👋 Hi! Tell us about yourself and your training
My name is Maurice Lassl, I‘m 25 years old and a passionate athlete. As a son of an Ecuadorian mother and a German father, I lived my first 19 years in South America. With the purpose to study, I then moved to Germany.
I started to study sport science with the specialization in Finance, Economy and Marketing. That‘s why I started to get involved in the world of sports/fitness and at the same time finance.
Right now, I am a self-employed financial consultant in the private wealth management for German clients and started to build a life-changing program with my buddy Julian Schubert. This program consists in changing people’s habits in eight of the most important segments of everyone’s lives. The goal is to help as many people accomplish their goals and get the lives they have ever wanted. And one keystone-habit is training and health.
For me the sports-topic always played a really important role in my life. Back then, where I was a little child I loved to try all kind of sports. From Basketball to football (soccer), over skating, MMA, swimming and volleyball. My highlight was to be playing the first and second division Volleyball in Chile, before moving to Germany to study.
As a result of the daily six hours of training pensum per day (three hours conditioning training and functional weight-lifting in addition to three hours of tactical and practical Volleyball-training) it was pretty obvious, that my knees weren’t healthy anymore.
It was February 2015 when I got a surgery in my right knee. The result was that I wouldn’t be able to keep practicing high-performance sport.
In search for a new challenge, I started to go to the gym to recover and rehabilitate my leg muscles, that by then lost a lot of the muscle-mass. This was the moment I realized, that going to the gym not only helped me to recover very fast from the surgery, but also helped me to recover from my downed mental state, because I started to see good physical results!
Since then I attended regularly to the gym.
My best friend, gym-buddy and business partner, Julian Schubert, was always a good help to keep the discipline up. As the best spotter and motivator he helped me to push my limits each day and every workout session. We were pushing each other as hard as we could.
Because of the background that Julian and I have and the added experience of over 36 year in high-performance sports with excellent results, we are now building a Mentoring concept together. This concept consists in helping our clients learn about the right habits which really successful athletes and high-performers have and reprogram the beliefs and mindset of our clients to make them even more efficient in sports and their overall lifestyle.
Our goal and purpose is to help as many people as possible to reach their goals they ever wanted in Life, despite of where they are standing right now. The idea is to induce self-awareness to start a transformation that begins from the inside (believes, thoughts and habits) to the outside (body, perceived attitude, environment).
As this business is at the beginnings, I invite you to have a look at our project @habitivity.de on Instagram. We are always happy to talk to new persons, build healthy cooperation and to find new supporters!
⏱ Describe a typical day of training
The workouts I do can be done at the gym or in a variation also at home!
Due to my mindset shift after my knee-surgery, I realized, that harder doesn’t always means better. My health and my time are my most valuable assets. That’s why I decided to have a more balanced and health-improving workout. The workouts I do can be done at the gym or in a variation also at home!
Normally (if not in Corona-Crisis), I am practicing my workout-routine that is an Upper and Lower-Body split. With a training-regimen of four days per week and 1-1.5 hours per training session, the 4-5 hours afforded time per week are really manageable for everyone that wants to get in shape without sacrificing too much time.
This method, based on scientific background, helped me a lot to get more strength, definition and a good muscle-proportion.
The really interesting part of the workout routine is that it has three macrocycles and microcycles. One macrocycle consists in one Month of workout, involving four microcycles (one for each week).
These microcycles have different intensities, but same or similar exercises throughout the same macrocycle:
- First microcycle (week 1): 12-15 Reps (Regeneration)
- Second microcycle (week 2): 8-11 reps (hypertrophy)
- Third microcycle (week 3): 6-8 reps („functional-hypertrophy“)
- Fourth microcycle (week 4): 3-5 reps (max strength)
The results of this routine are excellent. At least for my type of body, and with the right diet it was possible to gain overall muscle mass and keep it lean at the same time. Sounds contradictory, but possible.
👊 How do you keep going and push harder?
If you are human it is pretty normal to not feel motivated at each second of your life. I will show you the techniques that help me keep my focus at the gym and get me motivated on days where I prefer to stay home.
First of all, it is really important to deeply understand your body and to pay attention to the signals that your body is sending to you.
There are two main situations that make your motivation feel low. The first one is because of mental and/or physical fatigue. In this case I wouldn’t recommend pushing yourself to the gym. You should better try to figure out why you are feeling like that. Often there are external issues that hinder you to feel motivated.
The second situation is the classic “low-motivation-stage“. To overcome this state of low motivation I remember myself how good I will feel after going to the gym, while imagining the negative consequences of not going to the gym. Therefore I think about my goals I want to achieve, not only at the gym, but also in my life.
I need the gym and physical activity to remain healthy and reaching my goals. So if you have real goals you want to achieve, by using this technique you will definitely stand up and rock your gym session. It is only one decision away between staying in bed, watching Netflix or working out in favor of your goals!
Once I am at the gym, I try to focus on my favorite music. Music stimulates my emotional state and gives me a frame of focus as if I would be alone in the gym. With this inspiration and feeling that its only me, I focus on each repetition. Only one rep at the time. It is always a little decision you need to make.
Your dream body and your dream health are always just one little decision away. The question is: what price are you willing to pay for choosing this decision.
Everything hast its cost and consequence. If you want something then you have to be willing to pay the price.
And I can tell: If you decide to live your dream life you will start to make space for the real important things in life. Those that give you energy. The better you manage to arrange your environment, the better you will be able to achieve your (training-)goals.
🏆 How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
In this time of #stayhome, it is difficult to hit the gym. I was training for the biggest bodybuilding-fair FIBO in Cologne-Germany in April 2020. Because of the Corona-Crisis in Germany it got postposed. Even though it was sad not being able to show off the hard work at the booth of @iflu-nutrition, I was never doing it for any one besides me.
As I also like to do bodyweight training my friend Julian Schubert an I started to offer our @habitivity.de program for free. Right now, we are giving training 3 times a week on an Instagram-Live-video with our community and having three times a week a yoga course with one of our network trainers for our community.
This helps us to stay fit and to expand our growing community. The highlight is a conference call via Zoom with our members and participants where we discuss important topics around health, nutrition, training, habits, finance, spirituality and more. The idea is to have that call 2 times a week on a regular basis, so our like-minded community gets to interact with each other, share their progress and exchange ideas. For the moment this calls are held in German, but looking to expand, if necessary.
In 5 years from now I want to have even deeper insight about my body and work out slow and steady but HEALTHY! My dream is to be mentally, physically and spiritually at a level that many more people can follow the path and feel younger even though they are getting older by age. And if I can be the living example and role model, I will be happier than I am right now.
My idea is to have a big network of like-minded people and a few leading experts in different important fields of life. Together we would be offering our services to help any person with almost any personal issue to overcome their challenges and become a better self.
If I am honest, by looking back in time I wouldn’t regret anything or change anything in my life. I always promised myself to live the life I think is the best for me in that situation.
Still, if I look at my injuries: If I could have learned about the effects of high-performance sport even sooner, I would have worked even more in the prevention-part of the training.
🤕 How do you recover, rest and handle injuries?
It gets dangerous if you keep pushing the limits to often without giving time to your body to regenerate.
As I was already telling before, the best way to prevent injuries is to know your body. And as paradox as it might seem: In order to experience your body fully you have to submit it to different tasks and even stress to reach your body’s limits.
Usually If you reach your limit once or twice it will not have long-lasting consequences. But I think it is necessary to experience it at first, so you know where the limits are.
It gets dangerous if you keep pushing the limits to often without giving time to your body to regenerate. But once you already figured out where your limits are and you know your body and mind, you should have a good mix between high and low intensity workouts with different rep-ranges and loads.
It is not only about your body, but also about your mind and your inner organs. That’s why a holistic implementation of a healthy routine -and not only healthy workout- is crucial for your injury free training. If I would get into detail on this topic it would break this interview-frame. For more Input you can follow our @habitivity.de account.
Still, back in time I wasn’t as wise as I am today and in fact I tested my limits too often without hearing to my body. This obviously resulted in injuries and tearing knee-issues.
Once I got diagnosed with “Osteochondrosis dissecans” (a cartilage injury), I thought that my sports career is over. The doctor told me I will not be able to do high-performance sports ever again. But that was not matching my plan. In this moment I had two options.
First: cry, be sad, get depressed and never try to do sports again (which I dd for exactly one week). Second: Cope with the new situation, ACCEPT it and figure a way to recover as fast as I could.
No surprise, after the first week of depression, I decided to take the second option. Against all predictions of the Doc, I started to walk on both legs again after five weeks post operation. I took me a few more weeks to feel save and do rehabilitation training.
Already two months after OP I was squatting at the gym. I started with 30Kg weight and could then fast return to normality. Call it luck, call it a great Doc or call it a good mindset… Its up to you. But the decision in such a situation is still yours!
🍎 How is your diet and what supplements do you use?
Back in time I used to follow strict diets. I was weighing everything till the last milligram was matching my plan. But in the same way as I changed my training philosophy, I also changed my diet philosophy.
As I now know my body even better (also through previous dieting in the past), I by now give my body what it needs. I allow myself to eat everything I want in an appropriate and healthy amount. With the experience and the time I just learned to eat in the right way.
I always buy as much fresh food as possible, reduced my meat consumption, eat more beans and corn, look to have the right amount of macronutrients and micronutrients but also care about the right consumption of fats, minerals and vitamins my body needs.
Because of the fact, that I don’t want to compete, I am not preparing for anything besides an always healthy lifestyle.
👍 What has inspired and motivated you?
Due to my sport-scientific approach, I read a lot of Jim Stoppani. He was the inspiration to the gym-plan I am using so far. In combination the book The 4-Hour Work Week, I realized that in fact 20% of the effort made 80% of the results I achieve.
In general, I am always open to learn from persons that want to help me and that seem to know more that me. My life is always about constant learning and growing, therefore I read at least 40 books a year!
✏️ Advice for other people who want to improve themselves?
If you have an issue with your brakes and you decide to varnish your car, then you will have a nice car that looks good from outside, but from the inside it cannot perform properly.
If you think deeply about the important things in life, you will notice very fast, that health is one of the most valuable assets we possess. So if you haven’t done anything to improve your mental and physical health, you should start right now.
For the beginners, I can recommend to start searching on Google for the best ways to start doing home-workouts. Once you noticed that you like it, and you think that you can get to the next level with the gym then look for the gym that suits you most. Start your workout program with the instructions of a fitness-trainer of your gym.
Once you reach a certain level, you can start to think about some mentors that will help you get even faster your desired results. Use every possible conversation to get important information about certain training methods in health.
For all fellows that have already more experience with fitness: I can truly recommend having a closer look at your training program, so you can rethink the overall health impact you want achieve. You can imagine it as if you had a car with a break issue.
If you have an issue with your brakes and you decide to varnish your car, then you will have a nice car that looks good from outside, but from the inside it cannot perform properly.
As long as you don’t fix the break problem, you will be missing an important part of your performance. Even maybe a part, that you haven’t known before, because your „breaks“ were broken in your childhood without you noticing it.
I am speaking about this topic, because sadly I experienced exactly this issue. Not only on some mentees I was teaching, but also on myself. I thought that my workout was really healthy and that my habits were really good.
To my surprise I realized, that after a certain time I started to feel the overtraining and then the injuries. I thought that hard training brings excellent results.
The truth is that hard training doesn’t always equal perfect results. It’s the quality of your training in consideration of the overall aspects of life that make the optimum and healthy results.
The best way to have a good life is to keep track of your habits. There are some helpful habits but there are also harming habits.
I want to really encourage everyone to overthink their beliefs and their habits so that you can get conscious about your lifestyle and the life you’re living right now. Because if you want a positive change in life, you need start doing positive things you haven’t done so far.
🤝 Are you taking on clients right now?
At the moment, and due to the current Corona-Crisis we are giving away for free some essential services of our program. Everyone wanting to use their time wisely in combination with an amazing community is invited to join us!
Nevertheless, in a normal situation we will be only taking those clients, that really want to bring their life to the next level. Therefore our potential clients will have to go through an application process, so we can determine if and how we can help them to achieve their goals. Every qualified participant gets then the chance to enjoy the privileges of our community.
With different program-packages we want to help different people to achieve all they ever wanted in life. At least in Germany this holistic concept is not being practiced by many coaches.
Together with our team, we have a network of experts that is specialized in different aspects of life to make a complete and holistic program.
If you are part of our community, you can participate in our online calls, enabling you to get very valuable information, tips, Q & A`s and direct coaching from our network of experts.
This direct intervention doesn’t only help you to reach the next stage after a challenge or a plateau, but also helps many other participants with similar issues at the same time.
📝 Where can we learn more about you?
Website: habitivity.de (Work in progress)
Instagram (Main Channel): @habitivity.de
Personal IG: @maurice.model
Facebook Page: @habitivity.de
Facebook Community: Habitivity community
