| Booby Traps, Triggers and Landmines When Vivi and I go scootering or running on the side walk, I teach her to look for booby traps, which is broken cement, roots, potholes, debris, etc.., that might trip us up.
Triggers are things that trip you up and often lead to behaviors you don't want to participate in.
Landmines are the same as booby traps in that you need to watch out for them other wise things might not go well for you and you could spiral into negative rehearsals.
All 3 are metaphors to watch out for so you don't get knocked off your course and when it comes to training, life challenges your consistency enough so watching out for your personal momentum killers is smart practice.
Community Hey man, not only does life present booby traps, triggers and landmines, but people have bad days and sometimes their bad days affect you even though we both know its our choice to let other people have power over us by letting them influence our reactions and behaviors.
Try as you might to be a good friend and listen with appreciation and respect, sometimes your defenses may get warn down and the mud might take you over. It's going to takes continual practice to build up your stamina to control your thoughts and actions, so keep going and in those times when you feel discouraged because someone cut you off, was a jerk or you were simply bombarded with negative news, having a community of supportive people to retreat to and recharge in can help.
What is a Community It's your family & friends. It's your neighbors and neighborhood. It's your school(s). It's your work. It's your gym, park and extracurricular programs. It's where you shop.
How do you build up your community? You have to show up repeatedly, be a good person and find ways to contribute to the greater good.
You also have to sometimes be selective of who gets into your community (depending on which community it is) and when they get in to protect culture and harmony of it.
Do this consistently, over time and years and you'll build deep friendships and bonds.
And then, when life happens and is too much to bear and you feel depleted, broken and discouraged, your community will serve as a safe retreat to escape to, recharge and build you back up.
Sleep, Nutrition & Injuries Sleep Sometimes you don't sleep well and that makes everything difficult. Here are some random thoughts on sleep quality.
If you eat right before bed and/or have an overfull belly, you'll probably pass out, but have a disrupted sleep by tossing and turning while your body digests the food you ate.
If you eat sweets & desserts (e.g. ice cream) or drink alcohol or high glycemic carbohydrates / refined carbohydrates right before bed, you'll also probably pass out easily, but again have disrupted sleep by tossing and turning while your body digests the food you ate.
If you choose to stay up late, in most cases its very difficult to sleep in and catch up on sleep. If you want to catch up on sleep, you have to go to bed early because you'll most likely wake up around your usual wake time.
Want to learn how to sleep better? Watch how parents sleep train kids. Here's an example from our family on our current routine for a 4 year old with no evening activities.
4-5p, dinner prep 5p, dinner 5:30 clean up 6p, bath 6:30p books & stories 7p lights out 8p adults lights out 4a daddy wakes (8hrs) 5a mommy wakes (8-9hrs) 6a Vivi wakes (11hrs)
1.5 hrs for the child to digest (smaller bellies, less food consumed) 2.5 hrs for the adults to digest (larger bellies, more food consumed)
Then do it 7 DAYS A WEEK!
Note for yourself: 1. scale the above time lines to when you want / need to wake up 2. subtract backwards how many hours you need to sleep to jump out of bed energized. that's your lights out time. 2. give yourself ample wind down time at least 30min, but as much as the full 2.5hrs of digestion time. 3. no screens before bed (sometimes its easier said than done) 4. set up your dinner time ~2.5-3.5 hours before lights out time 5. practice daily and repeat 7 days per week as best you can
Nutrition When you eat, how much you eat, what you eat and whether you eat can affect your performance.
The best thing is to be consistent with your nutrition consumption & meal times, 7 days a week, so your body can manage its needs appropriately. Then practice nutritional periodization (eat more) on higher energy need days to help perform better and recover quicker.
When it comes to training first thing in the morning, as in you wake up earlier than usual to exercise, it really matters what you ate the night before as that energy will be waiting for you. Leaner people might need some quick burning calories (solid or liquid, carbs & proteins with minimal fat) to give them the energy to perform.
E.g. Quick Burning Foods protein shake in water or juice milk or chocolate milk bread with peanut butter & jelly or jelly only. a sandwich, a slice or a half a slice. yogurt with berries. a nutrition / protein bar, granola bar. a banana or apple. instant oatmeal.
Others might need to have something immediately after (shake, bar, sandwich, etc...) and then most can get along with a meal after a shower.
When you train at other times during the day, nutrition will also matter. No one wants to have an over full stomach with a food coma and liquids sloshing around. That doesn't feel good.
Doing physical activities 2-4 hours after eating are ideal times to have peak energy with minimal digestive side effects. Sometimes going longer than 4 hours, say eating lunch at 12p and training at 6:30p, might present you as weak & dehydrated, so a 3:30-4:30p snack, could be real helpful to raise your energy with minimal digestive consequences. Alternatively if you have a Quick burning food (shake, bar, sandwich, ...), 30min prior to participation, that will work too.
You need to have enough energy to make it to and through the workout. Sometimes eating a balanced meal prior to exercising is enough. Sometimes you need a quick burning food before the workout. Sometimes you need quick burning foods during the workout and sometimes you need them after. Your body usually knows the answer, but if it doesn't ask me and I'll help.
Injuries. Sometimes you may get injured over the course of your lifetime. Most of the times, you might only get hurt. Either way, you've gotta find a way to keep training because if you don't train, everything will get worse and the healing will slow down, whereas if you do, everything will keep moving forward and the hurt and/or injured part will continue to heal, sometimes faster, rarely slower, while the quality of your life keeps moving forward and your mood stays more up.
One client broke his finger in martial arts and then again in basketball, wore a splint and still kept training. 4 other, newer members strained their quads sprinting and still kept training. Another client sprained his wrist in martial arts, tapes it and still keeps training. 1 got knocked off her bike by a dog and fell in a ditch, another lost his balance carrying food and fell off his bike. Both got hurt and scraped up and still keep training. Another hurt her knee squatting, and still keeps training. Another hurt her calf sprinting, gets treatment for it and still keeps training. Another blew out his ACL skiing, and returned to exercise when he left the hospital, but not boot camp until he could do what we do in boot camp. One lady tripped hopping hurdles and landed on her knee. She brushed it off and kept training. Another tripped running, got a bruised ego and scraped knee, and still showed up to the next workout. There's so many. Another is sick with an upset stomach with vomiting and diarrhea and still finds a way to keep training. One lady broke her finger messing around with her brother and still keeps training. Many have low backs that can be vulnerable to mal-alignment, causing lots of discomfort in the back, legs, knees and feet, and do a lot of corrective self care to live their lives and still show up and train. Some run long miles on the weekend and show up with sore legs and still train. Some have sore shoulders and use lacrosse balls and massage to help them feel better and still show up and train.
Everybody has something they have to manage, but you still gotta train even if you have to modify things. Your sanity, your health and your continued performance depends on it.
Sometimes you need help.
Sometimes they go see Chris for a massage. Sometimes they go see Barry for a tune up. Sometimes they go see Aaron for a more detailed postural plan.
And then they still train.
Sometimes You Just Have to Show Up Life is going to bring lots of challenges your way, to keep things interesting of course, and sometimes you're momentum will get thrown off. As soon as you regain your balance and especially when things aren't perfect, but are good enough, you gotta just show up. That first workout will make the difference in re-charting your course and getting you back on track. It'll be fun so long as you go at the pace you can that day and not at the pace you did the last time. And you'll leave there feeling satisfied, taller and with a rosier outlook.
Keep showing up,
Coach Mike
p.p.p.s. and as always, if I can help you, reply and let me know.
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