👋 Hey.
Welcome to issue #34 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 (4.5 min read):
🏄♂️ Mick Fanning's Mindset Shift
Focus on the process not the outcome is one of the biggest cliches in sports and high performance.
But for a reason.
It’s proven to help us perform better.
But it’s so much easier said than done…
Particularly if we’re passionate about our goals (because it makes focusing on the process harder to do).
In fact, passion for long-term goals is a key ingredient in the grit formula. Which is one of the biggest indicators of success.
But the drama is when we want the outcome so badly, we’re more likely to focus on avoiding failure.
AKA perfectionism. Which does more harm than good for our performance.
The solution?
Mick Fanning shared what worked for him:
“All I could do is my best. Then I can sleep at night.”
Sounds pretty simple.
But it has a powerful domino effect.
Because when we accept that all we can do is our best, we’ve gotta be comfy with whatever the outcome is.
Then it shifts the focus to giving our best.
I wanna give my best. So I’m gonna stretch. Go over the game plan. Block out time to edit my work. Practice my speech. Whatever it is for you.
Voila. Process-focused thinking.
7 powerful words.
All you can do is your best.
Corny AF. But bloody effective.
Thanks, Mick.
🎙 Podcast series: The Huberman Lab with Dr Andy Galpin
I just finished listening to 19+ hours of this podcast series on all things fitness and physical performance.
For context, Galpin is a Professor of Kinesiology at California State University, Fullerton. And works with professional athletes in heaps of sports.
It’s insane this is free. The quality of information is ridiculous.
There's 6x 2-3 hour episodes:
- Episode 1: ⏱ Assessing each aspect of your fitness
- Episode 2: 💪 Speed, power, strength and hypertrophy
- Episode 3: 🏃 Endurance and body fat
- Episode 4: 📝 Tailoring and designing the optimal program for you
- Episode 5: 🛌 Recovery
- Episode 6: 🥑 Nutrition and supplementation
And while a 19-hour fitness deep dive isn’t for everyone.
It might be worth listening to the episode you're focusing on most. (And if you’re not sure, Episode 1 might help you discover it).
If it still sounds like torture, each episode is timestamped. Scroll through and see if anything tickles you. You'll be up to speed in a few minutes.
In a world of fads, hacks and noise, this is quality, science-based stuff.
🍣 Protein: The biggest nutritional lever
Talking about protein shouldn't be jock chat.
It's the biggest nutritional lever anyone can pull for their performance.
You've probably heard that proteins are the building blocks of life.
And it's true. Every cell in the body has them.
According to nutrition wizard Layne Norton, protein is the biggest lever because of its effects on lean body mass. It’s gonna help us maintain or build muscle.
So we can optimise our strength. And in turn our performance, health and longevity.
Which I'm guessing sounds good for 99.99% of us.
(Protein also helps hormone production, immune function and energy).
What you need to know:
1. ⚖️ Amount
The most important thing is getting enough.
1.5g/kg of body weight per day is the goal (so an 80kg human needs at least 120g/day). No dramas if you go over.
2. 🫘 Quality
Quality of source is the next priority.
Low-quality protein can lack nutrients and essential amino acids. Plus can be harder to digest.
Unprocessed whole foods are where the money is (see list below).
3. ⏰ Timing
Once we're getting the total daily intake from good sources. Then we can look at getting at least 2 or 3 meals with high-quality protein in them.
This means trynna get 30-40g a meal. Rather than relying on getting all your daily intake from a 200g steak at dinner.
Splitting it up like this is matters. But it's a much smaller lever than amount and quality.
Righto. Here's a few quality sources to help hit your target:
- 🍳 1x big egg = 6g
- 🍗 (About a fistful) 85g of chicken = 27g
- 🥩 (About a fistful) 85g of meat = 22g
- 🍣 (About a fistful) 85g of salmon = 19g
- 🥜 Handful of almonds = 6g
- 🥄 Cup of Greek yoghurt = 20g
- 🥛 Scoop of whey or vegan protein powder = 10-30g
- 🫘 Cup of black/kidney beans = 15g
- 🍚 Cup of lentils = 18g
- 🍙 Cup of quinoa = 8g
- 🍵 Cup of green peas = 8g
I find it helpful kinda understanding what's on my plate. And trynna roughly hit my target every day.
That's it!
Have a great weekend 🤙
Matt
P.s.
- 😃 Enjoying the newsletter? Got a mate who would too? Mind forwarding it on? It only takes a few seconds. Writing this one took more than a few hours. Plus when you do, I'll send you my Elite Sleep guide (scroll down for more info).
- 📬 Did someone forward this to you? I send an email like it every week. Join free here.
- 👇 Thank you for trusting me with your time and attention. If it ever stops providing value, please unsubscribe below. No stress – it's not for everyone.
- 💬 Is there a specific topic you want to see in future issues? Got anything interesting to share? Hit reply and let me know.
Want more? Check out the Everday Athlete Toolbox
0 comments