Marcus. “I ate my fruits and vegetables, and exercised regularly. Cancer just hit me out of nowhere. My mom was devastated. But she’s a doctor herself, and we knew that I had a good chance of beating it.”

While he hoped for the best, Marcus was enduring the worst. The cancer ulcerated his stomach, causing unbearable pain. With no appetite to eat, Marcus had to be force fed through a feeding tube, a procedure he says he “wouldn’t wish on anybody.” A little more than a month after being diagnosed, he had lost 30 pounds, his bodyweight dropping to a gaunt and ghostly 126.

“They don’t know why it became a digestive issue,” says Marcus, “but Hodgkin’s tends to be very inflammatory, and it shows itself in differing ways. They told me mine was one of the most unique cases the Mayo Clinic had ever seen.”

Nevertheless, the chemotherapy treatments were effective, and Marcus began to get better. By February 2020, the growth in his chest was no longer visible on a PET scan, and his condition stabilized. Able to eat on his own again, Marcus’ doctors encouraged him to take in as many calories as he could to help him put on weight, but he didn’t want to eat indiscriminately.

“I had been taking so many medications that I did not subscribe to ethically,” says Marcus. “It was hard to sit there and take chemo and listen to doctors say they just want to see me put weight back on and they don’t even care if it’s fat. As long as I got back up to 155 pounds, they didn’t care if I was drinking milkshakes all day. ‘Yeah,’ I thought, ‘If I do that, I might weigh 155 again, but I’d be in worse shape than I was when I was in the depths of the cancer.’ I didn’t want to trade cancer for being pre-diabetic! I thought, ‘I have to take this on myself.’”

Marcus was cleared to return to Denver that March, though he remained on a chemotherapy regimen. He hired a nutritionist, and researched diets that have shown promise with cancer patients, ultimately leaning toward a low-carb approach. “I started using lots of Onnit products to help with low-carb eating,” Marcus says. He found that MCT Oil added flavor to his coffee without adding sugar, and Krill Oil supplied healthy fats.

Marcus didn’t want to gain weight by food alone. He wanted to regain the muscle he’d had before he got sick, and that would require some form of strength training. The Covid-19 pandemic swept the country that month, closing gyms in its wake, but Marcus still had his backyard. “My roommate, Adam, who had been a huge support for me throughout my illness, found out about the Onnit 6 Challenge,” says Marcus. “He said, ‘Why don’t we do it together? It will make for a great story when we’re done.’”

Building Disciplines

The Onnit 6 (O6) Challenge is a six-week fitness transformation contest where the goal isn’t just a better body but a fuller life. Participants choose an Onnit 6 workout program—streamable video workouts led by Onnit trainers that can be done from home—and aim to establish healthy habits they can sustain long-term. Winners are the individuals (one male and one female) who demonstrate the greatest improvements physically, mentally, and spiritually. Grand prizes include free Onnit products, access to all O6 programs for life, and $6,000 in cash. The contests are held several times annually.

Marcus and his roommate signed up for the spring kettlebell Challenge, beginning in April 2020. Though he was still undergoing nauseating treatments, Marcus was determined to build himself back up, and he established a schedule that kept him focused. “Starting is always the hardest thing in any commitment,” he says, “so I built my own disciplines to stay on track with my recovery.”

Marcus got up every day at 7:30 a.m. to meditate. At 8, he and his roommate did their Onnit 6 training. Then he’d have coffee with MCT Oil, or eat a bone broth soup, and try to get some work done. Lunch was often a Cobb salad with eggs and avocado for extra fats, and dinner would be salmon with asparagus or grass-fed steak and broccoli. Along the way, Marcus kept a journal.

“You need healthy tools that let you express yourself and release the pressure valve, emotionally,” says Marcus. “We tend to relive negative emotions and events in our life, and we don’t pay attention to how that directly affects our current state. If you’re sitting there dwelling on bad news, you still have those negative chemicals running through your body. But writing in a journal really helps get them out. Seeing words form on the page helps you move forward. So, if I felt myself relapsing to a dark place and feeling negative, I could go back and read how I was the day I last felt that way and it would make me feel like that’s an emotion of the past now. Thinking about it that way, I don’t have to choose to stay in that negative moment. I can choose to be positive again.”

Gaining Muscle… On Chemo?!

Marcus downplays the rigors of performing his kettlebell workouts on chemo. Yes, he was often in pain, but he had his roommate to hold him accountable and encourage him, as well as the Onnit Tribe—the Facebook group that Onnit 6 Challengers join to lend support during the contest. In spite of the intensity of the training, his O6 sessions were often the highlight of his day.

“It always sucks to work out in the morning, because you’re tired and you don’t want to,” says Marcus. “But once the endorphins start flowing—and especially once you’re finished—you feel empowered and great for the rest of the day… I’m a big believer in just showing up,” says Marcus with a laugh.

O6 workouts offer three levels of difficulty. Since he was still on the mend, Marcus mainly chose exercises from the most basic tier, Level 1, sometimes pushing to Level 2 when he was up to it. He never needed to regress to easier moves than what the program offered, and he was able to hang in there for all its challenging training protocols, including EMOMS, circuits, and Tabatas.

Marcus’ strength came back quickly. He started with a 25-pound kettlebell and was swinging the 35-pounder by the end of six weeks (none of the O6 kettlebell workouts require heavier weight than that). When the program began, he weighed 145 pounds. By the end, he was 153—nearly the size he had been before he’d gotten sick. “Onnit 6 brought back the definition I had in my shoulders and my abs,” says Marcus.

While his physical comeback was inspiring, Marcus impressed the O6 Challenge judges even more with his humble (and relentlessly positive) attitude. He never asked for special treatment or sympathy, and even seemed somewhat unable to recognize just how far he’d come.

“When I got home from the Clinic,” says Marcus, “I asked people how they were doing, and they’d say things like, ‘Oh, things aren’t great with the wife,’ or, ‘Business isn’t going well, but it’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through.’ I found that they would belittle their own emotions. But I’ve learned that everybody has problems, and the more we can be transparent and support each other, the more we’ll remember that everybody’s fighting battles that we know nothing about. My battle was very public and obvious and intense, but I hope I can inspire people to be more open about their own weaknesses and struggles. At the end of the day, hard is hard. It’s not meant to be compared.”

Marcus won the spring kettlebell Challenge, and finished his chemo treatments in July 2020. He has been healthy ever since, and continues to train according to the Onnit 6 template. He says he’s almost back to the shape he was in before the illness.

“I didn’t have any idea I’d win the Challenge,” says Marcus. “I didn’t even think about winning it… I was just happy to have it.”

All images and video courtesy of Seth Marcus.

Learn more about the Onnit 6 Challenge HERE.

The post Training With Cancer: How Seth Marcus Came Back From The Brink appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Experts tell us that to see results long-term, we need to change things just a little at a time. Eat a little less dough and a few more carrot sticks each day until you’ve weaned yourself off junk food and onto salads… Start by taking walks around your neighborhood and knocking out a few pushups before you start renovating your house for a home gym. Small, gradual, maintainable changes work best.

That is, unless you’re Shawn Paul Jennings, who harnessed his bipolar personality to change his mindset and his life practically overnight—and without looking back. Jennings dropped his body fat by eight percent in six weeks en route to an Onnit 6 Challenge victory, and he’s only just beginning to build steam.

Death and Rebirth

Jennings, of Snohomish, Washington, worked in digital marketing, and was an avid surfer, artist, and musician. He struggled with anxiety and depression, but enjoyed an active and relatively balanced life. Then, in February 2019, he lost his father to pancreatic cancer. “We thought he had a little bit longer than he did,” says Jennings, “so it kind of snuck up on us.”

The shock sent Jennings into a spiral, in which he gave up all physical activity for rich food and booze. A typical day would begin with sleeping late—because he couldn’t get to sleep the night before—and then migrating to his beanbag chair where he’d vegetate until dinnertime. “I developed a lot of bad habits,” says Jennings, “and became an expert at them,” he jokes.

While his body swelled some 15 pounds over the course of that year, Jennings felt his mind was atrophying, describing his creative drive at level zero. His breaking point came when he turned 40 in January 2020. Attempting to celebrate his birthday by going surfing, his favorite activity, Jennings found he was so out of shape that he couldn’t even paddle out to the big waves.

Then Jennings discovered Own The Day, Own Your Life, the best-selling lifestyle book by Onnit founder Aubrey Marcus. “It really struck a chord with me,” he says, as he felt it provided the roadmap that would lead him out of his funk. “I listened to the audio version of it twice.” Jennings began following Marcus on social media, and that led to his discovery of the Onnit 6 Challenge, Onnit’s fitness transformation contest.

The Onnit 6 (O6) Challenge is a six-week course focused around one of the Onnit 6 workout programs—plans that use just one piece of workout equipment (or bodyweight alone) to build stability and strength in the body while training the mind to adopt healthy habits for life. All workouts feature video instruction, and are streamed online, allowing you to train at home. In the O6 Challenge, participants work together (albeit remotely) to stay motivated and achieve the best results—so it’s not so much a competition as a shared mission. To win the challenge, you need to demonstrate that training with Onnit helped you not only change your body but also improve your life. Grand-prize winners are awarded free Onnit products, access to all Onnit 6 programs, and $6,000 in cash.

Jennings signed up for the Kettlebell O6 Challenge, even though he’d never touched the cannonball-shaped implement before in his life, and the contest began, coincidentally, one year to the day after the passing of his dad.

“I had just turned 40 and wanted to make a change,” says Jennings. “The Challenge seemed like a good opportunity to do that, so I jumped in with both feet.” He bought three kettlebells—none heavier than 35 pounds—and, to help keep himself accountable, created a YouTube channel on which he’d maintain a video log of the experience. Christening the channel Kook & Rally, as in, “here’s a kook who’s going to rally and get his life together,” Jennings announced in his first video that “Grief left me a depressed, angry, lethargic fat slob. That all changes today.”

And just like that, it did.

Going forward, Jennings vowed to stop grieving over his father and instead celebrate his life by doing the things his dad would have wanted him to: taking care of his physical and mental health, expressing himself as an artist, and reclaiming his identity as a surfer. “I thought I could use the Challenge to get back into the things that used to make me happy,” says Jennings, “and to put me in a position where I felt I had the power to perform well at them again.”

A Tale of Two Shawns

Of course, it wasn’t quite as easy as just drawing a line in the sand and stepping over it. Jennings has always had trouble finding the middle ground. If he drinks alcohol, he’s apt to get loaded, and if he’s following a workout plan, he’s going to train like he’s heading to the Olympics. To make it even trickier, the switch can flip from on to off with the least provocation.

In the past, Jennings would make a run at working out, but if he missed a day, he’d give up the pursuit entirely. The difference with O6 was that he now had a support group to cheerlead him through the obstacles and keep him on track.

The Onnit Tribe is a Facebook group created for Onnit 6 Challenge contestants to communicate. They exchange ideas about workouts and nutrition, but the real magic lies in how they motivate each other through difficult times.

“People in there post a lot of before and after photos, which is inspiring to see,” says Jennings, but the people who inspired me the most were the ones who seemed to be struggling the hardest. They’d post things like, ‘I missed my kettlebell workout today and I just feel like crap about it,’ and other members would jump on and say, ‘Hey, don’t beat yourself up. You’ll get it tomorrow. It’s OK.’ People even talked about things outside of the Challenge that they were struggling with. The tribe became a support system, not just for the contest, but for our lives in general. And as the pandemic began, that really meant a lot.”

There were days when Jennings missed workouts, but fueled by the love of the Tribe, he’d make sure to make it up the next day and, given his tendency to go to extremes, he sometimes did double sessions for good measure. “Another thing that helped me stay consistent was knowing that each week of the program built on the last one,” says Jennings. “I knew I had to get the exercises we did this week down before I could advance them the next week.”

Though he was a newbie to kettlebell training, Jennings took to it right away. Every Onnit 6 program provides exercises in a three-tier format: new users should start with moves that are at a Level 1 difficulty, and can progress as they see fit to Levels 2 and 3. For example, a trainee working lower body in an O6 session might start out with a basic lunge movement for his/her first few workouts and then graduate to a warrior lunge (a lunge followed by an external rotation of the rear leg) a few weeks later. Jennings was able to customize his workouts to his strength level, as well as his readiness to train that day according to how he was feeling.

Since all the workouts are streamed online, Jennings trained from his home office and garage, and sometimes even outdoors when the weather was nice.

As he built momentum on the program and settled into the habit of moving his body on a daily basis, Jennings found he craved even more activity. “I added things on, like going for a long walk or raking the leaves, instead of hanging out and watching TV.” Jennings made changes to his diet as well, incorporating more fruits and vegetables, a habit made easier by the delicious recipes and food prep ideas shared amongst the Tribe. Jennings didn’t count calories or carbs, but he was meticulous about weighing himself on a smart scale so that he could track his progress, and he took pictures of himself daily.

Still, one of his favorite features of the Challenge was that it wasn’t based entirely on aesthetic results. “Unlike so many other fitness contests,” he says, “there was no weigh in, and no pressure to look a certain way at the end. I thought that was very cool.”

Life Begins (Again) At 40

By the end of Week 6, Jennings had taken eight percent off his body fat while gaining significant muscle mass. He also found himself feeling more enthusiastic about his work. “I felt like an artist again,” he says. “I have a list of things I want to do and make now.” He returned to surfing with a vengeance, as well as his music. “I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished,” he says, “and I know my dad would be proud of it too.”

He not only righted his ship after the death of his father and turning 40, Jennings proved that he had the dedication to weather storms and maintain his lifestyle change indefinitely. For these reasons, Onnit named him the O6 Kettlebell winner in April 2020.

“The $6,000 in prize money was great, and it helped me out a lot,” says Jennings, “but that was the least of what I got out of the Challenge. The overall physical and mental health change was the real prize, and I made quite a few friends that I’m still in touch with who keep me on track. In fact, I’m connecting with people now better than I have in years.”

In September 2020, Jennings was finally diagnosed as bipolar, which explains his tendency toward erratic behavior, and why previous treatments never worked for him. While Jennings acknowledges that he still has days when he misses workouts and makes less than optimal decisions, he knows he’ll never let his demons overtake him again. “I have my peaks and valleys,” he says, “but I find some way to be active every day. As someone who struggles with moderation, if I miss one day, I feel like I might as well miss two weeks. That’s a difficult thing for me to work on. But when I pick myself up and do the work the next day, I feel one-thousand times better, and I’m pretty stoked by how I look and feel right now. When I get down, it’s easier to pick myself up than it used to be. Onnit 6 was not a fad workout for me. It’s become a lifestyle.”

All photos and video courtesy of Shawn Jennings. Follow him on YouTube and Instagram.

Learn more about the Onnit 6 Challenge HERE.

The post How Shawn Paul Jennings Changed Everything and Made It Stick appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Peterson, now age 52, hadn’t done a hurtman rescue in nearly 10 years.

He took a deep breath, slapped on his hard hat, pulled on his gloves, and listened for the “go” command…

Joining The Tribe

Back in his 20s and 30s, Peterson, from Modesto, California, had his dream job as a high-voltage lineman for the local irrigation district. He had been a competitive mountain biker and road cyclist as well, until a bad knee injury made him give up cycling. From there, Peterson gradually settled into a sedentary lifestyle, and self-medicated with alcohol.

His weight ballooned to more than 300 pounds, making his work as a lineman that much more perilous. Facing alcoholism and burnout, Peterson quit his job in 2012, walking away from both his passion and a six-figure salary. He was 44.

After a few years running a restaurant, Peterson and his wife moved to Hillsboro, Oregon, in 2016, where he began work in a motorcycle dealership. Since his days on the line, he had quit drinking, and the process of drying out, as well as disciplining himself not to eat late at night, helped Peterson lose more than 100 pounds. But he eventually reached a plateau. “I was still too fat to go to a gym,” he says. “It was too intimidating.”

When the Covid-19 lockdowns hit in March 2020, Peterson was laid off by the bike shop. “I whined and cried for a minute,” he says, “and then I came up with a game plan.”

A longtime fan of Onnit since he had first heard founder Aubrey Marcus on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Peterson was browsing the company’s website when he saw that digital products were on sale at 50% off. Though he was collecting unemployment benefits and had to be frugal, Peterson made the investment in an Onnit 6 (O6) program to help him lose weight and stay active during his downtime.

Onnit 6 workout plans are six-week long courses that focus on helping users adopt a fit lifestyle. There’s one based around each of Onnit’s core pieces of workout equipment, from the kettlebell to the steel club, and they also come with nutrition advice and yoga routines for recovery. Workouts are streamed online—featuring video instruction from Onnit’s Chief Fitness Officer, John Wolf—so you can follow along with them in the comfort of your own living room.

Several times per year, Onnit offers an Onnit 6 Challenge transformation contest as a companion to the O6 workout plans. Participants choose an O6 they want to commit to for six weeks, and work (remotely) alongside other users to change their bodies and their lives. One of the key features of the O6 Challenge is access to the Onnit Tribe, a Facebook group that Challengers use to motivate and support each other. To win the Challenge, you need to demonstrate that training with Onnit helped make a positive difference in your life, and that you’ve developed the habits, mindset, and community one needs to be successful long-term. Grand-prize winners (one male, one female) are rewarded with free Onnit products, access to all Onnit 6 programs, and $6000 in cash.

Armed with Onnit 6 Bodyweight, Peterson signed up for the O6 Challenge in July.

“Team Fat Ass”

The O6 Bodyweight program requires no equipment, but Peterson soon discovered that lifting your own mass is often harder than hoisting any external load. “I was incredibly sore after the first workout,” he says. “But I was also hooked. It’s the hardest training I’ve ever done. And I never would have found these exercises without this program.”

The exercises in question included rotary lunges—step back and drop into a lunge position, and then rotate your rear knee outward 90 degrees while staying low. The move challenges your hip mobility while it builds leg strength and conditioning. Peterson also performed planks with one leg lifted, a brutal core exercise. O6 workouts are always tiered, so users can customize them to their level. Beginners can focus on Level 1 exercises to help build a base, and more advanced trainees can choose Level 2 or 3 moves for a greater challenge. Therefore, two people of very different experience levels can train together in the same session without missing a beat.

“So many programs just give you exercises and let you go,” says Peterson. “But I liked the three different levels that Onnit 6 lets you choose from. You can do half the exercises at Level 1 and half at Level 2 if you want to. You always have some way to progress or tailor the workouts to your own body.”

Another outstanding feature of the O6 workouts is their user-friendliness. Most trainees find the workouts don’t aggravate any pre-existing injuries they have, and they sometimes even help to alleviate them. “I had a meniscus surgery where they took a silver-dollar sized piece out of my right knee,” says Peterson. “When a storm comes in, I’ll feel it there first. But the O6 exercises were all doable. There were plenty of moves that scared me,” Peterson says with a laugh, “but nothing hurt me. And some of the stretches we did in the yoga workouts were phenomenal for me.”

Peterson coupled his grueling workouts with a return to sensible eating. He employed intermittent fasting by skipping breakfast, thereby reducing the amount of time during the day he could allow himself to eat. He also watched his sugar intake. “I go on sugar benders very easily,” he says, “so I found that if I cut out sugar with my morning Starbucks, that helped me avoid it the rest of the day.” But Peterson stresses that he’s not a diet zealot, and never will be. He loves food too much, and says it’s OK if you do too.

“If I want to go have a cheeseburger now and then, I will,” says Peterson. “I’m not some crazy nutrition naysayer when it comes to food. I just tried to watch what I was eating, when I was eating, and how much I was eating. I ate mainly protein and green vegetables, but there were times when I felt tired. I asked Coach Wolf about it and he said I should eat some more carbs to bring my energy levels up. I had some rice, and sure enough, I felt better.”

The best part of the entire O6 experience, says Peterson, was drinking in the love of the Onnit Tribe. Members share workout and nutrition advice, and encourage each other to stick to the program, but the relationships that develop aren’t constrained to matters of fitness alone. Unlike with most physique transformation challenges, the competitors really aren’t competing against each other. They’re encouraged to form friendships that last beyond the six weeks of the program, and many participants find that they grow very close to each other and become like family.

The Tribe culture is positive and fun. There’s at least as much discussion on the message threads about light-hearted topics such as music and jokes as there is about calories, sets, and reps. “At first I thought the Onnit Tribe was going to be a bunch of in-shape muscleheads that wouldn’t want to hear from some old fat guy,” says Peterson, who, in keeping with his self-deprecating sense of humor, referred to himself as “Team Fat Ass” in his posts. “But I was completely wrong. The very first video I saw on there was of another big guy working his ass off. The Tribe is real-world people who have real-world issues like everybody else. They come from many different walks of life.”

No one has embraced the Tribe’s happy-go-lucky vibe, or contributed more to it, than Peterson. A regular poster who hasn’t been afraid to share his struggles with the group, many members cite Peterson as a constant source of inspiration… and entertainment.

“I posted a video of me dancing to the Moulin Rouge song, looking ridiculous” he says, “and challenged a bunch of the other members to do the same.” Before long, nearly everyone in the Challenge group had contributed a video of their own dancing in what became an exercise in silliness, but also fearlessness—dropping the ego and letting senses of humor shine.

The Lineman… Is Still On The Line

When the Challenge concluded at the end of August, Peterson had lost 30 pounds. He had also trained through a freak injury to his hand, sustained while installing a new refrigerator in his house, without missing a step. “There was a chiropractor in the Tribe who gave me some tips on taping up my hand,” says Peterson. And it was back to business as usual.

In light of his results and determination, Peterson was declared the O6 Bodyweight male grand-prize winner. At 52, he has the great distinction of being the oldest O6 winner to date.

Of course, the benefits Peterson reaped weren’t just aesthetic. The strength and conditioning he gained from the training allowed him to get more out of his outdoors active lifestyle. Peterson and his wife enjoy hiking. “We go to this area where there’s a really steep climb,” he says. “I used to have to take a little break halfway through, but since Onnit 6, I can go all the way without stopping.”

Even before his experience with O6, Peterson had been craving a return to line work. With the downtime his pandemic layoff provided, he looked for a new job in electric utilities. To get it, he had to become re-certified in hurtman rescue: the skill of saving an injured fellow lineman from the top of a high-voltage telephone pole. Peterson, nearly 10 years older than the last time he’d shimmied up a pole, but also more than 100 pounds lighter and in the shape of his life, accepted the challenge.

“I remember climbing it and thinking, ‘I feel pretty good compared to how I thought I was going to feel,’” says Peterson. He completed the simulated rescue in time, passed the test, and got hired as a lineman at a Portland utility company in October 2020. “Line work is a young man’s game,” says Peterson, “but I’m not going to get outworked. I like to out-hustle folks that are younger, and Onnit 6 helped me be more confident that I could do the things I used to do.”

Barry Peterson’s Tips For A Fitter 2021

We asked Peterson what advice he would give to someone trying to turn over a new health and fitness leaf in 2021.

“Find something that works for you,” he says. “People love to give advice, but it’s usually based on what worked for them, and they have no idea what struggles other people go through. So try different stuff and see what fits. I tried lots of other stuff over the years—DDP Yoga® and silly stuff like Tae Bo®—and gave up on it, because it wasn’t as user-friendly as Onnit 6, and it didn’t have the community involvement that Onnit has.

“Onnit gives you six workout programs to choose from, so there’s probably something there for you. If nothing else, repeat the Bodyweight one until you can do Level 2 or 3 for every exercise. You’ll be amazed by the shape you can get in.”

All photos courtesy of Barry Peterson.

Learn more about the Onnit 6 Challenge HERE.

The post The Oldest Onnit 6 Challenge Winner Can Still Kick Your Butt appeared first on Onnit Academy.

“One of the older members of the gym, a woman who was in my class every week, caught me outside smoking a cigarette,” says Spain, of Preston, Maryland. “She said, ‘What the …?’ Smoking was my dirty little secret.

“When you do something long enough, it becomes a part of your life. You smoke that cigarette after you eat, when you’re driving… you tell yourself it’s become a part of who you are. Then it becomes really hard to change that, because it feels like you have to change every aspect of your life. You think, ‘I’ll never be able to do this.’

“But you can. You can!”

Enter The Onnit 6 Challenge

Spain, age 47, who is also a licensed massage therapist, had the same daily routine for years: go to work, and go to the gym. But when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, she suddenly couldn’t go anywhere. In late April 2020, she was on Facebook and saw a meme poking fun at the idea of a “quarantine 15”—the amount of weight you’re (supposedly) apt to gain during a lockdown. Curious to see where she stood, Spain got on the scale, and was mortified to find she had gained seven pounds since the closures began in mid March.

Spain’s husband uses Onnit’s MCT Oil, so the two of them were already on the company’s email list. Spain was checking her messages and saw one with a subject line that read, “Last chance to sign up for the Onnit 6 Challenge.”

Spain: “So I said, ‘Thank you, Universe,’ you heard my call!”

The Onnit 6 (O6) Challenge is a fitness contest where participants adopt an Onnit 6 workout program for six weeks. Users can choose from routines for bodyweight, kettlebells, the barbell, steel club, steel mace, and Durability (a mobility/prehab course). All workouts feature video instruction, and are streamed online, allowing you to train at home. To win the challenge, you need to demonstrate that training with Onnit helped you not only change your body but also improve your life, and that you’ve adopted healthy habits that you can maintain going forward. Grand prize winners are rewarded with free Onnit products, access to all Onnit 6 programs, and $6000 in cash.

Spain didn’t have any exercise equipment at home, so she took on the Bodyweight O6 Challenge. She fell in love with the training right away, but even more so with the entire Onnit community.

A major feature of the O6 Challenge is the Onnit Tribe—the Facebook group that challengers join to motivate and support one another. “It’s the best thing on Facebook, as far as I’m concerned,” says Spain. “Everybody goes on every day and posts about their workouts, but also personal stuff. We all try to better ourselves so we can be better for ourselves and our families. There’s zero talk of politics and religion or anything controversial.”

Spain lost a few pounds and was so active in the Tribe that she was ultimately selected as a semi-finalist. At that point, another Onnit 6 Challenge was about to begin, this time focused on the steel mace. Spain signed right up. “I’m going to win this one,” she told her husband, and O6 Steel Mace began July 21.

How Michelle Spain Quit Smoking For Good

Spain had been a self-professed yogi and cardio girl. She knew she needed to do some form of resistance training to round out her fitness, but lifting weights bored her. The steel mace, however, was intriguing. She ordered a seven-pound mace from Onnit to use for the Steel Mace Challenge.

“It feels awkward at first, but it doesn’t even matter,” says Spain. “I feel like a medieval warrior princess wielding a weapon [whenever I pick it up]. I feel bad ass.”

The Steel Mace Challenge workouts included a Tabata, HIIT routine, and EMOM, all designed to burn calories and train conditioning while strengthening muscles and improving stability—the ability to control your body position during movement. As stability and movement skills improve, users find that they can perform better in virtually any athletic pursuit. “I’ve got a lot of wear and tear,” says Spain. “Two bad shoulders; I had surgery on one of them. But training with the mace strengthened both of them. I’m doing things in my yoga practice now that I had not been able to do in years. [Now that I have the Onnit 6 workouts,] I’ll probably never go back to another gym, regardless of what happens with Covid.”

As great as the workouts were, the support Spain got from the Onnit Tribe was the most impactful. “People opening up and sharing parts of themselves that were really difficult to share, that was super inspiring to me,” says Spain. The Tribe, as well as the guidance of Coach John Wolf, Onnit’s Chief Fitness Officer and the creator of the Onnit 6 programs, proved to be the catalyst Spain needed to quit cigarettes for good.

“I did not start smoking until I was almost 26,” says Spain. The habit began as a reaction to an unhealthy relationship she had been in years before. “It was a ridiculous need to take some sense of control back. For whatever ungodly reason, smoking was how I decided to do that. It was like, “I know, instead of leaving the relationship, I’ll start smoking cigarettes.’

“I was thinking, ‘Here I’m doing [this challenge for a second time], I’m feeling really good, but I’m still doing this gross thing.’ I felt this terrible imposter syndrome, and I told Coach Wolf. But he said, ‘No, you’re not an imposter. Your goals just aren’t aligning with what you’re actually doing in your life.’ That was much more eloquent than how I put it, but that was how I felt. I felt like I was lying to the Tribe, lying to my yoga and cardio students, and myself.”

Toward the end of the Steel Mace Challenge, a somber date arrived: the three-year anniversary of the death of Spain’s best friend. “It just all came together at the same time,” says Spain. “Onnit 6, the Tribe, the anniversary, and my want and need to stop lying to myself.” She decided she would mark the occasion by quitting smoking for good.

Her husband built a bonfire in the family’s yard (they live in a rural area), and Spain took one cigarette out of the pack. She lit it, and told him it would be the last one she ever smoked.

“I didn’t even finish the cigarette. I threw it and the whole pack into the fire and watched it burn. I have not touched a cigarette since that day.” That day, to be precise, was August 21, exactly one month into the Steel Mace program.

Of course, Onnit can’t (and won’t) take all the credit for breaking Spain’s addiction. A Tribe member recommended she download an app called quitSTART. “It helped me keep track of my wins,” says Spain. “How many days it had been since I quit smoking, how much money I’d saved. Little motivational things like that. The app asks you if you’ve had any slipups, and I didn’t want to press ‘Yes’. I couldn’t face that. I also didn’t want to face my husband, who had already quit smoking, or my 12 year-old son, who had asked me to quit.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Spain was named the female Onnit 6 Challenge Steel Mace Grand Prize winner when the contest ended last September. She still can’t get enough Onnit training, and just finished her fourth O6 Challenge.

New Year’s Resolution Advice from an Onnit 6 Challenge Winner

While being able to quit smoking was a pleasant surprise during her Onnit 6 Challenge training, it was something of a side effect. Spain had gone into it hoping O6 would help her learn to eat better so that she could lose weight. The recipes and nutrition tips provided by the Tribe—in addition to gorgeous photos of delicious, healthy meals that some of her fellow contestants prepared—did the trick. Another trick she used was to set short-term goals. If you’re resolving to eat better in 2021, you might do the same.

“I’ll say to myself, ‘I’m not going to eat fast food for the next three days,’” says Spain. “And then, when I get through those three days, I say I’m not going to do it for another three days. That’s not as daunting as saying, ‘I’m never eating fast food again,’ and it works. Now fast food kind of grosses me out.”

But overall, Spain recommends not making resolutions, per se. “Make a lifestyle change,” she says. “You need to make a decision to be a better version of yourself. You can get all the inspiration and the love and encouragement you need to stick to it from [a community of like-minded people, such as the Onnit tribe].”

Incidentally, if you’re wondering if Spain ever reconnected with the student who caught her smoking outside the gym, both of them got their closure.

“I spoke to that lady over the phone,” says Spain. “I told her I won the Onnit program and quit smoking. She legit cried. She was so happy for me.”

Learn more about the Onnit 6 Challenge HERE.

The post “I Quit Smoking Cigarettes”: How the Onnit 6 Challenge Changed Michelle Spain appeared first on Onnit Academy.

In late 2017, Hannah Eden’s best friend, Jessica Boswell, was diagnosed with cancer. Boswell was only 32 years old, and also six months pregnant. To bolster her friend’s spirits and raise money for treatment, Eden set a goal to bike and run around the perimeter of Iceland, known as the Ring Road.

Boswell’s disease moved quickly, however, and she passed the following spring (but not before giving birth to a healthy baby boy). In July of 2018, Eden followed through on her promise to make the 828.6-mile journey in Boswell’s honor. She completed the bike and run in only nine days, raising almost $60,000 for cancer research and the Serene Soldier Foundation—a group founded in Boswell’s honor that works to give cancer patients and their families a happy Christmas.

Eden, 28, has since blown up to be a successful fitness influencer and entrepreneur, with her own gym and app. In her interview with Onnit Editor-in-Chief Sean Hyson, she reveals how she transitioned from a wild child to a health nut, gives tips on growing a fitness business, and explains why working out will always mean more to her than just abs and biceps.

Growing up as a hyperactive kid ­– 0:05

Moving to the US – 0:50

Why her dream job wasn’t what she thought – 3:00

Finding CrossFit – 5:00

Pros and cons of CrossFit – 6:04

Going from student to teacher, and starting her own business – 8:07

Why fitness is more than just the physical – 10:05

Why she programs according to time rather than sets and reps – 13:00

Where her life would be if she hadn’t found fitness –15:25

Why last year was the hardest of her life – 17:30

Hannah’s bike tour around Iceland to honor her friend – 18:55

How she ran and biked 828.6 miles in 9 days – 24:22

How she stayed motivated – 26:00

How to find your own reason – 27:15

Learning to turn if “off” – 29:40

Why she’ll lose her drive one day – 31:05

What her husband understands about her that no one else does – 32: 25

Tips for aspiring fitness influencers on building an online following – 35:00

What she and “Primal Swoledier” Eric Leija have learned from each other – 38:15

Follow Eden on Instagram, @hannaheden_fitness

The post “Fitness Is More Than Physical”: Interview With Hannah Eden appeared first on Onnit Academy.

We published a variety of articles at Onnit this year, including personal stories, tips for getting stronger, and sleeping better. After reviewing all of them, we’ve selected ten must-read articles from 2019 to help you prepare your 2020 resolutions.

1. The Truth About Plant Proteins

People who wear glasses are smart. People who are overweight must be lazy. And vegetarians are all long-haired hippies that are so weak from malnutrition that a stiff breeze could knock them over.

There are some stereotypes that never seem to go away. And while the first two we listed are clearly nonsense when you think about them, the third one about vegetarians still seems to have a lot of believers—especially among athletes and muscle-seekers who think that you can’t build size and strength on a flesh-free diet. After all, huge guys are called “meatheads” for a reason.

The thing is though, it’s not meat per se that makes muscle grow, but rather the protein inside it. Protein from beans and rice can serve your purpose just as well as a rare steak can—and, in the supplement department, plant protein powders made from blends of pea, rice, or seeds can equal whey.

Nevertheless, if you’re looking to remove or reduce the amount of animal products in your diet for ethical or environmental reasons, or you’re a vegetarian/veganwho just started weight training, you may find it challenging to get all the protein you need in a day, as plant sources generally aren’t as rich in protein as animal foods are, and usually don’t contain all the necessary amino acids in amounts that make their protein complete. In this case, supplementation is helpful.

You’re about to discover the truth about plant protein supplements and muscle.

2. How To Do The Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift Like A Pro

Smart trainers will tell you that there is no “must-do” exercise. For as much hype as squats and bench presses get, there are many other movements you can perform that will net you virtually the same results as these classic lifts. However, should you propose to remove the single-leg Romanian deadlift (RDL) from a trainer’s program, you may start an argument that sends barbells flying, as the single-leg RDL is seen as a staple in functional strength training—and there’s really no substitute for it.

Consider this your guide to an exercise that’s truly irreplaceable for muscle, mobility, and overall fitness.

3. Forest Bathing: Bust Stress and Boost Your Health by Reconnecting With Nature 

What’s the best thing to do when you’re feeling overwhelmed, angry, or depressed? While booze, drugs, or finding the source of your frustration and breaking its nose might be the first thoughts that spring to mind, you’re more likely to get relief by taking a walk outside accompanied by a few deep breaths.

Communing with nature is the oldest form of stress management known to humankind, and yet only recently has science begun to really study it. Forest bathing, a Japanese term for bonding with the outdoors for health-boosting purposes, is now being seen as a legitimate form of therapy for tightly-wound people cracking under the pressures of living in the modern world. Even if the nearest jungle to you is a concrete one, there are ways to reap the benefits of being in nature that can add years to your life—or maybe even save it outright.

4. 5 Killer Back-and-Biceps Workouts For Building Muscle 

If Monday is “International Chest Day” in gyms everywhere, then Tuesday might be “International Back-and-Biceps Day,” given how common it is to see those muscles paired up in a workout. (Following the cliché, leg training would unfortunately get pushed to Wednesday, at the earliest, but we’ll save that rant for another article.)

There’s no hard and fast rule stating that back and biceps need to be trained together, but, anecdotal bro science aside, there is some logic to combining these two muscle groups that allow you to pull real hard.

Our guide to training the back and biceps together will teach you how to create maximally efficient upper-body workouts that build a thick back and bulging arms.

5. Wildman: How MMA Fighter Sean Clements Made His Comeback(s)

Sean Clements’ mom left when he was three. His cousin sexually abused him when he was four. His dad was an alcoholic who would disappear for days at a time. After high school, Clements discovered drinking for himself. To make ends meet, he stripped in gay nightclubs. One night, he got into a bar brawl, and when a cop tried to stop it, Clements punched him out and wound up in jail.

So… how was your day?

Clements, from Austin, TX, may have been well on his way to becoming another obituary on the 10 o’clock news, but he fought back to build a successful career, a healthy romantic relationship, and a clean life. That was comeback number one. Now, at age 35, he’s returning to professional MMA competition after a two-year layoff to fulfill the athletic potential he knew he always had, and nearly wasted.

Here’s how Clements went from “Wildman” (as he’s known in MMA) to a changed man.

6. The Best Chest and Triceps Workouts for Building Muscle 

Chest and triceps is a muscle pairing as old as the bench press itself, and for good reason. The pecs might be the prime movers in most pressing exercises, but the triceps are crucial synergists, or secondary movers. Hence, your progress on bench—as well as the growth of your pecs—can only go as far as your triceps will allow. That’s why you’ll never see a powerlifter with a big bench press or a bodybuilder with a huge chest that doesn’t have triceps to match.

But if you’re following an old-school bodybuilding split rife with supersets for these two muscle groups, well, you’re doing it wrong. You won’t just hinder your progress, you’ll open yourself up to injury. And, as you may have suspected, it’s hard to get big with your arms in a sling. With a properly structured chest and triceps workout, however, you can reap big benefits in strength and size. Here’s how to do it right.

7. The Expert’s Guide To CBD’s Benefits & Uses 

Last December, Congress passed the 2018 Hemp Farming Act, an update on the Farm Bill that lifts several restrictions on the cannabis/hemp crop. As a result, the CBD industry is poised to explode. Derived from the cannabis plant, cannabidiol oil (CBD) already has a following for its potential to help with stress, sleep, and other aspects of health, and its growing use may change the medical and supplement industries permanently.

Let this guide show you why there are serious reasons to be high on CBD that have nothing to do with getting stoned.

8. Easy Low Carb Dinner Ideas for 2019 

Looking to go low carb, but aren’t sure where to start? Well, look no further than our guide for easy low carb dinner Ideas. 

Low-carb diets have been found to be a healthy option for weight loss and heart-health. Low-carb diets are also great for putting limits on those bags of potato chips you’ve been KOing at night. (Some of us need hard-and-fast rules and that’s okay.)

You don’t have to go super low carb in order to see the benefits. Don’t worry about going all-out Keto. Instead, fill your diet with healthy proteins and fats, and fibrous fruits and veggies. 

Being consistent with these types of meals will help you reach your weight-loss and fitness goals.

9. Plank Jacks: How To Do Them & Why Your Workout Needs Them

A plank jack sounds like something you might find in aisle 33 at Home Depot, but it’s actually a potent exercise that’s becoming increasingly popular in HIIT, core, and circuit training classes. It’s time you found out how to do a plank jack, the muscles it works, and how you can fit it into your workouts for better core strength and greater conditioning.

10. The Ultimate Morning Meditation Routine for Relaxation 

Whether you’re talking about celebrities, pro athletes, or millionaire entrepreneurs, successful people tend to have a few things in common. Maybe they get up early in the morning, or they write down short- and long-term goals for themselves, but one commonality that comes up again and again among the most driven and positive people in the world is the practice of meditation.

You may choose to meditate to sharpen your mind for the day ahead, or merely to calm it down, but sneaking in even a short session in the middle of a busy morning can pay more dividends than you imagine.

The post Editor’s Choice: Top 10 Articles of 2019 appeared first on Onnit Academy.