Photography by Riq Dilly

Training and life advice from the Jamaican Olympic track medalist.

“I have one simple system for life, and that is putting consistent habits together on a daily basis. I don’t care who you are, where you are in the world, how old you are, or what you want to be. If I plug my system in place with specific habits targeted every single day to what you want to achieve, then you can achieve anything.

“It’s about accountability. Everybody in life, if you’re an athlete, in business, in relationships, you need accountability partners. You need somebody to answer to. If it’s just you, we’re left to our own devices and sometimes that isn’t the best thing in the world. If you’re an employee, you have a boss. If you have an accountability or life coach, it’s a partnership. So if you drop the ball, I’m failing. If I drop the ball, we’re both failing.

“There are a couple pieces to the puzzle in addition to exercise. But I say more than the exercise, 80% of it is the nutrition.

“Nobody’s going to have a personal trainer forever but every time we meet it’s going to be an educational process and I want you to then teach your kids and then it becomes a lifestyle and it’s passed down through generations.

“One of my big things is hydration. A lot of kids in school, they can’t focus and they don’t have energy because of hydration. They’re pushing milk in school but water is what they need. The majority of our makeup, is water. Our organs depend on it, and so does our brain function.

“Be specific about goal setting because the universe doesn’t know if we’re joking or not. When you write it down, don’t say you want to do well. Write that you want to get an A on the test. That you want to win this track meet. Get even more specific. Ask yourself what time do you want to run? Do you want to be the best in the city, in the nation? Do you want to be the fastest kid in the world? What company do you want to sponsor you? Nike? Adidas? like Nike? Will you wear pink sneakers? Every car I’ve owned, I’ve named the year, the make, the model, the color. You have to be really specific. What you ask for is exactly what you’re going to get. You can’t just say I want a new car. You’re going to get a new freaking Buick. Do you want a Mercedes with black rims? Then you have to say that. If you’re not specific, you’ll get it what it won’t be what you want.

“If you’re trying to lose weight, there are specific times in the day when it’s appropriate to eat carbs. With nine to fivers, from when you wake up until about 3 pm are your most active hours. For those hours you need complex carbs—quinoa, sweet potatoes, cauliflower rice. You need to get rid of empty simple carbs like rice and pasta. They hate your body.

“Have lemon water when you wake up. It still adds taste but, it’s also cleaning the digestive system/colon. The more healthy your colon is, the better the food’s going to be able to get through there and out of your body. We don’t want anything hanging on to the walls of our digestive system and our colon.

“Before I go to sleep, the last thing I do before I close my eyes is goal setting. When I wake up in the morning before I get out of bed, I listen to motivational speaking whether it be Vic Ziegler, Lez Brown, Kevin Trudeau and I cross off what has been accomplished and add more things to my list. It’s just a different kind of accountability.

“Where I am right now is what I predicted four years ago. Written goals are everything for me. It’s like casting a spell on what you want to happen in life. It can sound like crazy talk to some people but yes, I am big believer in the Law of Attraction. It is how the universe operates and there are certain laws that we live by and we have to abide by, whether we want to or not. When things happen, it’s not anybody else’s fault, it’s what we created.

“Everything is based on our feelings. Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right. And a lot of that comes from our preparation, our confidence, our expectation. If you make a plan, you buy your workout outfits, buy your protein, vitamins, and take your butt to the gym every single day, you have an expectation of results. But when you cut corners, drink martinis, go on vacation and don’t work out and expect magic, you’ll be disappointed. There will be insecurity because you didn’t put the work in.

“My mom was big into philosophy. We went to a non-denominational church and she always spoke about the law of life. She believed in karma; just do the right thing and what we put out will come back to you. She believed in writing things down, too. Around age five, I used to ask my mom for things like a Barbie Dream House or a bike. And she’d say, “Don’t ask me, go write it down.”

“It was her way of teaching me goal setting. I wasn’t ever a person to do the whole New Year’s resolution thing because goal setting was a daily part of my life. I do it 24/7, 365.

“I was always an Olympic medalist in my head. From kindergarten right up until my senior year of high school for career day I would be an Olympic medalist and every single person thought I was absolutely nuts and insane. I think I should have been more specific now that I know you have to be tediously specific about your goals. Every year, my friends thought it was a joke. Then I got to 25 and I got my Olympic medals and they were like, “Holy sh$%, this woman was really serious.”

“It was sink or swim. I didn’t give myself any room to be anything else. I knew I was going to be successful.

“Winning a medal at the 2012 Olympic Games was the ultimate celebration and confirmation for me in life. I proved to myself and my mom that everything she taught me and all my practices in life paid off. I have actually taken all my experiences, all my proven strategies for winning in life, and put them in a book titled “The Diamond Laws”. It is my systematic approach to attain success that I have put together for everyone in the world to apply to their own life to achieve success. If I can do it anyone can. There aren’t many pro athletes or entertainers telling the public how they attain and retain their success. Why not share the secrets with the world and average person? I encourage everyone to continue saying daily affirmations, work hard to completion, and show up with an expectation to win.”

TRAIN LIKE A TRACK STAR
Want to look like a track and field athlete? Then you might want to train like one. Below, Dominique Blake designed a track workout for the average woman or man who wants to drop bodyfat, build strength, and achieve an overall athletic physique. Just get outside to a track, and, after a 5-minute jog and a total-body stretch, do 10 leg swings on each leg; stand up straight and hold onto something to keep steady if necessary, then swing one leg all the way out behind you, then kick it up as high as possible in front of you, keeping your knee extended.

THE WORKOUT
PART I
Complete the following exercises as a circuit, four times through.
EXERCISE X REPS
Bodyweight Squat X 10
Stationary Alternating Lunge X 12
Jumping Jack X 20
Sprint/Jog* X 100 meters
*Depending on fitness level.

PART II – Perform the following as straight sets, resting as little as possible.
EXERICSE X REPS
Bicycle Crunch X 25
Sprint/Jog X 80 meters
Russian Twist X 25
Sprint/Jog X 80 meters
Toe Touch** X 25
Sprint/Jog X 80 meters
Plank X 30 seconds
Sprint/Jog X 80 meters
Cross-ankle Crunch X 25
Sprint/Jog X 80 meters
Leg Scissors*** X 25
Sprint/Jog X 80 meters
Superman**** X 20
Sprint/Jog X 80 meters
Reverse Crunch X 20
COOL DOWN
Jog one lap, stretch, and hydrate.

**Lie on your back with your legs up in the air, perpendicular to the ground. Without bending your knees, reach straight up to touch your toes, as high as you can reach.
***Lie on your back with your hands under your hips. Lift your legs a few inches off the ground, and, without bending your knees, cross your legs back and forth in slow, controlled movements.
****Lie facedown on the ground and, with your arms straight out above your head, lift your arms and legs together; you will feel a contraction in your lower back. Slowly return to the start and repeat.