Articles

Why you HAVE to be consuming podcasts and videos

September 28, 2022

I’ve been consuming podcasts and videos more than I’ve been reading for a few years now.

It’s a change I’ve been feeling increasingly uncomfortable about. Reading books has impacted my life in a big way – yet here I am reading significantly less. Podcasts and videos feel like a shallower version of reading – yet I’m consuming them alot (probably 10-15 hours a week).

I’ve come to realise that podcasts and videos can be incredibly powerful though – just in a different way to books.

I find podcasts more tactical. They often inspire me to make immediate changes in my life. This type of immediate change helps me iterate on my behaviours and habits regularly.

I find books are generally more useful for understanding broader themes. These themes tend to shift my thinking at a macro level, but in a much slower way. If an idea or a theme clicks for me in a book, it’s like a seed has been planted. And then over time, this helps to change or inform new beliefs – which then leads to an actual shift in how I live my life.

Here are a few examples of how podcasts and videos have helped me make immediate, tactical changes in my life recently:

The Foot Ability Protocol by Ben Patrick (Kneesovertoesguy)

I’ve been aware of Ben Patrick for a while. I watched his interview with Joe Rogan. Since then, I’ve kept up with him on Instagram and YouTube. I also bought his Knee Ability Zero book. That said, I hadn’t yet incorporated any of his ideas into my training.

His recent video The Foot Ability Protocol got my attention. He shared a very simple routine that includes the foundational exercises he often recommends for good foot and knee health.

This felt like something really easy I could fold into my training once or twice a week, and would be very beneficial to do. And I’ve done exactly that. Eventually. I’m going to buy a drag sled so I can add some extra stimulus for backward walking.

1870 – Max Lugavere – The Joe Rogan Experience

The Max Lugavere interview with Joe Rogan is possibly one of the best well rounded conversations on metabolic health I’ve listened to. It inspired a few immediate changes in my health habits.

Joe and Max talk about the benefits of the sauna and cold exposure and Joe’s sauna and cold routine.

Sauna: 20 mins
Cold plunge: 3 mins
Sauna: 20 mins
Cold plunge: 3 mins

Always starting with the sauna, and ending with cold.

The benefits of hot and cold exposure aren’t new to me. I just haven’t found a way to incorporate it into my life. And then it clicked. My local outdoor swimming pool has a sauna. If I were to use that, I could then use the pool for cold exposure (it’s currently 15 degrees celsius, and gets down to 4 degrees celsius in the winter). It’s a perfect way to get cold and heat exposure.

Four days later, I turned up at the swimming pool at 7.30AM on a Sunday morning. I did the above routine and it felt amazing. It was such a nice way to start the day. I plan to do this at least once a week going forward.

Joe and Max also talked about oral hygiene (benefits of flossing and concerns around fluoride and mouthwash). This caused me to stop using mouthwash and start using a fluoride free toothpaste. I also intend to start flossing each night too.

The conversation around dairy fats is also well timed, as I’m currently re-evaluating my diet. I’m already starting to be more flexible in incorporating some cheese, milk and greek yoghurt into my diet.

Metabolic Flexibility and Longevity by Crossfit Health

I’ve been doing time-restricted fasting for many years. I keep to an 8 hour eating window and a 16 hour fasting window, which I achieve by skipping breakfast. I have my first meal of the day around 13.00 / 14.00 and almost always train before that in a fasted state.

I am very inflexible on this. That’s because once I start eating, my appetite starts to ramp up and I end up feeling the temptation to snack and graze throughout the day (and often do!). By skipping breakfast I am essentially pushing this out. I also love the efficiency of not having to think about food until the afternoon.

However, the panel in the video defines metabolic flexibility as ‘being able to optimally switch from one fuel source (carbs, fat etc.) to another’. Essentially you want your body to be able to cope and be efficient with various states of training and fasting. When you do one thing all the time (i.e skip breakfast and train fasted), your body only gets very good at doing that.

It made me realise that I need a bit more variation if I want my body to be metabolically flexible. I’ve already started to add some variation into my fasting and have done a couple of unfasted training sessions. As I suspected, it didn’t feel great – a sign that I probably have some work to do to be more metabolically flexible.

The above are just three examples of how podcasts and videos have helped me change some of my habits and behaviours for the better.

We literally have access to some of the smartest people on ANY topic you can imagine – and for FREE. If you’re not consuming podcasts and videos regularly, you really are missing out on opportunities to be inspired and better educated – and to become the best version of yourself.

A final tip. You must become a good curator of the podcast and video channels you subscribe to. You have to really care about your information diet and be willing to put in the effort to have it serve you. It’s SO easy for podcast and YouTube feeds to become noisy and overwhelming. I might write up some ideas for how to do that well in a future post.

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How to solve hard problems (and how to get good at it)

September 11, 2022

Being good at solving problems is one of the most valuable skills you can build.

It helps you think through and make good decisions in your life. You can help friends with their problems. You’ll also be able to help companies save a lot of time and money – making you very valuable to them.

But, how do you get good at solving problems?

That’s something I’ve always struggled to give advice on. I like to think I’m a good problem solver. But, I haven’t been able to think about it in a systematic way that can lead to pragmatic advice – until recently.

There are two parts to it – how to solve a problem and how to get good at it.

Let’s take the how first. Solving a problem seems to go through three main phases:

How to solve a problem

1. Becoming aware of a problem

This is your starting point. You become aware of a problem through directly experiencing one, or seeing others struggle with one.

You’ll likely start to have some ideas for what’s causing the problem, and how to solve it. Almost always, you’ll be tempted to act fast. But, one of the most common mistakes is to come to a conclusion too quickly. This is what causes people to solve symptoms, instead of getting to the root causes of a problem. Don’t do that. Discipline and patience are key for this stage.

Push away the noise and look at the situation calmly. Sit back and organise your ideas for what the problem is, what is causing it and how you might solve it. You’ll have specific ideas, as well as some areas that need exploring further. A list of people you want to speak with. Research you need to do. Start to organise your ideas and pull together a high level plan of how you intend to dig in further.

2. Working through the problem

This is where the real work gets done.

Start talking to people. Look at things more deeply. Do any research that’s needed. Start working it all out.

The biggest thing to remember at this stage is that you have to keep an open mind. This quote by Paul Graham sums it up well:

“expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong”

He was talking about writing (which lets face it – is problem solving), but the same applies for problem solving. It’s natural to have an early instinct for what the root cause is and how to solve it. In fact, the better you get at solving problems, the easier it is to see what’s happening. That’s fine, and your instincts might be right. But, you want to avoid simply building a case around your instincts. Try and keep your early instinct to one side and let things unfold how they need to.

I’ll warn you now, working through a problem can be painstaking and frustrating work. You will find yourself lost at some points, wondering if you can ever bring things to a close. Sometimes you’ll question whether you can get everyone onto the same page for what is wrong. It can be a messy process. But, don’t give up. Push through it.

Eventually, some themes will start to stand out. The root causes will become clearer. You’ll also start to see which things are only symptoms. You’ll have specific ideas for solutions. Let these ideas unfold and slowly start to organise your ideas. I find it useful to start writing a document so you can lay them out and organise them well.

Keep talking to people as your clarity builds. If you’re on the right track, this will all start resonating with people in your discussions.

At some point, you’ll experience a moment of clarity where everything will start to feel directionally correct.

3. Strip it back and find elegance

You should now have a strong sense of the root causes, solutions and have identified what are only symptoms. Almost always, what you have is too complicated.

You now have to fight to strip it back to something which is simple and elegant. It’s the 80/20 principle. That is, 80% of results are driven by 20% of effort.

Perhaps you have three root causes, but it’s two – or even just one, that really counts. Perhaps you have five different solutions to a root cause, but two of them squarely solve it. The other three are icing on the cake and will probably distract from the two that really count.

Simplify. Strip back. Edit. You want to finally look at what you have and be proud of how simple and elegant it is – almost a work of art.

Ideally you’ll end up with four things:

problem
succinct root cause(s)
clear solution(s) to the root causes
symptoms / other considerations & notes

The first three are obvious. It’s worth giving a bit of context for why you should also have some thoughts around symptoms and other considerations. Solving a problem is never as clean as identifying the root cause and solution, and then everyone agrees. There are often a bunch of symptoms which people are convinced are the actual root cause. In some cases, there are also other root causes which are tangential. You should acknowledge these if you want others to accept your root cause analysis.

Below is a slide I actually used as part of a presentation to an Executive team:

I covered the root causes and solutions first, and then finished with symptoms and other problems to be aware of. BUT, with a clear warning that they should not fall into the trap of becoming distracted by them. If you do this right, you’ll find people will be able to compartmentalise these from the real root causes. It will also strengthen the buy in for your your root cause analysis.

How to get good at solving problems

How to solve a problem is one thing, but how do you actually get good at it?

The answer is straight forward. You have to get the reps in. Like everything in life you want to be good at – you have to repeatedly practice it. There are no short cuts or hacks.

The more you expose yourself to hard problem solving, the better you will get at it. Force yourself to go through the three phases, time and time again. Eventually, it will feel the natural way of going about things.

Something I only realised in writing this article is that my time at Jagex was a university in problem solving. I was just starting my career and was thrown entirely into the deep end. I was helping to run a game and company that was in the beginning stages of exponential growth. Everything I was doing was for the first time. I was constantly solving problems around people and processes. I made lots of mistakes, but gradually began to get very good at solving problems. Jagex forced me to get the reps in.

What if you don’t get a lot of hard problems in your life or work? Well, I don’t think that’s true for most people. Problems are all around us, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. You simply have to notice them.

Here are some examples of how to see more problem solving in your life:

Whatever you’re trying to do in your life, make an effort to explore it deeply. Don’t be lazy and stay at the surface level. For example, perhaps you’re wondering about how you can eat healthier? Make it your mission to build a real point of view. Follow lots of experts, listen to podcasts and read many articles. Drag out the common themes and put together a first version of something to try that’s built around a solid amount of research.

Do you have something you need to explain to someone? Instead of doing it on the fly, sit down and write it out. Think through how you want to say it – exactly what, in what order, what do you want to finish with?

Do you have an important email to send? Don’t just write it and send it. Write a first draft. Leave it a day. Come back to it and re-write it. Edit it down to something that you’re really proud of. Share it with some colleagues and ask for their feedback. Edit again, based on the feedback. Really make it the best it can be.

If you need to buy something, don’t make a surface level buying decision. Dig deep and research it. Look at all the options. Whittle it down into a well researched decision. My friend Barry finds it amusing how long it takes me to make a buying decision. That’s because I treat it like I’m solving a problem.

Have a side project. It’ll force you to explore and decide all types of things.

Start writing and sharing your ideas in public – it’s a brilliant way to build a point of view on something. It forces you to think, research, organise your ideas and edit them back to something which is elegant.

Invest. If you don’t think deeply around your strategy for investing, you’ll become unstuck quickly.

If you can stay aware of the three phases and force yourself through them enough times, you WILL get good at solving problems. And soon enough, it becomes the natural way of thinking about things and making decisions.

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Daily Habits: August 2022 (Uh oh, have I lost it?)

September 4, 2022

Let’s get straight to the point – August was a write off.

I expected it to be. I was on holiday for ten days, so I decided beforehand to still track my habits, but let go of any expectations.

Here’s how it looked:

Ouch.

I’ll make a few brief comments on each habit, and then get to my goals for September.

No Alcohol – I’ve been sober for 13 and a half months, so didn’t expect this to drop below 100%.

Sleep 6.5HR – the hot weather we had in the UK, my daughter not sleeping well and late nights on holiday were the main causes for a low 52%.

Paleo – I ate what I wanted on holiday, as well as the period before and after – hence a very low 16%.

Intermittent fasting (16 hour fast, 8 hour eating window) – I ate a very big breakfast every day on holiday, but held my consistency before and after – managing a fairly decent 45%.

Caffeine (max 3 cups, before midday) – same as above, I held my consistency before and after holiday, settling at 61%.

Water: 2 litres – this was a habit I tried to keep up whilst I was on holiday, and I did exactly that – 84%!

Supplements – I held my consistency before and after holiday, and took about 5 days of supplements with me on holiday – managing a good 68%

As I said above, not great – but as expected.

As I look forward to September, I’m reminded of the TWO most important things in building consistency with my habits over the last six months:

1. Visually track progress on a daily basis

2. Focus on one habit at a time

It’s the second one I really need to pay attention to as I build towards all habits being at 80%+ for the end of the year.

With that in mind, I’m going to keep it super simple in September. My goal is to get the habits which I previously considered in the bank (i.e easy to keep at 80%+) back to over 80% – no alcohol, intermittent fasting, caffeine, water and supplements. I’ll see where sleep and paleo fall and then plan my goals for October. Even though I have no goals with them, I am quietly confident they will improve.

Being on holiday has also given me a bit of time to reflect and think about where I want to take my health habits over the longer-term. My goal is to get all of the above habits to 80% by the end of the year. If I am being realistic, even if I get there, it will be coming in hot. So, I’ll need to spend at least the first three months of next year resisting the temptation to add in anything new. I need to prove to myself that these are in the bank and easy to maintain at over 80% – however long it takes.

That said, once I have achieve this, I have a few ideas for other habits to focus on:

Mobility exercises

150g protein per day

Increase sleep to 7 hours

Reduce caffeine to 2 cups per day

Whilst it’s tempting to add these types of habits now (even just to track them), I know it’s the wrong thing to do. It will distract and overwhelm me.

OK, let’s do September 👊

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Daily Habits: July 2022 (in a strong place now)

August 2, 2022

I’ve been tracking my health habits on a daily basis for six months now. It’s been so powerful, I can’t imagine ever not doing it.

Here’s a recap of my goals for July:

Eat paleo – meat, fruit, vegetables and nuts (50% of the time)

Everything else, 80% or over – no alcohol, sleep 6.5 hours, intermittently fast (8 hours eating and 16 hours fasting), maximum of three cups of caffeine before midday, two litres of water and taking my supplements.

And, here are the results:

Overall, I’m really pleased with July. There were quite a few positives and also a few things to focus on improving.

I’ll start with the positives:

Not drinking alcohol is hardly a thing for me now. I had a few social catch ups in July and I found it effortless to not drink. I also hit my one year alcohol free in July.

Caffeine, Water and Supplements are also now firmly established daily habits. I suspect if I dropped the tracking altogether, I would easily continue to maintain 90% + consistency.

Intermittent fasting under new stricter rules (only water and black coffee in my 16 hour fasting period) reached over 80% consistency for the first time. And, it felt easy. When I missed, I made a conscious decision on that day not to fast – it was never the result of me losing concentration or failing due to willpower. I’m confident I can easily maintain 80% + consistency going forward.

Now, for the areas to improve:

Paleo came in at 45% consistency – a little shy of my 50%+ goal. That said, there are a few positives to take from that. Firstly, it was pretty close. Secondly, I proved that last month’s 47% wasn’t a fluke. Thirdly, I found a better consistency on weekdays, where I was able to eat paleo for three or four days back to back. And lastly, I managed to eat paleo on a Friday one time! So, even though I fell short of my 50%+ goal, there’s a lot of progress that gives me the confidence I can get into over 50% territory soon.

Sleeping 6.5+ hours dropped to 68% consistency – my lowest score since March. This was disappointing, and I need to tighten this up. That said, July had some unusual challenges. It was HOT in the UK and this made it much harder to sleep. I also had a few things going on with my daughter and dog that disrupted my sleep. So, I feel I can tighten up (earlier nights, better night time routine and waking a bit later) over the next few months and soon get to a solid 80%+ consistency.

So, overall, I think I’m in a really strong place. And, I need to keep reminding myself that where I am now compared to 6 months ago is night and day.

That brings me to August and also thinking about where I want to be by the end of the year.

Let’s start with where I want to be by the end of the year. That’s an easy one. I want to be 80% + consistent on all of the above habits I am tracking. To do that, I have to maintain the five habits already at 80% consistency – no alcohol, intermittently fast, caffeine, water and taking my supplements. I don’t think that will be challenging. And then I have to get my sleep and paleo to 80% +. That will be much more challenging and will likely take the rest of the year five months) to achieve.

Now onto my goals for August. That’s a tricky one. I have a 10 day holiday in August where it wouldn’t be enjoyable or sensible to try and achieve the same level of consistency with my habits. So, I’ve decided to take August off. I will still track my habits, but will let go of any expectations. The main things I will push to keep at a decent level are sleep and water. There’s a good chance I can keep these at 80%+, but let’s see. Everything else is bound to drop significantly. And then in September, we start again!

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No Alcohol: One Year

July 16, 2022

I was on the phone to a medical specialist earlier in the week. They asked me if I smoked or drank alcohol and I said ‘no’. It felt good to give that answer with no hesitation.

I wrote about my journey after 60, 90 and 250 days. And honestly, I don’t really have too much different to say compared to 250 days.

I feel great. Not a hangover in sight. Better weekends. I have more confidence. I have less anxiety – especially at the start of the week. I’ve had a complete transformation with my health habits (see below). I weigh less and am more at ease with my physique. I’m confident that I’m healthier (we’ll find out when I take a new set of bloods in August). Also, I do not miss the mental gymnastics that come along with trying to manage my alcohol limits – which I always eventually broke.

Perhaps the best way I can describe it, is that it feels as if a weight has been lifted.

So, where do I go from here?

I suspect I’m going to be alcohol free forever. There’s too much to risk by trying to get to a place where I can have a couple of drinks on a special occasion, a few times a year. That said, I’ll keep an open mind. I prefer to be self aware of the benefits and risks – and from there, continue to make whatever the right decision for me is.

By the way, this is where my habits are for July so far:

I’m on track for a record month. I KNOW this would not be possible if I was drinking. It’s this and less anxiety that are my biggest reasons for staying sober right now.

If you’re thinking about giving up alcohol, I’d be more than happy to chat and share what’s been useful for me.

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Daily Habits: June 2022 (oooh, that was close!)

July 1, 2022

I’ve become almost obsessed with tracking and improving my daily habits over the last five months. I can’t remember what inspired me to do it, but I’m glad I did. It’s been life changing.

Before we dive in, here’s a quick reminder of my goals for June:

eat paleo – meat, fruit, vegetables and nuts (50% of the time).
Intermittently fast (8 hours eating and 16 hours fasting) under new stricter rules (80% of the time).

I also wanted to maintain the other habits I’ve already established at 80% – no alcohol, sleep 6.5 hours, maximum of three cups of caffeine before midday, two litres of water and taking my supplements.

Here’s how I did:

On the face of it, that doesn’t look great. I failed to get Paleo over 50%. I failed to get my intermittent fasting over 80%. My sleep slipped below 80%.

That said, it was very close. There are a bunch of things to be happy about:

Whilst my paleo consistency didn’t hit 50% or over, I made a very significant improvement from last month. Things are heading in the right direction.
Whilst my intermittent fasting consistency didn’t hit 80% or over, it was super close at 77%. I also have to remember, it’s only been two months of holding myself to a much stricter set of rules (only water and black coffee in my fasting period).
Whilst my sleep dipped below 80%, it wasn’t by too much (73%). I also managed to keep my average sleep nice and high at 6 hours, 56 mins.
All other habits I wanted to maintain are sitting nicely over 80%.

If you’ve been reading my articles for a while, you’ll know that I avoid goals. Instead, I prefer to establish a direction I want to head. From that perspective, I’m heading in the right direction with everything. I have to remind myself that my progress won’t be linear and there is more to learn. And ultimately, my overall progress over the last five months is more than I could ever hoped for.

As for what to learn from June, there are a few things that jump to mind.

Events that take me out of my routine, tend to knock me off course. For example, I went to visit my Mum for three nights at the beginning of the month. My daughter also had a weekend of birthday activities towards the end of the month. I lost my consistency too much over these periods. I need to plan better for these type of things. I don’t have to be perfect in these periods, but it makes sense to at least think about damage limitation.
Sometimes I just get a bit lazy with my habits and forget. Taking my supplements is a good example. There’s no reason for that to be under 100%.
The fix for my sleep is to be more disciplined with getting to sleep earlier. I naturally wake up very early and then find it hard to go back to sleep. I also have a dog and a daughter that helps with that. So, if I go to bed late, there’s a very good chance I’ll struggle to get my 6.5 hours in.

That brings me to my goals for July. They will be exactly the same as June.

That’s because I see my next big milestone as being able to get paleo to 50% or over and everything else 80% or over. And not just one month – for a few months. I want it to feel natural and effortless. I’m close. It feels like I’m starting to find a baseline with these habits. But, it could take the rest of the year for it to settle into a consistent baseline, which I’m totally fine with.

So, just a recap on my July goals:

Eat paleo – meat, fruit, vegetables and nuts (50% of the time).
Everything else, 80% or over – no alcohol, sleep 6.5 hours, intermittently fast (8 hours eating and 16 hours fasting), maximum of three cups of caffeine before midday, two litres of water and taking my supplements.

Let’s go. 👊

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Daily Habits: May 2022 (fell short, but still a big step forward)

June 5, 2022

Tracking my daily habits continues to be one of the most life changing things I’ve done. That’s no exaggeration. When I look at my progress, I struggle to believe it’s me.

My goal for May was to focus on two things:

Eat paleo – 50% (from a very low historic average of 10%)

Intermittent fasting – 50% (under a new stricter criteria of only water and black coffee in my fasting period).

And of course, maintain the other habits I’ve already established at 80% – no alcohol, sleep 6.5 hours, maximum of three cups of caffeine before midday, two litres of water and taking my supplements.

Here’s how I did:

Let’s start with the good news:

Intermittent fasting (under a new stricter criteria of only water and black coffee in my fasting period) was a lot easier than I expected. I hit 74% consistency – well over my 50% goal and already super close to 80% territory.

Sleeping 6.5 hours finally got over 80% consistency for the first time – with my average sleep also increasing to 6 hours, 58 mins.

All of the habits I was looking to maintain increased significantly – many hitting over 90% consistency and a couple even hitting 100%.

Even though I’m not focusing on being active (I’m coming back from an injury), I’m now back to training three times a week.

I’m super proud of that. The habits I have over 80% are now very easy for me to maintain. Tracking them helps, but the best bit is that they’ve become a default behaviour for me. That’s a solid place to be.

Now for the not so good news – I came in at 30% consistency for eating paleo. That’s quite a bit less than my goal of 50%. I suspected I would find this very hard. And I did.

That said, 30% is a huge improvement from a historic average of 10%. It’s a solid step in the right direction.

It’s pretty obvious where I go from here. I need to get the intermittent fasting into the 80% zone, and get paleo into the 50% zone.

So, my goals for June are:

eat paleo – meat, fruit, vegetables and nuts (50% of the time)

Intermittently fast (8 hours eating and 16 hours fasting) under new stricter rules (80% of the time)

The fasting should come fairly easily. Paleo, not so much.

I’ve been thinking about where I need to focus to help get it to 50% consistency. I have to cut out snacking on bad foods in the evening. I’m often on course for a paleo day and then ruin it at the last minute. I also need to start getting some paleo days under my belt over the weekend (I didn’t manage a single weekend day in May). If I can make progress in those two areas, I should be able to get to my 50% goal.

See you in a month!

P.S, if you want to follow my journey chronologically, check out these posts:

Daily Habits – February 2022

Daily Habits – March 2022

Daily Habits – April 2022

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Warming up – the single biggest thing to reduce injuries and get results

June 1, 2022

I used to view warming up as a boring obstacle before my workout could begin. I’ve had to entirely change my thinking around this in the last few years.

I’ve come to realise that an effective warm up is the single biggest thing I can do to reduce the risk of injury. I’ll go even further than that. Remember, being consistent is probably the biggest factor in getting results. Injuries cause inconsistency. So therefore, an effective warm up is in fact the single biggest thing I can do to get results.

As with most learning and growth, it takes time and several iterations for things to click into place. This has definitely been the case for me. My thinking has shifted over a number of phases in the last few years.

It started with seeing it as unnecessary and not warming up at all. Why take effort away from the workout? I then had some personal training in my thirties which exposed me to better warm ups – but I still loathed doing them and didn’t understand the value.

I then found Crossfit, where warm ups were built into the session. I did them, but I had a ‘go through the motions’ type of attitude towards them. Just give me the handstand push ups already!

When I left Crossfit, I started working with a personal trainer (Jamie). He helped me get clear on my goals and the best way of achieving them. He now creates all of my sessions and programming. Working with Jamie has helped educate me on why warming up was so important and how to structure it. This was the biggest singular shift in thinking for me. I understood things better. I started to be much more consistent and intentional with my warm ups. I started to even like doing them – well, sometimes. That said, I still didn’t quite make the connection between just how important it was for reducing the risk of injury – and therefore my results.

And then I got injured at the beginning of this year. Leading up to that, I had my best 6 months of training ever, with great results. It’s taken me the best part of five months to get back to a place where I can train consistently again. This has given me a lot of time to reflect on why I got injured and how I can reduce the risk of it happening again. That’s when things started to REALLY click. Warming up was a significant factor in all of this.

And that brings me to today. My warm ups are long and well designed. I approach them with a lot of intention. I never rush or skip them. I like doing them – almost always. I don’t see them as something I do before the workout. They are part of the workout.

That’s a million miles from where I started. I’ve had to have a fundamental shift in mindset.

One thing that’s been helpful is to approach it with an ‘athlete mindset’. It sounds weird, but I literally imagine I’m an athlete. Now, on one hand that’s ludicrous – because I am very far from an athlete. But, when I think about it like that, I’m able to approach it with the respect it deserves. If I want my body to perform as well as it can, for as long as it can – I have to triple down on doing the work that will help me do that.

Let’s get even more specific and practical. Below is how my warm ups are structured and how they fit into the session.

They begin very general, and then finish being very specific. They mostly fit the following structure:

1. Gentle movement – this starts the process of getting warm, getting the heart rate up, and getting the blood moving [VERY GENERAL]

2. Foam rolling – this helps loosen tight soft tissue and further improve blood flow, with an emphasis on the movements that will follow [GENERAL / STARTING TO GET SPECIFIC]

3. Dynamic warm up – prepare my body for the session with dynamic movements that are related to the movements I will be doing under load. Here, I want to lengthen my range of motion and push my heart rate and breathing up nicely. [SPECIFIC]

4. Specific movements – practising the specific movements I’ll be doing in the workout. I’ll do this before each working set at a reduced load / rep range [VERY SPECIFIC]

And here’s how that looked exactly for one of my workouts earlier in the week:

Walk – 20 mins [VERY GENERAL]

Foam rolling – Calves, hamstrings, IT bands & lower back. A bit of hip stretching [GENERAL / STARTING TO GET SPECIFIC]

Air bike: 5 mins at moderate pace (to get moving again after the foam rolling) [GENERAL / STARTING TO GET SPECIFIC]

3 sets of: [SPECIFIC]

– 10 Touch floor, then reach overhead

– 10 banded pull aparts

– 10 Scap push ups

– 10 glute bridges

– 10 PVC/banded passovers

Landmine rows (couple of sets with just the olympic bar and half reps of workout sets)

After the above I was very warm. My heart rate was elevated, and my body felt nicely primed for the main workout (a mix of air bike, landmine rows and shoulder taps).

Now, I want to be clear, the above warm up lasted 45 mins. That’s excessive. To give some perspective, my actual workout was only 15 mins, followed by a 15 min cool down. But, right now, that’s appropriate for where I am in the journey of coming back from my injury.

Going forward, I expect my warm up will account for roughly a third of my session. So, I might expect to spend 30 mins warming up, 45 mins on the main workout, and 15 mins cooling down.

As you can tell, it’s been quite a process to arrive at where I am today with my warm ups. I’m super glad I arrived here though. I really understand why I’m warming up and how to do it right. And that’s helped me actually want to do it and be consistent with it.

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Perfection is not the goal

May 11, 2022

I was off to an absolutely cracking start for my habits in May. You could say, a perfect start.

My goal was to maintain the habits that I’ve recently got to 80% consistency:

sleep 6.5 hours
drink two litres of water
drink a maximum of three cups of caffeine (before midday)
take my supplements

I also wanted to eat paleo and intermittently fast (as per my new stricter rules) at 50% consistency.

I was particularly impressed with my first six days of sleep. A perfect record and an average of 7:35 hours a night. But then days 7, 8, & 9 happened. They were still above 6.5 hours, but getting a bit close to the wire. I started to feel disappointed that I wasn’t able to keep up with the 7 and 8 hours numbers from the first six days.

And then, I came in with a 3:52 for day 10.

I was disappointed with myself. I could have easily avoided the 3:52. Instead, I went to bed late when I knew I would be getting up at 04.30 the next morning – and I ruined my perfect record.

But, wait. Let’s back up a minute.

I KNEW I would come in shockingly low on day 10. I even made the decision to stay up late consciously. I did it with knowledge I was easily on track enough to still achieve my sleep goal for the month (80%).

Let’s back up even further. Why on earth was I disappointed on days 7, 8 and 9? They were ABOVE the goal of 6.5 hours. I was literally disappointed with achieving my goal!

If I take an even more macro view of things – even with day 10 – I am at 90% consistency with sleep for the month. That’s nicely ABOVE my 80% goal. It’s a great month so far. Everything is well above my goal, with only paleo lagging a bit – and I have plenty of time to course correct on that.

So, why do I find myself disappointed and giving myself a hard time? Why do I find myself slipping into perfection being the goal?

One word. Expectations.

I’ve gone most of my adult life holding myself to high and unrealistic standards. I’ve managed to change my mentality around this in the last few years. But, it’s so incredibly easy to fall back into the trap of letting my expectations run out of control. Before you know it, I’m changing the goal posts and having a crappy internal dialogue with myself.

The silver lining is that nowadays I‘m able to catch this happening early. I can then pause and zoom out – see things for what they really are.

And this is what I see. I’ve made a breakthrough with my habits in the last few months and have found a system that works. I’m smashing May. I’m on an upward trend with momentum. I can be happy and proud of where I am in general. I literally find myself looking at my habit sheets and day, hardly believing it’s me doing it.

Perfection is not the goal. Nearly all of the benefits happen in the 80 – 90% consistency range. That’s where you can live a successful, healthy and balanced life.

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Daily Habits: April 2022 (this is a game changer!)

May 3, 2022

Tracking my daily habits has been a game changer. And I don’t use that phrase lightly. In just three months, I’ve built a handful of habits up to 80% consistency.

In fact, my focus for April was to nudge those handful of habits to 80% consistency. Here’s how I did:

I’m really pleased for a few reasons. Even though I fell just short of 80% for sleep (I missed it by one day) – I’ve shown that last month’s improvement was not a fluke. I also had a curve ball in the form of a camping trip that pulled my numbers down. I was more on the ball over the weekends too.

As with March, I wasn’t counting ‘Be active’ because I’ve only been walking and doing rehab for my back injury. I’m starting to ease back into training now, so I’ll start counting that in May.

So, the big question – what’s my focus for May?

I’ve been trying to decide if I should give myself another month to let the handful of habits really settle at 80% before tackling something new. That would probably be the sensible thing to do. But, I’m also itching to tackle my nutrition. After some thought, that’s what I’m going to do. It’s long overdue.

I would usually focus on only one thing at a time. However, there are two things that are very closely linked, which it makes sense to tackle together.

The first is eating paleo. This is going to be challenging for me. I have a bad relationship with food and tend to over-indulge in foods that are bad for me. I don’t know why I do it. I’ve tried to explore this with therapy and reading – but I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. I’m hoping that by making nutrition a focus within the framework of my daily tracking, I can make a breakthrough.

The second is intermittent fasting (8 hours eating, 16 hours fasting). But, wait – I’ve been telling you my intermittent fasting is already at over 80%? It is! Well, kinda. I drink cups of tea (and quite a few) in my 16 hours fasting window – so technically it’s not fasting because I consume milk.

The reason these are linked is because milk isn’t paleo (it’s dairy). So if I’m going to focus on eating paleo more often, I should also take the opportunity to tighten up my intermittent fasting.

So, my goals for May are:

eat paleo – meat, fruit, vegetables and nuts (50% of the time).

Intermittently fast (8 hours eating and 16 hours fasting) under new stricter rules (50% of the time).

I’ll now only consume water or black coffee in the fasting window.

If I can achieve 50% consistency for eating paleo and strict fasting, that would be massive for me. I can then see a path to nudging both of those to 80% over the next few months.

Of course, I’ll continue to maintain my 80% levels for sleep, drinking two litres of water, a maximum of three cups of caffeine before midday and taking my supplements.

A big ambitious month ahead. I’m ready for it. 👊

P.S If you are interested in my progress for February and March, you can find them here – Feb, March.

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