Weekly Recap 3/8-3/14/2020
This week has been a little crazy to say the least. But let’s take a break from it all and read about something new. Our weekly recap is filled with an article that covers how we can improve our lifts by experimenting and improving our movement intelligence, an article about the benefits of getting ourselves outdoors, an Instagram post about sleep, and a Facebook post about starting small and simple when implementing new lifestyle changes rather than over-complicating things just so they can fit into your personal ideaologies. Keep reading for all of the good stuff from the week!
Articles of the Week
Self-Organizing Technique by Mike Tuchscherer
Mike Tuchscherer writes an awesome article about individualizing technique. We are all built differently and are stronger in different positions. Although there are some non-negotiable parts of technique for each lift, or what Frans Bosch calls Attractors, there are also Fluctuators, which are technical points that can change and be individualized. Athletes play a huge part in figuring out their Fluctuators. Many times it isn’t something that can be seen but through experimentation, athletes can decide which positions they feel the strongest and can push the most weight. Your coach will ensure that you are hitting your Attractors while also encouraging you to play around to nail down your Fluctuators and help you find what works best for you.
Here’s Proof Going Outside Makes You Healthier by Abigail Wise
With all of us stuck at home with few options to get out of the house, we found an article that highlights the benefits of getting outside. Everyone can still get outside, take a walk, and enjoy the outdoors. This article goes over 7 benefits of going outdoors. We are all going to be a little stir crazy over the next few weeks so get outside as much as you can and reap the benefits of being outdoors.
Social Media Posts of the Week
This week our Instagram post comes from Evidence Based Movement (@evidencebasedmvmt). I am sure most of you hear how important it is to get an ample amount of sleep. But did you know how much the proper amount of sleep can reduce your injury risk? Take a look at their post below to find how significant that number is. And make sure you make sleep a priority! Not only does it reduce your of injury, it also helps to improve performance in the gym, improve mood, decrease blood pressure, improve memory, and much more.
“Research Rapid Fire
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The correct answer is...
..�❗️C❗️
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We get it, the basics can be boring But covering your bases 1️⃣ FIRST is going to be if you're trying to be at the top of your performance.
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❌What does this NOT look like?❌
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❌Fancy exercises that look cool on IG❌ buying the next best supplement❌ dropping money on cryotherapy❌ the list goes on.
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Not that there's anything wrong with these things. Just make sure you hit the basics of...✅
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✅Getting enough sleep✅ eating what your bodies requires 🥩 of you✅ progressively overloading in your training✅ and all the other boring things you hear us ranting about.
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What are your thoughts on this? Do you hammer the basics? Let us know
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Von Rosen, et al. Too little sleep and an unhealthy diet could increase the risk of sustaining a new injury in adolescent elite athletes. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2017;27(11):1364-1371
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The is ❌NOT medical advice. If you’re in pain, see your local physical therapist by visiting www.moveforwardpt.com”
Our Facebook post of the week is from Mike Israetel and is about how finding the middle ground often leads to better outcomes then if you choose one side or the other. It is most advantageous to look at the bigger picture and determine what is the best way to get to the end goal even if it seems too simple and/or goes against your personal idealogy. Rather than trying to make something fit into your ideaology or trying to make something super complicated, it is best to start simple and start easy. You want your clients to be successful so start small and build from there. Dr. Israetel goes into more detail on this topic and gives a great example of how this applies to building habits and becoming a more successful, resilient athlete.
“It's interesting that many of us are so tempted to side with one way or another of seeing the world, that we rush to judgement too soon and end up understanding very little about certain phenomena.
For example, some early research showed that willpower seemed to behave like a very limited resource, something that you only have so much of to use, and after it's gone, you fall prey to any and all of your temptations. Many folks ran with that initial research right away, some of them concluding that we have to be super attentive to how much willpower we're using and be extra super careful about not using too much... essentially treating our psyches as those of children.
Another initial line of publication seemed to suggest that the most successful people hardly relied on willpower at all. They relied on habits, which take almost no willpower to execute. Some folks ran with this, to the point of saying that any attempt to focus on willpower, recommend its use, or even discuss it in the context of behavior change was a foolhardy, right-wing fallacy, and that true recommendations for change involve making things as easy for people as possible. When people fail to make changes, it's never really on them, because no one has any willpower anyway, and even if they did, it has nothing to do with success.
Lastly, some research indicates that the ability to exert willpower can be trained with practice, and that your ability to exert willpower improves with successive uses of it. Of course, as you might have predicted, folks on the extreme left weren't big fans of this news, but folks on the extreme right adored it, and used it to justify any and all hardships. Hardships make you stronger, they'd say, so let's pile them on. Disadvantage makes you better, iron sharpens iron, and all of that.
The reality is that any one of those ideas by itself is woefully incomplete. But together, a patient person who DOESN'T RUSH TO JUDGEMENT and resists the temptation to grind their favorite ideological ax can integrate them to help themselves and others to a great degree.
Such a person might realize that yes, willpower is finite, and beginners to any new, challenging task have very little of it and they run it dry quick. This insight implies that when, for example, coaching folks on new diets or exercise plans, we should make the plan AS EASY AS POSSIBLE TO FOLLOW from the beginning. You don't teach your kid how to ride a bike on a downhill mountain bike course, and you don't throw clients into the fire with diet or training (at first).
Because we know that willpower is limited and that habits do most of the heavy lifting (so to speak) of behavioral adherence, we're going to want our clients to start easy, and get some momentum built up so that their new behaviors begin to solidify into habits, making them that much more likely to be sustainable. We're going to coach them in ways that enhance the chances that habit formation occurs as much as possible.
Once their fundamental behaviors are ingrained as habits, we're well on our way. But the best results in fitness (and life) come from pushing boundaries, which WILL REQUIRE WILLPOWER. Starting from their solid bases of easy-adherence and now-habitual behaviors, we can push our clients out of their comfort zones for short periods of time. A bit lower on calories, a bit higher on training volume, and so on. At first, these pushes are tiny and very short-lived. But, as research shows, willpower, especially task-specific willpower, adapts and expands. As this occurs, we can push our clients a bit harder and for longer on end, never losing sight of the fact that willpower, no matter how big it has gotten, is still finite, and that we always need to pull back and ease up on occasion, letting folks ride on their habits alone to refill their willpower gas tanks.
Sure, this approach of giving people all the advantages, easing them in, building habits, and then progressively challenging them in waves of difficulty with breaks in between isn't very meme-able or sexy. But it works better than any fractured approach to behavior change that was hastily cobbled together to justify personal or political ideology.
In the end, ideology always loses to WHAT ACTUALLY WORKS BEST. That's the right way of doing things, and we can all get their with a desire to see the big picture and with lots of patience.”
Written by Mike Israetel