👋 Hey.
Welcome to issue #23 of The Everyday Athlete Newsletter. Thanks for being here.
Here's my 3 favourite ideas, learns and resources to help you improve your performance this week (3 min read):
🤸 Ground-up mobility flow
Getting the body moving first thing in the morning is one of the best habits I’ve started in the last 6 months.
One of those things where you genuinely notice the benefits:
- ⚡️ Little wake-up: gets the blood flowing and energy going
- 🤸 Less tightness: ticks the mobility/flexibility box for the day, shortens warm-ups for any later training (no matter what time of day)
- 📈 Momentum: gets the day going in the right direction
It’s a quick 5-minute flow that usually looks like this:
- Rolling feet
- Lower body dynamic stretch
- Upper body band work
Performance wizard Ben Patrick (@kneesovertoesguy) just shared his version.
It works through the joints from the ground up (with the aim to get you moving like a kid again).
Absolute bonus if you can do it in the sun.
Getting in the sun for 10 mins when you wake up does 2 things:
- 🔋 Releases a healthy amount of cortisol (which wakes us up, gives us energy and improves our focus throughout the day)
- 😴 Sets our body clock by essentially starting a timer for melatonin release later in the day (which helps us get to sleep quicker and sleep better that night)
🧠 Twitter thread: How the Navy SEALs teach mindset
The Navy SEALs are the definition of a high-performing team.
I love learning from them.
Performance under life-or-death pressure.
This Twitter thread breaks down the 3 pillars of a Navy SEAL mindset.
(Be patient. Be present. Be deliberate).
🔍 Is concurrent training cooking our progress?
As Everyday Athletes, we’ve got a heap of other life commitments to juggle outside of training – family, work, social life, Aus Open highlights…
So we’re after bang-for-your-buck training tools.
Effective and efficient.
Which can mean doing both strength and cardio training in the same session (known as "concurrent training").
But there’s a lot of chat about the downside of concurrent training...
The problem is the “interference effect” – that different training types cause different adaptations in the body. And so, they interfere with each other. And we don’t get as much progress in either.
The good news:
A recently published systematic review and meta-analysis of concurrent training reckons:
Doing both strength and cardio in the same session “may have a small negative effect”. But not enough to concern the everyday athlete.
Here’s the thing:
Olympic athletes, pros or anyone with a really specific strength goal can’t afford that small negative effect. That small extra % could be the gold medal difference.
For everyone else, it’s a worthwhile trade-off (for the convenience).
(But if you are way more focused on strength/hypertrophy) note that duration, intensity and type of cardio influenced the effects on strength improvements.
So look for a shorter, chiller and/or lower-impact (bike, ski erg > running) cardio hit.
Otherwise, happy days.
That's it!
Have a great weekend 🤙
Matt
P.s.
- 😃 Enjoying the newsletter? Got a mate who would too? Please forward it on. It only takes a few seconds. Writing this one took more than a few hours.
- 📬 Did someone forward this to you? I send an email like it every week. Join free here.
- 👇 The newsletter is absolutely free. But you're paying with your time and attention, so thank you for trusting me with that. 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? Questions about anything above? Hit reply and let me know.
0 comments