👋 Hey. Welcome to issue #175 of The Everyday Athlete Newsletter. And happy new year!
🎁 Welcome to 2025 Wrapped - Part 2: Everyday Athlete Newsletter Ed.
I went through each newsletter from the year and picked out some faves. Today's is from newsletter #134. So..
Here are my 3 favourite ideas, learns and resources I've written about this year to help you improve your performance this week (4 min read):
From newsletter #130...
🏋️ We've been doing time under tension wrong
Time under tension is a phrase you may have heard thrown around the gym.
It means how long your muscles work during an exercise set.
Usually implemented into training by slowing the eccentric (lowering) phase of the movement (e.g. lowering the bar to your chest in a bench press). Commonly for 2-3 seconds.
And while the principle of time under tension is 100% valid, the popular implementation I described above is not.
See, research shows the biggest driver of strength and muscle growth is mechanical tension (i.e. how hard we are pushing).
So intentionally doing slow reps means we will need to lift a lighter weight. Which is creating less mechanical tension than we’re capable of generating. Shown to be a less effective approach.
Instead, the slow reps we want to chase are the unintentional ones at the back end of the set from a combo of fatigue and heavy load.
So instead focus on:
- Lifting heavy enough weights (65-85% 1RM)
- Pushing sets close to failure
- Allowing rep speed to decrease naturally as fatigue kicks in
- Still maintain some control so you don’t put a joint where it shouldn’t
But I still program slow eccentrics for some people (mostly beginners and elderly) for:
- 🏋️ Form
- 🔒 Stability
- 🚶 Body awareness
- 💪 Confidence
Increasing load and speed as strength and confidence increase.
For everyone else, let the weight slow you down — don't slow yourself down on purpose.
From newsletter #129...
🚶The best posture is your next one
Sitting isn't the new smoking - not moving for hours is.
This is a classic case of majoring in the minors. We worry about the perfect posture or the best ergonomic chair, but we're missing the bigger picture...
It's better to sit slouched but get up and move every 30 minutes than sit in the perfect posture for 8 hours straight.
Research on hunter-gatherer tribes shows that they spend similar time sitting as we do.
The difference is that they mix up their positions—squatting, kneeling, and sitting on the ground—and frequently break up these positions with movement.
So, sure — ergonomic chairs, standing desks, and good posture are helpful — but they're far less important than simply moving your rig regularly.
As long as it's not full slug mode to the point it's impacting your breathing, play on.
Keep it moving.
From newsletter #153...
🏹 Signal hunting
The body is always right.
It's been evolving over hundreds and thousands of years.
If it wasn’t useful, it was eliminated.
It knows when to heal. When to fight disease. When to repair. It knows when we’re hungry. Full. Tired. Thirsty. Or straight up cooked.
And it’s sending signals all day long.
Achey > Move
Hungry > Eat
Cooked > Rest
The problem is that we ignore them... or... we can’t even hear them.
Because our lives are so full. Our environment constantly demanding our attention. Our days jacked with stimulus.
The signals get drowned out.
- 📺 Eating dinner in front of the telly > can't hear "i'm full"
- ⌨️ Jamming the keyboard on a work deadline > can’t hear your back ache saying "move"
- 📞 We’re (2022) deep in the inspired unemployed’s insta page > can't hear "go to bed mate"
We’re distracted.
Then on top of that, we've subconsciously trained ourselves to fill every gap of the day with noise.
E.g. A previous version of me was a chronic: "cool I've got 2 mins, I can reply to that text or [insert to-do]"
But I've been trying to override the impulse to fill those little pockets of the day.
Close the eyes.
And just feeeeeeeel it baby.
To intentionally create space and silence for us to hear the signals.
Turn down the volume from life. So we can turn up the volume from the rig.
A few ways:
- 🚶 A phone-free walk
- 👀 Closing your eyes for 30 seconds before a meeting
- 🚽 Not taking the phone to the loo
See, instead of looking for more data (wearables) or more doing (biohacks). Maybe we need to do less... More quiet. More pockets of nothing.
Then we’ll be less:
- 🍏 Agitated because we haven’t eaten
- 💦 Foggy because we haven’t hydrated
- 💤 Tired because we haven’t got out 8 hours
Or over time:
- 🤒 Injured because we haven’t listened to our aches
- 🔥 Burnt out because we haven’t listened to our stress
- 🪫 Flat because we haven’t listened to our hunger hormones
They’re magical things we’re getting about in. We just gotta listen.
💡 Next free pocket of the day, try taking a minute to do a bitta nothing (and listen).
p.s. for more on getting in tune with our bodies (and a charming tale about why a Polynesian sailor has his nuts out 🤨), see "train your coach" from newsletter #86
p.p.s. for more on creating space in the day for our nervous system (sadly no fun stories in this one), see "slowing the steam train" from newsletter #87
That's it!
Enjoy the holidays 🤙
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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