💪 The everyday athlete newsletter #15

👋 Hey.

Welcome to issue #15 of The Everyday Athlete Newsletter. Thanks for being here!

Here are my 3 favourite ideas, learns and resources to help you improve your performance this week (3.5 min read):

😮‍💨 The haka: ultimate physical preparation

The haka. My favourite part of watching AUS vs NZ growing up (even doing it myself in a primary school talent quest 😳).

A nod to NZs Māuri heritage. A pre-battle intimidation. 

But what I didn't know, is that it's also a breathing practice.

The inhale/exhale nature of the haka removes carbon dioxide and hyper-oxygenates the body – ultimate physical preparation through the breath.

Hyper-oxygenating the body like this before training or competition triggers a sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system response. Which releases a truckload of adrenaline – ramping up our alertness, energy and mood. We're ready to go.

This is one technique you can use to oxygenate the body (also known as the Wim Hoff breathing method).

No wonder I dominated handball all recess after that talent quest.

💻 Website: The Blueprint

Bryan Johnson sold his company to PayPal for $800m.

He's since invested that money into optimising himself. 

His goal is to slow the speed of his biological age as much as possible. And in 7 months, he lowered his by over 5 years!

📝 Your chronological age is what your birth certificate tells you. Your biological age is what your body tells you (through testing).

The Blueprint is how he did it.

30kg+ of veggies a month. 27 different supplements a day. And regular testing of hundreds of biomarkers... 

It's extreme. But fascinating.

We're not all going to start taking rapamycin and only eating between 7–11am. 

He says it himself: “Blueprint is a lifestyle trade-off; one which I thoroughly enjoy.”

But there are some interesting things we can pluck out of it:

• 🏋 His training routine is a daily strength and mobility session. Plus 10 minutes of high-intensity cardio (x3 a week). And a weekly long hike.
• 😴 His sleep hygiene includes a blacked-out room, temperature-controlled bed, regular sleep/awake times, limiting water before bed to avoid midnight toilet run and blue light blocking on screens
• 🥦 His diet pretty much consists of fruit, veg, seeds and nuts

You can check it out here.

😴 Leaning into our natural circadian rhythm

I was looking at my long-term sleep data the other day (as you do). I noticed the earlier I go to bed, the better I sleep.

When one goes up the other goes down. It's nearly a mirror image.

I remember hearing somewhere that the hours before midnight are the most important for sleep.

But is that just some BS our Mums' tell us to get us to bed earlier? 

Apparently not. There's some science to it.

It's based on our circadian rhythm. Our internal clocks. The physical, mental and behavioural changes that we cycle through every 24 hours (mostly influenced by light and dark).

And over hundreds of millions of years, our bodies have synced up with the movements of the earth and the sun. In the big picture, electric light is just out of the womb.

So when the sun goes down, our bodies are wired to sleep. Makes sense, right?

Sleep wizard, Dr Nerina Ramlakhan reckons:

“The 90-minute phase before midnight is one of the most powerful phases of sleep, because it’s the period where the body is replenished. It’s rejuvenated on every level - physically, mentally, emotionally and, I believe, spiritually as well. There’s a lot of healing that takes place in that first phase of sleep.”

I think we all intuitively know this. 

The problem is that I stay up later on the weekends, which knocks my clock around a bit. 

If you're the same, here's a circadian reset from Dr Andrew Huberman. On Monday morning:

• ⏰ Wake up 30 mins earlier than usual
• 🚿 1 min cold shower
• 🤸 10 mins of movement, outside (in the sun)

He says each step helps shift our internal clock back to normal. Science.

That's it!

• If you've got a mate who'd enjoy this, please pass it on 
• Is there a specific topic you want to see in future issues?
• Also, if you have anything interesting to share, I'd love to hear about it.

Have a great weekend 

Matt

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