Balance and the BasicsDecember 31st, 2021It’s that time of the year again. Holiday’s are wrapping up and people are starting to think either “New Year, New Me ” or “Beat it 2020, Hello 2021!”. Yes it has been a challenging year and not many people made it out unscathed. As I write this, I am serving my 10 day quarantine from testing positive for Covid-19. I’m doing pretty well. Mostly fatigue and loss of taste and smell are my primary symptoms. That being said, I know it’s cliche, but it could always be worse.In times of uncertainty, it is always good to find balance, and get back to the basics.***Disclaimer- I am not a doctor, nutritionist, guru, sage, priest, insert any title. These are just my observations and how I think. What you do with the information is your choice.***People always think about New Year’s resolutions and how “This is going to be my year!” Too often, people set themselves up for failure. They either set too many goals or they set them so far out of reach that they are destined to fail(more on that later). In any habit change, you can’t expect to have wholesale changes overnight and expect them to stick. You need to have priorities and you need to have balance. I’ve never been a New Year’s resolution guy. But I am making a goal for myself. In anything I do, is to get back to Balance and the Basics.Balance is a word that can have many different meanings. When I think of balance, I think of a seesaw. When it is balanced, you have equal parts on each side that level the seesaw (assuming that the fulcrum is smack dab in the middle). Now, if the fulcrum is off center, you are going to need more mass on the short side and less on the long side for it to be balanced.We need to have a relationship between work and play. If we work hours on end, everyday, every week, eventually we will breakdown (illness, injury, mentally etc). We need to balance our work with downtime, sleep, fun activities to recharge our battery. Now, can we play all the time? Probably not, because we still need to make a living in order to fund our basic needs. Of course, if you can get paid to play, you are ahead of the game. We need to have a balance between doing what we have to do and what we want to do.We could also apply this to health and fitness. Simply, we need to find the right balance of intensity and volume in the gym (insert any fitness activity) with the amount of rest, if we want to achieve the results that we want. Same is true for the way that we eat. Each of us has a certain balance between proteins, fats, and carbohydrates in our daily eating that is optimal for us.In any arena, if you want to be successful, you also need to get really good at mastering the basics. In any area that you want to improve at, there most definitely are basics that you need to learn first. Most of the time, I think mastering the basics will lead to the majority of the results that you are looking for. People often look for complex answers to simple questions. I have done this countless times. Over the last 20 years, I have worked with high school athletes on the field and in the weightroom. Over those years, my knowledge as a coach has increased, but my clientele has stayed the same. I was always retooling my programs trying to eek out any smidgen of improvement. Usually, ruining the recipe. What these athletes need, are the basics in the weight room. They need to know how to: jump, squat, hinge, push and pull. If you can get an athlete to do that, you are setting them up for success down the road. When you no longer see improvement, then and only then, do you start to tweak it. Don’t let Instagram and TikTok tell you otherwise.Same is true for food. If you want to improve your eating habits, stick to the basics. Fruits, veggies, lean meats, whole grains, healthy fats and water etc. Eat until you are satisfied. You can use a weekly average of the scale and adjust accordingly. Don’t get into macros, detox, fasting, only eating on days with full moons or only consume dairy when you face east etc. Nail down the basics of eating and then if you aren’t where you want to be, you can start to look at the next level.Where do you want to go? What area of life do you want to improve on? It all starts with the basics and maintaining the right balance. How do you figure out what the basics are? You need to either educate yourself or find someone who has done it before. Success leaves a trail. People are always striving to reinvent the wheel and the wheel is pretty basic…..
Chop Wood, Carry Water
“Before Enlightenment, Chop Wood, Carry Water. After Enlightenment, Chop Wood Carry Water”.- Zen ProverbI painted this yesterday with watercolors and now hangs by my door. (I modeled it off a drawing I found on the interwebz)This is a quote that I ponder often. There can be many interpretations, but this is what resonates with me. If there is a goal in mind that you want to achieve, there are basic things that you need to do daily in order to get there. Hundreds or thousands of years ago, every day someone would have to fetch water from a source and bring it to where the tribe was. This had to happen if the group wanted to drink or cook. If the tribe wanted to stay warm or cook food, someone had to chop wood for the fire. These things needed to occur daily if they wanted to survive (the goal).It does not matter what your goal is. It could be to become a better baker, a faster runner, more flexible, stronger, weight loss, more mindful, eat better, etc. There are basic things that you need to do to achieve that goal. They must be done daily. Chop wood, carry water, even when you achieve your goal. Be relentlessly good at the basics.There is no destination and only the journey. Trust the process
Plan Fun Things!
Dec 21, 2021
What was the last “Fun” thing you planned for yourself?(or others) Was it a vacation? Bought tickets for a concert? Maybe you planned a dinner to either go out and meet friends or cook for them? When was the last time you did something that made you feel more like you? When we do the things that we enjoy or look forward to, it changes our brain chemicals. Going to sporting events with family or going out to a nice dinner, makes us feel good. Maybe it’s registering for a cooking class or an adventure race. Having something to look forward to can help you get through the days that are tough. Just knowing that something good is on its way can give you the strength to carry on. The past couple of years have been a challenge, and maybe your options are limited. Make a list of all the possible things you could do for fun if you didn’t have any responsibilities. Then set a date and take all the necessary steps to ensure you don’t have any responsibilities that day. Then execute the idea. Currently, some friends and I are planning a golf trip to a ‘bucket list” course. Instantly, my mood had changed.
Placing yourself in an environment that makes you feel good can go a long way in dealing with your stress. I challenge you over the next day or so to PLAN something fun! It doesn’t have to be extravagant as a trip or vacation. Maybe it is just a cup of coffee with someone you haven’t seen in a while. Something that will make you laugh or feel good because of the company you will be keeping or something you miss doing. You’ll thank me later.
Let us know what you are planning!
Be Your Own Hero
May 9th, 2021
Be your own Hero
Growing up, I always looked forward to the book fair at school. That was when a company would come in and set up a stand where they had all different types of books. My favorite were the “choose your own adventure”. The ones where you would get to a pivotal point in the book and you were the one that decided where the story went. “If you want to go into the cave and follow the robbers, go to page 32” or “If you want to set a trap for the robbers, go to page 34”. The story had the same overarching plot with it basically ending up in the same spot. How you got there was determined by your choices. The same is true for all of us, isn’t it? For the most part, we are all living the same basic story, with the same ending. I think in every Hero’s adventure, it is important to take matters into your own hands if you want to accomplish something. It could be starting a business, getting stronger, eating healthier, building relationships, the list goes on. No one is coming to save you. So why not be your own hero? It is your story and you get to decide where it goes. If there is something you want to accomplish, it is perfectly ok to seek help from those that know more than you on that subject. If you had a leaky faucet, is a plumber going to know that you have a leaky faucet? Is he going to knock on the door and go “Hey, any chance you have a leaky faucet? If you do, I can help!” You actually have to do the work and find the information on how to fix the problem. If there is something you want to accomplish, find those who have already done it. They will help you decide on what page to turn to.
Balance and the Basics.
Missed Opportunity
February 28th, 2021
There are a lot of benefits to exercise and movement. I think it has been well covered in many different areas and by many different people. Some of these benefits are: an increase in lean muscle mass, lower blood pressure, lower heart rate, better blood sugar control, and the release of endorphins (you know, the things that make you feel good?) The goal should be to do something every day. Sometimes the best plan falls apart and life gets in the way and interferes with that plan. Currently, I am working with a client and they had a rough week where workouts just weren’t happening. They texted me and told me that they would do better this week. This tells me that they are feeling a little bad about missing the workout. As their consultant, I feel like I am partly to blame. I didn’t give them more options at the beginning. Meaning, what was the backup plan? As organisms, we are designed to move and be active. It is in our DNA. From an evolutionary perspective, we are meant to move, hunt and gather. Now, for most of us, the only hunting we need to do is go into our kitchen and find something to eat. My suggestion is to have a few different backup workouts that don’t take a lot of time. For example, let’s say that your normal workout takes 45 min to an hour. I’m sure you can find time to go for a 10-15 min walk, or maybe 50 bodyweight squats for time, hop on the Peloton for a mile. Every day we miss being active, is a missed opportunity to get better. Point is, have alternatives. Life is pretty hectic for most people, but there is always time for something. Get better every day and move the needle.
Balance and the Basics.
Tracking Recovery
How do you track your recovery? Do you even track it? There are a few ways you can track your recovery. The easiest way is through a wearable device. Personally, I use a device called the Oura Ring. It is designed to be worn all day and can track your movements. Very similar to a pedometer or a smartphone that tracks your steps. Its main function is while you sleep. It measures things like heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration rate, body temperature, time in bed, time asleep, and sleep cycles. Each morning, it will evaluate all of those metrics and give you a daily score. The higher the score, the more recovered you are from the day before. Depending on my goals, it can dictate what I do for training that day. Most of the time, if my recovery was garbage, I will still train, but I might tweak a thing or two. There are other devices that do this, like the Whoop and I believe some Fitbits and Garmin watches.
The main idea is, “What gets measured, gets managed”. If you track your recovery, you can make better decisions on what you do for training and what you do a day before training. If I know I have a hard workout on the next day, my food choices and sleep patterns can greatly impact my recovery overnight. I know if I have alcohol after 6pm (even 1 drink), it will elevate my heart rate, decrease my HRV, and increase my respiration rate. These all decrease my ability to recover overnight. The more recovered I am, the harder I can push in training.
Most wearable devices usually cost a few hundred dollars. If you don’t want to splurge, what else can you do? You can track things such as:
- How much time did you spend in bed?
- Morning resting heart rate. (Before you get out of bed)
- Daily Survey on how you feel.
After tracking these for a few weeks, you can establish a baseline. You will start to see patterns between the metrics that you track. Then you can make better decisions.Balance and the Basics.
Super Bowl Sunday!
Super Bowl Sunday!
Have fun! Eat the damn 27 layer taco dip. Eat 20 hot wings. Have a couple of cocktails. It is the sports equivalent to Christmas and Thanksgiving. Give yourself permission to have a good time. Back to work tomorrow. In the whole process of human development, evolution, progress, improvement or whatever you want to call it…. Remember to have fun.
Balance and the Basics.
Stress Bucket Revisited
February 6th, 2021
What is a “Stress Bucket”. Imagine that your ability to manage and handle stress is a bucket. Like the little buckets that you would bring to the beach to hold water. At first, the bucket can hold a little bit of water. Now, if you continue to add water to the bucket, it will overflow. In this metaphor, water is stress. Overflowing of water is when we become stressed out and start to break down. In my opinion, breaking down can look like many different things. Overwhelmed, anxious, sick, depressed, sad (insert any other emotion here). There are a couple of things that we can do to prevent the overflow of our bucket. First, manage how much water gets put in the bucket. The second is, put some valves in the bucket so we can let water out. Third, increase the size of our bucket.
Option 1: Decrease the amount of water coming into the bucket. In one of the last posts, I asked you to write down all the things that can stress you out. Minimizing exposure to those things can help decrease the amount of water coming into your bucket. Maybe on your list, you wrote down: “Negative people at work”. I avoid these people like the plague at work and in life. If you are around people that are constantly looking at the worst possible situations or the downside to everything, they can cause your stress levels and anxieties to rise. They can really be depressing. By avoiding them, you are less likely to get caught up in their drama and bring you down. Maybe it is certain social situations. I think a lot of time, people stack too many things on their plate and it can start to become overwhelming. Limiting these things and giving yourself some downtime can help mitigate how much water you pour into your bucket.I have mentioned this before. One thing I try to avoid because it causes me stress is the news. It seems EVERYTHING on the news is negative and usually makes me sad or angry (more water in the bucket). Simple solution, I rarely watch the news. “But what if I miss something important?” If there is something that needs my attention that is reported on the news, someone will tell me. I think this option is the easiest to implement. Find something on your list that will be easy to eliminate. Is there an intersection that always has traffic? Find an alternative route, even if it adds a few minutes to your commute. Twitter makes you angry because of all the politics? Delete it from your phone. Identifying these situations will help reduce what goes into the bucket. Make a “Get to Do” list versus a “To Do” list. (More on those in a future post)Go for the low hanging fruit here.The next 2 options require a little more time to implement.
Option 2: Water valves on your bucket. A good number of the topics that I post involve adding water valves to the bucket to effectively “let stress out”. The 5 areas I discuss are Mindset, Nutrition, Recovery, Movement, and Environment. All of these offer us many different options that we can use to help lower the water level. These things include: Mindfulness and meditation, eating better, sleep hygiene, exercising, and planning fun. This goes hand in hand with goals and behavior modification. Pick one thing in one of those areas and work on it for some time Then add another valve.
Option 3: Get a bigger bucket. Building a bigger bucket allows us to become “Anti-Fragile”. If you have a bigger bucket, you can fill it with more water before it overflows (stressed out). There are probably people in your life that get stressed out over the smallest detail (small bucket). Maybe that person is you? Sometimes, these people get told that they are “over-reacting”. I use to think that, but I now know better. Then there are people that don’t get phased by stress, even when it looks like they are taking on the world (large bucket). Becoming “Anti-Fragile” is building a bigger bucket. Building a bigger bucket requires a lot more work, habit-forming, a shift in mindset, and training. Options 1+ 2 are things that we can do to manage our stress (water level) on a daily basis. They will then bleed into Option 3. Once those things start to become habits (for example-getting more sleep) they increase the size of our bucket. Therefore, making us more resilient to stress and becoming more “Anti-Fragile”.This is a never-ending cycle.
“People think they are finished masterpieces when they are really still works of art in progress”.Balance and the Basics.
Being Uncomfortable
A few weeks ago, I read a quote on social media. It read “We are only as strong as our environment requires us to be.” I agree to an extent, but I prefer to change one word. “We are only as strong as our environment ALLOWS us to be.” Yesterday, I was driving to the store and drove past a small river. In that river, there was a gaggle of geese. (gaggle is a funny word) They were all hanging out on the ice and floating in the water. When I drove back past an hour later, they were still there. The environment over time allowed these geese to adapt to these conditions. If we were to take a flock of birds that were native to Florida and dropped them here in Massachusetts in winter and forced them to do this, they would die. Their environment didn’t allow them to become strong enough.As organisms, we are constantly in a state of evolution. Our environment will dictate how we evolve. If your environment doesn’t challenge you to improve, how can you get to where you want to go? You have to take risks. You have to join challenges. You need to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Do something challenging or that is going to make you uncomfortable today.Balance and the Basics.
Specialist or Generalist
Exercise, we all know it is good for us. Which program should you be doing? For the general population, the answer usually is “The one that you aren’t doing”. When it comes to exercise and training, there is a continuum. On one side you have “Health/Wellness” and on the other side you have “Performance”. One way to compare is “generalist” to “specialist”. If you want to run in a 10k or play in your summer softball league or be the longest hitter in golf at your country club, you need to train more towards the “specialist” or “performance” side of training. If you are looking to improve your overall fitness, you need to be more on the “health/wellness” side. It all comes down to what your goals are.We would all like to be stronger, faster, look better, perform better, look better in the mirror, have better blood work, lower body fat, lower heart rate, lower blood pressure etc etc. Yes, there are definitely some things that will overlap, but I often see people try to achieve too many. Instead of narrowing their focus to 1 or 2 things. “If you chase two rabbits, you will catch neither”. (can’t remember where I read that) You need to treat everything as an experiment. Where are you starting from? Where do you want to go? What data are you going to collect? What are you doing to move the needle? Write it down. Lately, I have been using an app to keep track of my food intake because I have been feeling a little off. After a couple of days, I found I was under eating by a significant amount. The problem is, I was gaining weight. When we undereat by a lot, our metabolism slows down. We can even start to have an increase in weight gain (That being said, I did spend December(precovid diagnosis) in a hypertrophy phase (getting bigger). So I am not sure if it was the program or the slowing of my metabolism. I do know my pant legs are a little tighter! The moral of the story is, I am tracking my food intake for a couple of weeks and getting up to where I need it to be. Keeping my activity level the same, and I am going to see what happens and then readjust.If you don’t know what to do, seek out mentors in that given area. Success leaves a trail….
Vagus Tricks
The vagus nerve. That long wandering winding nerve originates in our brain and travels to the abdomen. Remember, it is a major player in shifting our body into a parasympathetic state (rest and digest). By stimulating this nerve, we can keep our body in recovery mode longer. Being in an over-stressed environment, it is important to downregulate our nervous system and just chill out. Now there are a few ways that we can jumpstart this.
- The first one, and I can already hear the “HELL NO’s” is taking a cold shower. This doesn’t mean you don’t use any hot water. Towards the end of your shower, put it on full blast cold. How long you stay in it is up to you. Try it for 10 seconds. Yes, it is hard to do. But that is kind of the point. We should always try to do at least one hard thing every day. Why not start the day with one and get it over with. I do this in the morning, and I tell you, I feel great afterward. I was up to about two and a half minutes last year. Some of the benefits are: improved circulation, increased alertness, uptake in oxygen to help drop carbon dioxide levels, and when practiced, can help drop stress levels.
- Singing or chanting. We all sing in the car while driving around. Do it more and louder and you will start to hit the vagus nerve. When people think about meditation, they will think of the stereotypical monk chanting “Ohmmmmmmmmmmm”. The vibration in the throat will get the vagus nerve going.
- Social Interactions- Getting together with family friends. Usually, when you get together for dinners or parties, you are with people that you want to see. Good stories and laughter are usually had. When we feel safe and connected, we will also get a boost of Oxytocin (the feel-good hormone) which will keep us in a parasympathetic state. In my opinion, this is one of the biggest drawbacks to the shutting down of schools and businesses during the pandemic. One of the biggest threats to an inmate in a prison is when they put inmates in “solitary confinement”.
Try these out this week and let me know how it goes!Balance and the Basics
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