thebodyunbroken

What Doesn’t Kill Us………

What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

The human body is incredibly adaptive. We cheat, shortcut, conserve and circumvent anything that is not obviously in our best interest. We are always keeping enough in the tank to flee from the sabretooth tiger and will happily default to ‘screensaver’ metabolism just in case the next meal is elusive. Throwback to the days of the hunter gatherer.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t had to run from a sabretooth tiger recently; Uber eats, drive-throughs and abundant all-you-can-eat buffets, make hunting and gathering solely a mental exercise.

If we have done it before, our complex brain kicks into gear to find an easier, quicker, and more efficient pathway to success. It is my contention that we are too smart for our own goods and the challenge is to beat ourselves at our own game.

Living by habit robs us of our potential. When you walk in the door to the gym, put your gear in the same locker, lace up the same sneakers, go to the same machine, set it to the same program, for the same amount of time, and do the same work out, you cannot expect to make a difference. You are merely (hopefully) maintaining the status quo, as your body cries “we’ve got this!”

If your highly motivated and talented trainer gave you a phenomenal workout, but you are still doing the same one with the same weights, as the day you were introduced to them, you are merely maintaining the status quo (if that).

How do we challenge the status quo and stimulate improvements and ‘gains’? We need to make efforts to live a radical life. We need to push ourselves into a space and time where we are uncomfortable. Anytime we break into a sprint, walk into a 120° sauna, plunge into a cryo-chamber or heaven forbid we don’t eat (and actually feel the rumblings of hunger) our body says “what the heck!” Your grey matter frantically tries to decipher what it needs to do to combat being uncomfortable and pushed into stress. How could our glorious status quo get upset?!!

THAT is when change happens. We don’t die easily, but the body kicks into gear to fortify and protect against ever being threatened in such a way again. Aha progress. That is what I’m talking about!

Therefore, I challenge you to lose your breath frequently, go into a fasted state and bypass the eternal fueling of the metabolic fire, lift things (repeatedly) that are just too heavy, aim for bigger, better, higher, longer, faster. It won’t kill you. It just might make you stronger, healthier, more resilient. And the endorphin rush from escaping the sabretooth is the best feeling there is.

And it may be the answer to the quest for eternal youth. Gasp!!

Be Quiet And Listen.

I am scared. The state of the worlds’ health and fitness scares me. The progress of technology has decreed that the human race no longer needs to be able to move. The food industry has done an exceptionally excellent job of training human beings to be addicted to their products by the addition of sugar salt and fat (and indeed all three at one time), that hunger is now replaced by habit. Children are corralled behind desks and taught to be learning machines as the PE curriculums are stripped of staff and funds. Need I go on?

My plea to all humans, is to tap into your inner (outer/all-over) athlete. To start, all you need to do is listen. Not to my words, not even to the pleas of your physicians, not to the statistics on mortality rates. Listen instead to your own body- it speaks exclusively to you. Listen deeper, beyond the chatter of the small inconsequential messages that sully the water. You’re not hungry, your purely in the habit of eating, or are you simply thirsty? You don’t hate to work-out it’s just a chore to get yourself ready and get moving.

Watch any animal, even domestic dogs and cats and see how when they wake up they reach back stretch and prime themselves for movement. Watch any baby to see that their whole world is motivated by the desire to reach and grasp, crawl and get to standing, to walk and move. Watch any kindergartner on the playground and they will run incessantly until forced to sit down. What happened to those messages of internal movement that the body cries for? We train them out of our bodies as we are told to sit down in school but told to sit at a desk and be productive at work. We are told we don’t need to hunt and gather, farm the land, create… All we need to do is press a button and whatever we need will be delivered to our door.

We no longer live in our bodies we live in our phones. Talk to text and you don’t even need your fingers to move. The dopamine rush of a ‘liked’ post or flattering comment has replaced the endorphins that flood our blood stream when we push ourselves out of the state of rest. We live in a virtual world of imagined experiences at the expense of our own well-being. We are enabled to live in total disconnect with our bodies.

Listen carefully for the loud silence that used to be your body telling you to move. The pain in your back is labeled as a herniated disk or sciatica but it is in fact your body conforming to its own confinement. Listen to the whispers……… the deepening breath (of fresh air) that fills your lungs when the body is allowed to move. It will gulp for hydration, nutrition and oxygen. Listen to it yell. Listen to it whisper. Listen to it scream when you reach a new milestone.
Start to listen and you will know what is habit, what is real pain, what is boredom. Start to move and listen to the symphony start to play, and I challenge you to sing along.

Loudly.

Drumroll Of Clichés

Who else feels like they are living a cliché, aphorism or quotation?

I guess I should feel comforted that mine center around resilience,
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
“When one door closes another door opens”
and of course, the one that says.
“The reason the rearview mirror is small, and the windshield is big is because where you’re headed is far more important than where you’ve been”.

The one saying I will focus on the here and now; “If mama ain’t happy nobody’s happy” and should in fact be shouted from the rooftops.

I have had more time than usual to talk on a deeper level with the strong, effective, amazing, and beautiful women in my life. (I could go ahead and insert the “Silver lining to the dark cloud” cliché here) The one thing of which we are all extremely guilty is putting others first and denying ourselves the attention, consideration and self-love we deserve, or dare I say NEED..

I have started to make a plea for mental clarity and fortitude that comes from physical strength. If we do not carve out time (“that waits for no man”) to take care of ourselves physically; to move, to breath, to sleep, and to nourish, we are unable to “pour from an empty cup” And so, the aphorisms continue.” But wait there’s more…. “

So, I say “Physician heal thyself.” My advice from this past year of ass-whoopings is to align yourself with strong women, strong men, strong mentors. Anyone who will selflessly fill your cup to brimming with inner strength, inner light, and inner peace. To be there for other people means you need be there for yourself first. This is non-negotiable. What a beautiful circle of nurture we can create.

You need to do your part before you leach others of their magic. Rid yourself of toxicity: what you put in your mouth, what you lather on your skin and through your hair, what you think, what you see, and who you allow into you sphere of energy, heart, soul and spirit. People will happily take from your abundant energy. There are very few who put any back. Those that do should be your treasured friends. Remember “The cream always rises to the top” for a reason. I will see you there.

Movement is Joy

When you carve out valuable time in your day to head to the gym is your goal to punish a body you hate, or reward a body you love? Children should not be punished with running a lap or doing sit-ups, but should be given them as rewards so that we see the potential of human movement for what it truly is. A gift.

With this gift comes a responsibility often handed over to doctors, pills, or couches, but also to “Health clubs” and “Gyms”. The fitness industry is being thankfully re-defined. I ask that you be leery of facilities that take you from sitting at your desk to sitting on a machine in the name of fitness; it is movement insanity. (Mens Health director Adam Campbell said “What’s the real logic of sitting or lying down to train your legs? Think about their purpose, supporting and moving the body”). To create movement that is joy we need to take a body and unfold it, nurture its abilities, and give it a freedom to perform.

We need to reward its enviable potential with movement in multiple planes. Draw out its grace and integrity. We are not made simply of muscle. We are a beautiful array of interconnected fibers… Ligaments, tendons, myofascia – all working collaboratively and with a synchronicity that results in movement. Tap into this world and be rewarded with added energy, fluidity, balance and ability.
It is amazing to realize how new of a science Sports Performance truly is. I was fortunate to be at Birmingham University, England during its early era as a discipline for study. Subsequently, I have been able to have a career pursuing the science and logic necessary to help athletes maximize their performance by perfecting human movement at its core. Pun intended. Our premise has to be that we are all athletes, and our level of performance can be enhanced (depending on our ability so that we can get out of a chair unaided, throw ball with our kids, or compete in the next Olympics) with equal diligence.

There needs to be an honest, directed, studious and continual assessment of the body’s ability to move. If the body doesn’t move in harmonious and fluid ways, there would be little sense behind strengthening such a dysfunction. Give it what it craves – movement – and start an exponential growth of muscular joy. Freed from its confines behind a desk, from repetitive action, from limited motion, from stagnant lifestyles, we can begin to bring it joy and make a painful, overfed, under-nourished or misunderstood body experience a whole new usefulness – one that loves to move, craves to move, and has an unbridled energy.

Step away from your confines. Stop exercising and start training. The days of “No pain, no gain” are over. It’s all about taking a deep breath and pushing your body to where it couldn’t go yesterday, while eagerly looking forward to where it can go tomorrow. Quit “working out”. Quit going through the torture of a workout on static machine/s. Start training. Train for life, train for joy, and most of all train with intent. Find your WHY. Hone in on your reason and get guidance and support from someone who can help you get there. Remember. Movement is joy. If it isn’t then we’ve got some work to do.

Food is Fuel

How and when did unhealthy become the new acceptable norm.

Who is to blame for the gluttony and sloth epidemic? We can blame the food industry. We can blame the legislators. We can blame big Pharma. Or can we work out how we go about taking some ownership of our own health, or unhealthiness?

As one of my favorite colleagues, a talented trainer who holds a Masters in Fitness and Nutrition says, “I don’t need to tell you the difference between a snickers bar and a stalk of broccoli. Get back to me if you need more help with that”. If you are unhealthy, have a dangerously high BMI, require a litany of medications to stay out of danger, or can’t easily get yourself up off the floor *, suffice to say your lifestyle is killing you, and YOU are ultimately responsible for your lifestyle……..And if you have a child at home, the way you shop, eat, and live sets the stage for their heath and their future levels of fitness, illness and diet related disease.

The desire is there in all of us and often people are strangled by guilt. Random strangers often stop me (in the grocery store, parking lots, at school meetings), to unload their litany of excuses for why they are not in great physical shape. They feel the need to confess and make a promise to a total stranger who must obviously hold the power of absolution and facility to hear their decree of renewed absolve and grant it possible. And indeed, I can, I can be your information resource. I will be your biggest cheer-leader and life-coach, your confessional and the holder of your goals and dreams. But the journey starts with your own internal resolve to make a change. Make a commitment to yourself first – only then can I get to work.

Excuses don’t get results. Hard work gets results. I give the same information to anyone who approaches me:
Consistency is key.
Diet revamp is essential.
There can be no excuses.
Prioritize.
Food is not for pleasure, it is fuel.
Find your WHY.

Tuck that information in your back pocket, take it out and unfold and read it as needed. Train your body not because you hate it but because you love it. Food can be the enemy or it can be your life fuel. Train for life, train for joy and train with intent. Imagine the body you want to live in, healthy, free from pain, mobile and efficient, lean and mean. Start taking steps to get there. Find someone who can boil down the insurmountable task to doable bites. Start taking bites until you stimulate the appetite for huge mouthfuls of health and vitality. It’s addictive. Let the joy of movement be your drug of choice and your guilty pleasure, it’s the only one that reverses the downhill spiral of neglect. After all, if you don’t take care of your body where will you live?

Need more help with that? I’m the one wearing the “Squat , cos nobody wrote a rap song about a small behind” T-shirt, waving frantically from my here, my YouTube channel, Facebook and Instagram pages. Let me help you at any step along the way. LET’S DO THIS!!!

(*In 2012 The floor sit to stand up test (without using your hands) was shown to be a viable indicator of longevity. It involves strength, mobility, coordination, and balance etc. More recently tweaked to take onto consideration a person’s genetic predisposition to diseases and conditions it still holds water as a valuable yard-stick. Go ahead and try it.)