👋 Hey. Welcome to issue #116 of The Everyday Athlete Newsletter.
Here are my 3 favourite ideas, learns and resources to help you improve your performance this week (4 min read):
👁️ Optic flow
Optic flow sounds like something your hippie friend tried at Burning Man once.
“Optic flow duuuude, you gotta try it man”.
But it’s actually just a fancy term for what our eyes see when we move through our environment.
Walking, running, cycling, swimming or any kind of movement creates optic flow.
What’s cool is that the side-to-side movement pattern of our eyes taking in our surroundings (that happens during optic flow) has been shown to reduce activity in the amygdala — the part of the brain responsible for stress and anxiety.
And is part of the reason why going for a walk is so good at helping us de-stress and quiet the racing mind.
Part of the reason. There's more to it. Like:
- 💨 Physical sensations (like awareness of breath and movement) help get us out of the head and into the body
- 🌳 Sensory experiences (like noticing temperature, wind) help bring us into the present
- 🧘 Moving helps release physical tension
- 🚲 Change in position/location can help break thought patterns
- 🚶 The rhythm of walking can activate our parasympathetic nervous system
- 😃 Release of feel-good hormones like endorphins
A short walk. In the morning, work breaks or at the end of the day.
A free and effective tool to de-stress.
Optic flow dude, gotta try it.
🛠️ Updated blueprint protocols
I’ve referenced Bryan Johnson a few times before in the newsletter.
If you don’t know, he's spending millions of dollars to reverse his aging.
And doing pretty well at it.
He's probably the most physically healthy guy in the world.
So we can learn a lot from the bloke.
Not to mimic (he lives an extreme and rigid lifestyle). But to steal parts of it that work for us.
He shares all his protocols publicly—which are always updated and evolving.
- 😴 How to sleep
- 🏃 How to exercise
- 🍐 How to eat
- 👩 Blueprint for females
- 🤰 Blueprint for pregnancy
- And heaps more
Great resource.
🏋️ Build up to the hinge
When we sit, our glutes and our hammies are largely switched off. Our core is fairly deactivated too.
It’s our lower back muscles (erector spinae) doing the work, keeping us upright.
Over time, this can weaken our core, glutes and hammies.
But it can also make it tough to activate them when we need to.
And we become over-reliant on our small erector spinae muscles.
But there’s more to it…
Prolonged sitting and a sedentary lifestyle can also tighten our hip flexors. This can create poor posture, which we then carry with us 24/7. This poor, forward-leaning posture further switches off the glutes—even now when we’re active.
Particularly when we do any kind of hip hinge movement in:
- 🛍️ Life e.g. picking something off the ground like shopping bags
- 🏋️ Gym e.g. deadlift variations, kettlebell swings, hip thrusts
Hinging at the hips should be a job for the powerful glutes, hammies and core.
But when they’re weak or don’t switch on, the erector spinae muscles step in (because that’s what we’ve trained it to do from all those hours parked up).
And it can lead to overworking, straining and crippling back pain.
So, breaking up sitting with short breaks, stand-up desks, stretching the hips, and a daily dose of glute bridges and bird dogs are also great proactive tools to help balance the negatives of sitting.
And when starting a strength program:
- 🔥 Activate those muscles at the start of a session (send them neural signals to wake up): glute bridges, bird dogs, forwards and backwards banded monster walks
- ⚖️ Start light and build up hinge exercises: bodyweight Romanian deadlifts, bodyweight hip thrusts, bodyweight glute bridges
- 🧠 Focus on activating the glutes and hammies during each repetition (particularly the last few once fatigue starts to set in)
If a client presents with weak core/glutes/hammies and/or sedentary lifestyle, I've learned to program at least 3-4 weeks of this before adding any load to hinge movements.
They reckon 80% of Aussies will experience lower back pain in their lives.
You don’t have to be one of them.
That's it!
Have a great weekend 🤙
Matt
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The Everyday Athlete Newsletter is not a licensed health service nor a substitute for professional health advice, treatment or assessment. The information shared in this email is general and written for a specific audience. If you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional.
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