👋 Hey. Welcome to issue #51 of The Everyday Athlete Newsletter.
Here are my 3 favourite ideas, learns and resources to help you improve your performance this week (3.5 min read):
✈️ Jimmy Carr on Time Travel
“There is such a thing as time travel – it’s just that time only moves in one direction and at one speed.
I will get to meet my future self – I mean, I’ll have to wait, but I’ll meet me in twenty years’ time (albeit in twenty years’ time).
And I can bring gifts to myself in the future…
Good health, if I take care of myself...
Whatever I do ‘now’, I know I’m going to get back ‘then’.”
6-month goals are common.
6-year goals, far less.
But what about 60 years?
Have you ever thought about what you want to be doing when you’re 80, 90, 100?
Performing well in your later decades?
Could be surfing in your 70s, hiking in your 80s, or picking up your great-grandkids in your 90s. Maybe even literally raising the cricket bat on your 100th.
And as Jimmy says, we can time travel into the future and give ourselves these gifts.
But the question to ask is whether your actions today are aligned with those goals?
The good news is we can do something about it. Because countless studies show that if you train regularly, you could live a decade longer than the version of you that doesn’t.
And importantly, not just longer but better. You can keep doing the stuff you love.
So, based on the current science, these are the boxes to tick to help keep us/get us in excellent knick as we age (from Dr Peter Attia’s book, Outlive):
- 🏃 Cardio: A mix of endurance (80% of the time) and intensity (20% of the time), as often as you can/want (more here)
- 🏋 Strength: A few heavy compound movements that hit the whole body, a few times a week (more here)
- ⚖️ Stability: An occasional functional movement screen, including balance and core work in training, and a bit of yoga/pilates or similar
We can time travel and bring ourselves gifts in 20 years.
It’ll just take 20 years of work.
📱 Tech I'm testing
Vively, Libre: real-time data about how our bodies individually respond to food
iScreen, Inside Tracker: blood testing + insights
Whoop: health wearable
If anyone has used/uses any of these, I'd love any insights on your experience with them. Just reply to this email 🤙
📝 The 30-second rest assessment
AI and wearable tech are incredible tools.
I'm a big fan (as you can probably tell from the tech I'm testing above). It’s the future of health and performance.
But over-relying on them can come at the cost of losing our natural instincts.
Our in-built system honed over millions of years.
“You receive everything through your body, through the senses – your joy, your instinct, your pleasures, your pain – everything goes through the conduit of the body. So the simple logic is that the more in touch your are with it, then the better and more productive relationship you’ll have with all those experiences; all those feelings.”
– Laird Hamilton
Being tuned to our bodies is powerful.
And Huberman has a great 30-second tool to help us start flexing this muscle again.
It's a quick self-assessment on waking.
"How do I feel?"
"How'd I sleep?"
Quickly scan the body.
If he's feeling busted, Huberman does a 10-minute yoga nidra to help restore the body (rather than going back to sleep which can cook the sleep schedule).
Check-in with yourself first. Check your data second.
Then you can make more informed decisions about your day.
That's it!
Have a great weekend 🤙
Matt
P.s.
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