health strategies & tools for achieving optimum performance and athletic longevity
Health and fitness can be mutually exclusive, especially at the performance end of the spectrum. Chasing personal records, more often than not, demands the sacrifice of our health. Often, that sacrifice doesn't deliver the expected results. A focus on healthy athletic habits is one which will pay enormous dividends, both in a better quality of life and in a longer athletic career.
It’s long been my mission to be in better shape at 70 than the average 20-year-old and to help others do the same. Here’s how you can do it. Table of Contents 1Introduction2Would You Like a PDF Version of This Article3HealthSleepNutritionWalking4Healthy Human Course Launching Soon!5DO YOU WANT TO BE IN BETTER SHAPE AT 70 THAN
Read MoreAthletic longevity is built on a foundation of optimal health. You might be able to game the system for a while but, eventually, your health will fail. Sleep well, eat a human-appropriate diet, control your stress, develop basic cardiovascular fitness and build foundational strength.
It’s long been my mission to be in better shape at 70 than the average 20-year-old and to help others do the same. Here’s how you can do it. Table of Contents 1Introduction2Would You Like a PDF Version of This Article3HealthSleepNutritionWalking4Healthy Human Course Launching Soon!5DO YOU WANT TO BE IN BETTER SHAPE AT 70 THAN
Read MoreIntroduction It often seems that not a day goes by on social media without someone posting something along the lines of: “Men should optimise their Testosterone levels”, “Become a higher testosterone man” or “This is the highest testosterone thing you can do!”. These posts often include an encouragement to get your testosterone tested regularly because “low
Read MoreSuffering from illness or injury is something most athletes fear. When the unthinkable happens, there are a number of strategies you can use to come out the other side better than when you went in.IntroductionFrom the last two posts (here and here), you’ll know that I don’t believe that illness or injury are inevitable consequences
Read MorePreviously, I wrote about why you absolutely need to avoid injury. Today I’ll provide you with some simple (though not always easy) ways to do so.IntroductionInjury can be a huge setback for any athlete. When you consider that the time it takes to recover a level of fitness after just one week away from training
Read MoreWe’re athletes, getting injured is just a normal part of the process, right? WRONG!! In fact, you can’t afford to get injured at all if you can help it.IntroductionI’ll admit it, if there’s a mistake to be made in training and racing I’ve almost certainly made it. Foremost among those mistakes, I used to embrace
Read MoreAlmost everyone you speak to will tell you that recovery is as important as working out. The problem is that most people have no idea what actually constitutes recovery. Rather than simply sitting on the sofa, recovery is an active process. It's stuff you do, not simply the absence of activity.
Recovery is a much misunderstood and misapplied part of the training process. It’s not the absence of activity, it’s different activity. Do the right things and you could dramatically boost your recovery.IntroductionNo matter where you read, you’re sure to find that you should make sure you get enough recovery time, “because it’s in your recovery
Read MoreInjuries aren't inevitable but they do happen. Sometimes it's a case of overuse, in which case you're to blame. Other times, you might be involved in an accident. Either way, you need to make sure that you rehabilitate the damaged tissues so that you heal up properly.
Heel drops are an exercise that will significantly strengthen your achilles tendon. Every runner should be doing this regularly.IntroductionI’ve always had a very low bar when it comes to responding to achilles tendon pain. The problem is, if you run you will almost certainly experience achilles pain at some stage because the achilles does so
Read MoreScapular mobility is extremely important if you want to maintain a healthy set of shoulders. These simple band-resisted exercises will help.IntroductionWhen I first started weight training, nobody told me about training anything other than the big movement muscles, the prime movers. Big mistake! Throw in an enormous volume of swimming – initially at least, with poor
Read MoreCore activation and neutral spine are terms that are often talked about. This video demonstrates simple ways to find the correct position. Anyone who does heavy resistance training knows that it’s important to be able to brace the core correctly. This is important for supporting the lower back when lifting, but it’s also vital if
Read MoreThe Pallov press is a simple deep core anti-rotation exercise that you can do almost anywhere with just a resistance band.In the world of resistance training, core activation is paid a lot of lip-service, but very few people take the time to train this deep stabilisation musculature. When most people refer to the core, they’re speaking
Read MoreRotated Floor Angels are a simple, quick way to restore pain-free range of motion in your shoulders, especially if your rotator cuff is playing up.These are one of the exercises I used to return my dodgy swimmer shoulders to full health and they’re still a “go to” exercise whenever my rotator cuff plays up or
Read MoreYou aren't the sum of your goals, aspirations or dreams. At your most basic, you're the sum of your habits - those things you do unconsciously every day. Most of us are unknowing slaves to our habits but it's possible to reverse the tables and use them to our advantage.
Standing for work is becoming more popular, with the number of standing workstations soaring. Is this a positive development for athletes?There are two quotes I hear quite a lot lately… “Sitting is the new smoking.” “A cyclist should never walk if they can ride, never stand if they can sit and never sit if they can lie
Read MoreThe single best mindset shift that you can make with both your training and your life as a whole is to embrace the power of systems.IntroductionA few months ago I discovered something that simply changed both my life and those of many of my athletes. What you need to know about me for this post to
Read MoreIn over 20 years of working with people of all levels from elite to beginner, I created The Healthy Athlete Course that walks you through exactly what you need to do to create a level of health that virtually guarantees athletic longevity and superior performance. Rather than just providing information, it teaches a habit-based approach to creating far better levels of health than most people in the general population experience.
It's a summary of everything I've learned about being a truly healthy athlete, whether training or not. These are the exact things that I do every day in my quest to be healthier and fitter at 70 than most 20 year olds. I only wish someone had given me this information when I was younger.
Athlete health always must come first.
This is especially true for amateur and age-group athletes, for whom sport is not about earning money, it’s about so much more.
For the amateur athlete, sport is about health first and performance dead last. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t seek to perform. You absolutely should aim to perform at the highest level that you can.
What it does mean is that sacrificing an athlete’s health in order to go after a performance makes no sense at all.
Someone once said that your health is the only thing you have that is worth having if you have nothing else.
Newsflash: Nobody, other than you, your close family and you coach will remember the 10-minutes you cut from your ironman time. In fact, even you might not remember it, given enough time.
Is it really worth sacrificing your health in order to achieve it?
What you will notice is when you're always sore getting out of bed, when you develop metabolic syndrome from all the sugar you've eaten in the belief that carbs make you go faster or whatever long term health condition shows up as a result of driving performance from a place of ill-health.
What if I told you that you can have that performance and be healthy at the same time?
What if I told you that athlete health underpins superior performance and, perhaps even better, longevity of performance?
Athlete health doesn’t come from a series of hacks or a daily handful of supplements or listening to binaural beats or whatever.
Real, long-lasting athlete health is the result of your small daily habits…
Few of these things are sexy or exciting, they’re pretty mundane in comparison to buying a new bike that isn’t an ounce over 6.5kg or the latest set of wheels that save 40 watts at 40km/h or an aero helmet or yet another bike-fit or… (the list is endless).
What most athletes fail to understand is that all of the things I listed above affect your recovery ability dramatically. And everybody bangs on about recovery, it seems, constantly.
Recovery is not lying on the sofa, eating chips and getting fat. Recovery is an active process of sleeping well, eating well, stretching, meditating, lifting and running.
If you’re not doing these things, you’re not recovering the best that you can.
I’ve lost count of the number of people I’ve spoken to who have changed their nutrition to my approach and who recover faster. I can say the same about those who have sorted out their sleep. Or got stronger.
If you’re going to be an athlete, health comes first. If you do that, you’ll be a better athlete and a an athlete for the long term.
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