Insights to fitness and wellness
 Money = Options  My Morning Alarms “Success Is the Progressive Realization of a Worthy Ideal” -Earl Nightingale
When you start to look around, it is interesting to see all of the different types of people that are out in the world. I think this is such an amazing thing about people, the fact that we can be so different, yet deep down share so many of the same attributes, goals, problems and ambitions. With all of the access into people’s lives’ through online platforms and social media, especially those of the rich and famous, it can feel discouraging or at least intimidating when seeing how much accomplishment people are able attain in their life. Some people seem to have more hours in the day than the rest of us based on how much they are able to get done in a day. I know that I have struggled to get through my work day with spare time to do some laundry, make dinner, and try to squeeze in a little reading before going to bed and repeating this same sequence the next day. For me, this was the routine for my first year working as a full time Physical Therapist Assistant at an outpatient physical therapy clinic. I would wake up about an hour before going to work. I would give myself enough time to rush through a shower, possibly some breakfast or more likely MY COFFEE, then rush to work. When I came home, I would try to fit in a workout, make dinner, then, there I would find myself at the end of my day. After feeling more and more anxious about not making progress towards my personal goals outside of work, I decided to run a little thought experiment. What if I woke up HOURS before I needed to be at work and started working on my personal goals first? Could this allow me to get more done in my day? Or, at least make sure that I don’t neglect the important things such as my daily movement practice and morning journaling. I thought this may also be a good way to establish a consistent Morning Routine that could take pressure off of me the rest of the day to be productive. I decided to give this a shot and committed to myself that I would try 30 days of getting up at 5am during the week. I needed to be at work at either 9am or 10am, depending on the day and would therefore have multiple hours each morning to work on my personal goals. I would also force myself to stick to a bedtime of 9pm to allow for a full 8 hours of sleep. Because I am inherently lazy, (which is what my previous schedule had taught me), I figure, if I could stick to this schedule, it wouldn’t allow for my laziness to get in the way. Or in other words, If I Designed a better schedule, I wouldn’t have to rely on my Discipline. I’m not having to be discipline with limiting my sleep or burning the candle at both ends. Instead, I am just shifting my sleep time to start a little earlier and end a little earlier which allows me to have time when no one else is around, to take care of my own goals. I waste less evening time and therefore have more morning time to create opportunities. At first, as in with any other change, getting up this early was uncomfortable. But, change is always uncomfortable, and once I was able to get through this stage of a few weeks, I began to almost immediately start to see the fruits of my labor. I am now over a year in, and continue to see the benefits of putting in the time for myself daily, before going to work and doing what I am paid for. It is too easy to get caught in complacency with life if you are not constantly working on getting better and improving yourself daily. I am much more consistent with my daily movement practice and exercise. I have been able to read and consume audiobooks at about 3-4x the rate as before, I also seem to have much less stress the rest of my day at work. I believe this is due to the fact that by the time I get home from work, all I really have to do is eat dinner and relax before going to sleep. Knowing that I have already accomplished so many of my goals for the day, allows me to be better at focusing on the task at hand and not thinking about other projects or commitments, as these are already taken care of. Remember, it is important to know yourself and consider your personal strengths and weaknesses so that you can design around these to optimize the life that you want. Because I personally have a combination of the desire to accomplish and learn constantly but have daily lazy tendencies, I am constantly working on ways to design my time around my faults to create the ideal life for me that I desire. Life is a game of constant trial and error, adjust and pivot, and guess and checks. As each day provides new opportunities to learn and grow, I just do my best and try to get better with every attempt. And just as Earl Nightingale so cleverly points out that since “Success is the Progressive Realization of a Worthy Ideal”, as long as we are working towards our goal, we are successful. Success Equals Progress
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 Working on Squat Positioning We were built to move. From how our anatomy is designed to how our brain learns and develops, all of your functioning improves with movement. And, exactly the opposite is true with the lack of movement or being sedentary. I know from my many years of experience working in physical therapy and from seeing friends and family as well as my own personal experiences, this very simple truth. When we stop using our body, we begin to lose the ability to use our body. Or, put more simply, Use It Or Lose It. This is demonstrated through many systems and physiological processes in our body. For example, muscle tissue and strength. When we stop exercising, or more severely are laid up in bed or in a hospital, we see almost immediate muscle atrophy and loss of strength. This same process happens with muscle extensibility or flexibility. If you stop reaching overhead and don’t use your shoulder joint, you will get stiff muscles at best and could develop muscle contractures or joint capsule adhesions at worst and lose the ability to reaching overhead. This similar process happens in our neurological system as well. Whenever we do a task, including how we hold our body (posture), and how we walk, our brain sends signals down nerve pathways that communicate how and when certain muscles should move and how far etc. Each time this happens, our body myelinates this specific neurological pathway and we become physiologically more efficient at this task. “Myelin is a fatty white substance that surrounds the axon of some nerve cells, forming an electrically insulating layer. It is essential for the proper functioning of the nervous system.The production of the myelin sheath is called myelination or myelinogenesis.” -wikipedia This happens constantly with everything we do, weather this is something we want to be good at or not. This is why so many people end up having very poor posture and many orthopedic problems from this later on in life. You don’t tend to notice these changes as they happen very slow and consistent over time. But as the other Daniel Coyle writes in his fantastic book The Talent Code, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent”. So, if we want to live a long and healthy life without pain as we age, I believe that hedging our bets by adapting a daily movement practice as one of the best time investments you can make.  Practicing Good Posture What Is A Movement Practice? If we can practice good positions and movement, in a controlled environment, on a regular basis, it can go a long way in helping to mitigate against future ailments of aging as well as overuse and seemingly random injuries. Now, since everybody's body is different and what we do throughout our days and work, can be much different from each other. And, because of how our body adapts to repetitive movements and positions, a tailored approach is needed. I believe that a good movement practice should be specific to you and your body and should bridge the gap between what you do for work and full human physical capability. Now, I think a few definitions are in order since I am talking about a very specific approach when I this of the ideal movement practice. Good Positions and Movements For this purpose, I am talking about practicing good posture, a neutral spine and controlled movement in and out of those optimal positions. A good example of this could be a squat, where I am controlling my neutral spine position (posture) while moving my body up and down through space so that when I have to get off of the toilet or out of the car, my body is well practice and rehearsed on how to do this properly, therefore the task becomes easier for me and I have a reduced chance of injury because of this adaptation. Another example could be a weighted curl to press exercises where you are now taking a weight from your side to up overhead, then return it to your side. This is a great way to build stability in your shoulder joint as well as your spine while practicing taking this shoulder joint through its range of motion with control to again build the ability to repeat this next time you have to take that heaving box down from the top shelf in your closet or garage. Controlled Environment The controlled environment could actually be many different things or places. When beginning an exercise or routine, this could simply be your living room where you practice some bodyweight squats. If you enjoy working out with others, this could mean your local health club or crossfit gym. The important distinction is that it is a place that you can safely focus on improving your skill in whichever position or movement you are working on and also does Not include all of the environmental factors that would be present when executing this task in a real life scenario. So, using the previously discussed squat example for getting off of the toilet. Let's say this exercise routine is for your grandmother who is in her 80’s and is losing strength and is finding it harder and harder to get herself off of the toilet at home. A great exercise in a controlled environment for her could be in her kitchen, standing in front of the sink with a chair sitting behind her. She could wrap her hands over the edge of the sink for support with her arms and then sick back towards the chair, stopping just short of sitting, and then returning back to her starting standing position to practice this squat in a safe controlled manner. (Remember, this is not an exercise prescription and always consult your physician or physical therapist before starting or changing your exercise routine, don’t hurt grandma!) Regular Basis How many times per day or days per week someone should exercises or work on their movement practice can range vastly depending on many factors. I’ve seen and personally done exercise routines that are 2x per week, 4x per week and even 7x per week. The routines themselves differed and the condition I was in was different for each of these times periods also. Some factors to consider when looking at exercise frequency include; exercise experience, current health status, physical goals, age, gender, past or current injuries, nutrition, sleep, schedule, equipment access, exercise type, etc. As you can see, navigating the specifics and nuances of all these factors can be a daunting task and I believe that they are in constant flux or change. So, this is where the expertise of a coach, personal trainer, physical therapist, or other specialist can be very helpful in helping to navigate some good starting points and programs or approaches that might help you find what your body needs specifically. One point that may be where considering also is that oftentimes less is more especially when it comes to making physiological changes and even more so in regards to strength gain and muscle hypertrophy. But for other goals, such as improving our posture which is very much dominated by the constant repetitions with our neurological system tend to improve better with many many almost constant repetitions or practice. Therefore consult a professional, start slow, especially with things that are new and/or heavy and be consistent.   Sleep is one of the most important aspects of our health and I would argue and one of the most neglected. If we were to simplify the categories that are important to pay attention to regarding our health and wellness, I would say the three most important categories are nutrition, sleep and activity. If you neglect one of these three pillars you will guarantee your-self failure. If you sleep well and eat well but don't have enough activity, there will be problems. If you exercise and eat well but don't sleep well, there will be problems. And if you sleep well and exercise well but don't eat properly there will also be problems.
Why is sleep so important? There are many reasons why sleep is one of the most important aspects of our health and wellness. One of these is that this is when our body is in the most anabolic state, meaning that the body rebuilds tissue during this time. This is important for everything including rebuilding the cells in our organs, regenerating energy throughout our body, as well as rebuilding muscle and connective tissue. How much sleep do we need? This seems to vary mostly depending upon age, with secondary factors including, lifestyle and individual variations. The consistent trend is for younger people to have more sleep and less as you age with adult and elderly recommendations between 7 to 9 hours. This is according to the National Sleep Foundation. It also matters when you sleep, mainly lining this up with your circadian rhythm which involves your body temperature and melatonin production, a natural sleep hormone. What can affect my quality of sleep? This can be many factors including, room temperature, noise and light exposure. The temperature is most often recommended to have slightly cooler temperature than you would have throughout the rest of your house. I myself find 67 degrees to be the right number for my bedroom at night. You want to limit loud noises and sounds, which seems obvious because these can become a immediate disruptor. This is especially true when coming intermittently throughout your sleep and can startle you awake increasing cortisol levels, a stress hormone. Light exposure can also be an important factor where studies have shown blue light exposure in the evening can limit melatonin production. This makes it increasingly hard to sleep at night and may have other health implications since melatonin is an important antioxidant and helps with immune function. Are there any quick and easy solutions? I have found that a room air conditioner can help solve the temperature problem and give you control to the exact degree of how you want your room temperature to be set. Limiting noise can be something as simple as adjusting your overall environment and or using ear plugs or possibly a white noise device to block other potential noises that may disrupt your sleep. Avoiding light exposure can be done with blackout shades are great but can sometimes be a little pricey. A sleep mask can be an inexpensive fix, but sometimes these can be slightly uncomfortable. You can also use Lights Out Travel Light Blockers for those little annoying lights, such as on stereos, room air conditioners or alarm clocks. So, make sure that you prioritize your sleep because it is an important pillar of good health and wellness. Also, make sure to manage the factors that you can control to optimize your sleep including the temperature, noise and light exposure and have a restful night sleep!   Does this sound like you... You drive to the golf course, take your clubs out of your car and pay your greens fees. If your lucky you have a few minutes to hit a few putts and maybe take a practice swing or two. Then, you hear your name over the loud speaker and you are next on the tee. Now you're off to go enjoy a round of golf, or try that is. Other than the first four or so shots it takes you to get your swing down. Or the sore back that always seems to creep up by the 15th hole. I would argue that if you took a different approach and did this simple FREE 7-Minute Golf Warm Up, you would have a much better experience out on the golf course. How can I make such a bold claim? Because the principles in this warm up are based off of a simple model of anatomy, physiology, swing mechanics and many many rounds of self experience. Simply pull up to the golf course like you otherwise would and instead of rushing over to the putting green, follow the simple steps to warm up your muscles, joints and connective tissue as well as prep your neurological system for controlled, consistent motion to help protect your back and improve the consistency of your swing. Seems simple right? Well, it actually is pretty simple, and if we dive in a little deeper to see the reasons why I have chosen this specific set of movements, exercises and positions, things become even clearer. I believe we can break down the concept of a good warm up for golf into 4 specific categories of goals. 1) Start with increasing systemic blood flow which will help to increase body and tissue temperature. This increase in body and tissue temperature is important for shifting blood flow away from your organs and into the working muscle tissue. This not only helps prepare for activity but allows improved tissue extensibility as well as improved oxygen supply to the muscles. This can be done with a number of different exercises including but not limited to jogging in place or walking around your car or the practice ares, or doing some dynamic stretches to name a few options. 2) Increase blood flow and neuromuscular awareness to specific muscles that control your major joints including hips, shoulders, and spine. This is important for getting your body out of the patterns of daily movements and positions that are adapted during work, driving, sitting, and repetitive tasks. You want to break out of these potentially poor patterns before trying to add additional stressors including the rotational movements of your golf swing. This can be done with focused controlled motions like bodyweight squats, lunges, push ups, rows, and side stepping to name a few.  3) Take your joints through their full Range of Motion (ROM). This includes shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees ankles and spine.
This is very important to ensure that you start each round of golf with access to your full ROM at each joint before adding additional stressors or movement patterns like your golf swing. This can be done with movements like, full depth bodyweight squats for hip, knee and ankle ROM as well as shoulder pass throughs and around the worlds with a dowel as well as leg swings to name a few. 4) Prepare movement patterns that are specific to your golf swing. This is primarily focusing on the neuromuscular connection and awareness. This is how you can continue to refine a skilled movement pattern like your golf swing as well as prepare your body to go through specific motions and movements . This should be done by slowly working into your golf swing and creating slow, controlled, exaggerated movements that allow you to practice using the proper muscle that create your swing. Make sure that before you go out for your next round of golf you have a warm up that covers the 4 principles above and if you don't, check out my FREE 7-Minute Golf Warm Up where I have created one for you.   There are a few important things to consider when looking to hire a personal trainer. Some of these are more obvious, like checking there if they're certified or not and what their experience level is. Other things are not as obvious, such as training methodology, background and understanding of anatomy and physiology as well as injury prevention. I believe the first question you need to ask yourself is, why do I want to hire a personal trainer? There are many reasons why it is beneficial to work with a trainer such as accountability, safety, injury prevention, to learn movement skills and more. But, I believe it is important to figure out what your reasons are before beginning in order to ensure you find the trainer that fits your needs and goals. For a lot of people, the reason they want to hire a personal trainer is because; they know they need to get involved in more activity, exercise, stretching, weightlifting and more, but are not sure where to start. This can be due to a lack of experience or simply intimidation of not knowing how to use exercise equipment properly, and not wanting to get hurt while figuring all this out. These are valid concerns and great reasons to hire a trainer but unfortunately, not all trainers are created equal. Now that you have decided that you want to work with a trainer, it's time to start the search to fill that need. The first thing you will begin to notice when looking around at different trainers, is there are many types of certifications and different letters after people's names. This in and of itself can be confusing on which credentials are valid and hold more weight than others. One of the problems with personal training as an industry, is there are a lot of different certifications. Some of which can be obtained through the internet without actual training experience. Others however require lots of studying of specific information like anatomy and physiology and challenging tests to ensure that safety and knowledge is the top priority. The most commonly accepted certifications that are accredited and require testing and valid understanding of safety as well as anatomy and physiology are as follows in no particular order. CSCS Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach, ACE American Council on Exercise ACSM American College of Sports Medicine NASM National Academy of Sports Medicine This list does not include all of the good certifications, because there are many out there. These are however, the most commonly accepted at national gyms and universities and require testing to obtain as well as continuing education. The next thing that you want to check about a potential trainer is if they have experience with the goal that you are trying to obtain. For many people, this is simply improving their health status, getting stronger, losing weight, improving their flexibility and just feeling better overall. I believe most qualified trainers can help with these goals. When you find a trainer or two that meet your specific requirements, it is now important to dive in a little deeper to find out which of these will work best with you. The next attributes you should be looking for is, experience and specific methodology of training. This simply means, what types of exercise or equipment does the trainer use and why. There are many many many approaches to this and most are great. But again, the goal is to find someone that works with your specific goals and can align their training approach to what you are trying to get out of the training sessions. The final and I believe most important aspect of finding the right trainer for you is, do they practice what they preach? This to me seems very obvious of an attribute to check, but I see this getting missed a lot. Now, this is not to say that every personal trainer should be a top-level bodybuilder or should have super low body fat. What I simply mean is, does this trainer practice the exercises or their training methodology on themselves or do they teach one thing and do something different with their own approach to training, health, fitness and wellness. If not, I see this as a bright red flag and a great warning sign that this may be the wrong trainer for you! Why is this such an important aspect of a good trainer? Consider the following question. Would you take Financial advice from someone that is broke? How about health advice from someone that is sick and a smoker? I think your answer to these is the same reason why you want to work with a trainer that practices what they preach.    If you look at most successful people, one major thing they have in common is that they think about their time differently. This is seen most often when looking at successful people's morning routines. One thing that seems to be almost a rule across the board, is that successful people wake up early. I believe it is not just about getting up early that allows you to be successful, it's about using that extra time that you create for yourself, to be productive for yourself. This, is why I think it's important that you optimize your mornings and figure out a routine that works best for you. There is a great quote by Jim Rohn, which says, “Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job”. I believe that waking up early with the intent to work hard on yourself first, before you get started on your job is what will start to set you apart from others. There is a lot of value in finding routines in general, especially because most of our days are made up of routines whether we choose them or not. If you think about the variety of food that you eat over a month, you tend to see that there is not much variety at all. You often get in a routine which is the result of default decision making that is based on what you did yesterday or the week prior. This default “decision” takes place of an actual decision rather than taking a step back and looking at all of the available options and reasons why you may choose one thing over another. Now, looking at your whole life this way can be daunting at first. This is why I think it's important that you take one aspect at a time to try and optimize. Practice that for a while until you become really good and consistent at that modification, then add the next step in. For me, the first thing I have been trying to optimize has been my morning routine. This has been my current morning routine for the past 10 months. The more days that I am consistent with my routine, the happier I become and the easier it gets. Most of these things that I'm about to talk about, I started about 10 months ago. There has been a few additions lately though, that I think are very valuable and will talk about those as well. My morning starts at 5 a.m. when I am gently awaken by a progressive sun simulating light, The Philips Wake Up Light. This light does a great job to wake me up, which has surprisingly been a nice change to the blaring radio alarm. This even feels like an upgrade from having a vibrating wristband like the Fitbit or Microsoft Band, which was my prior method of awakening. The light has a nice subtle way of letting you know that it's time to get up, without a physical or audible jolt first thing in the morning. For me, this removes the feeling of being stressed out as soon as I wake up. Once I am up out of bed, my body tells me that I need to use the restroom. I believe this is partly because our physiology becomes influenced by our routines, therefore our body knows the signaling of when to do things like the restroom. Also, I tend to eat dinner that includes high dietary fat content. This has an added benefit of keeping me regular, (ie consistent bathroom usage) and the morning time tends to be when that all gets resolved. While I’m using the restroom, I start our Infrared Sauna, to allow it to warm up to our current temperature of 140 degrees fahrenheit.  I sit in the sauna with my girlfriend for 30 minutes every morning. During this morning sauna, it is a great opportunity to practice breathing techniques. Specifically, diaphragmatic breathing and Wim Hof breathing, which are two breathing techniques that I've been utilizing more and more to try and minimize stress responses during activities. This has also helped me to have better control over my agitation and bouts of anxiety. This is also an opportunity for my girlfriend and I to write in our morning 5 Minute Journal. This has been a great part to the start of our day with purposeful thinking and a clear direction to focus on after leaving the sauna. We then have a traditional morning beverage that consists of, half of a lemon squeezed in a glass with about 1 to 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, and filled about halfway up with cold water.  I have nicknamed this my morning “Gut Drink” and there are many reasons why I choose this to start my day. Most of all, it just helps me to feel energized and feel better throughout my day. After my morning Gut Drink, we have either tea or coffee. Lately, we have been drinking tea during the week and coffee on the weekends. This has been a nice schedule and makes me look forward to the mornings for this delicious drink. Our coffee is Bulletproof Coffee and yes we use the Bulletproof brand coffee beans. With this being said, it is important to mention that being a bit of a coffee snob and living in Seattle, I have ample choices of tasty coffee. I have also worked at a coffee shop and done many coffee tastings in the past. With all of this coffee experience I can honestly say that this is one of the best, if not the best tasting coffee I have ever had. There are also the added benefits of being third-party tested for toxins and molds. I believe this is worth the investment, especially if you rotate it with tea or other beverages throughout your week. Also, if you are only are drinking one cup of this per day, I believe it is worth the cost.  Other important components of our morning tea or coffee include, 1 tablespoon of Kerrygold grass-fed butter and lately we've been adding about a half a tablespoon of coconut oil and a half a tablespoon of Brain Octane C8 MCT oil. This is a full-fat beverage that allows both myself and my girlfriend to stay satiated and energized well through the morning until lunch time. After the coffee/tea is consumed depending on the day I make my way to the gym for a workout the specifics of the workout change Daily but they do always consist of positions and movements that take my body through ranges of motion that I don't get at my job or throughout the rest of my day my workouts last anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 minutes then I have some time to read right and think. I finish up whatever else I need to before heading to the shower to get ready for work. While I'm showering, I begin with nice warm water and slowly bring the temperature down as I’m working my way through my shower. I finish with cold water where I also focus on breathing which helps me to tolerate the cold. While brushing my teeth, I keep a Phillips Go Light on my counter which gives me the a bright blue light. I have found this to be helpful to fully awaken in the mornings, especially in the fall and winter in Seattle, where it can be dark most of the day.
After all of this, I am now ready to face the day! |
Author : Jordan ProudfootHere are my thoughts and insights into fitness and wellness to be the best you possible. Archives
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