Read on: veganfitnessredefined.com
Welcome to 1-3-1 Fridays, my weekly newsletter, where I reveal evidence-based strategies to get lean, strong, and create optimal health.
You'll receive one personal health insight, three actionable tips, and one concrete action step. Let's dive in.
Here's what's new this week:
No promo this week. Enjoy the holiday month!
(next week opening doors to our New Year's VFR Challenge (40 days).
Upgraded quite a few things since our last fitness challenge in September, and looking forward to serving new career-driven humans who want to optimize their health using exercise and nutrition.
If that's you, stay tuned for next week.
NOTE: If you noticed you weren't getting my letters recently, I apologize.
It seems several readers were stuck in the internet ether of ESP (email service provider), so hopefully I've resolved this.
Here's a quick recap of the past month's letters if you didn't get these updates:
- The Ultimate Vegan Muscle Building Guide
- Eat this to live longer, build more muscle, and my morning habits
- 5 flavors to use, improve muscle building, and my favorite kitchen tool
-
Use this pyramid, supplement scams, and fat loss progress
What's in store for today:
- Use these mobility drills to improve your health, longevity, and strength in minimal time.
- Lift heavier using this technique without wasting time on long warm-ups.
- The audio program that changed my life and can rewire deeply rooted subconscious beliefs in under 9 minutes a day.
It's so easy to focus on the wrong things.
It happens to most of us.
If you aren't focused on the right order of fitness (or health), you can stay stuck for years spinning your wheels.
I've done this plenty of times.
It affects the health of millions of people every year.
It's not fun. And it's certainly a problem.
Education on exercise, nutrition, and psychology is not well covered in most schools.
That's another problem.
The main problem is confusion caused by too much information.
The more you know, the better decisions you can make.
You want enough information to make a sound decision. But don’t gather so much that it confuses you.
I've been developing a new email course for new readers at HPV Letters.
As I work on this new course, I've been reviewing the core principles of exercise and nutrition.
Energy balance is key to body transformation.
While I share insights on chronobiology, reverse fasting, RIR scales, and mobility drills, remember that progressive overload helps you sculpt and tone your body.
Just these two principles—plus the principle of specificity, or SAID—and you’ll be set for years, maybe even decades.
When you truly grasp those two principles, you can build on them with more nuanced ideas.
The road to mastery starts with fundamentals.
Most people don't finish their first fitness journey without some bumps along the way.
They usually leave beat up, spit up, and thrown up in a dryer-like tumbler condition.
It's not pretty.
My point here is simple: focus on the right things in fitness, and you'll see the right results.
Focus on the wrong things, and you'll end up frustrated like 95% of people who tackle their fitness.
Be part of the 5% and reduce that 95% to a lower number.
It's possible for each of us.
Lesson: Clarity is a superpower in the modern world.
Here's Your 1-3-1 Friday:
1.) Mobilize your body
What is mobility?
According to Harvard Health:
“Mobility is defined as your ability to move purposefully throughout your day. It is the foundation for living a healthy and independent life. Mobility comprises all the skills required for everyday living: physical stamina, strength, balance, coordination, and range of motion.”
The better your mobility?
The better your overall health & fitness.
As we age, there is the tendency to ‘lose’ several qualities in our body (mainly due to a sedentary lifestyle and lack of usage; not always age):
- Mobility
- Strength
- Muscle mass
- Flexibility
- Heart health
- Coordination
- Endurance
- Range of motion
It’s not always due to age.
It’s due to limited usage and a decline in our activity levels.
If you don’t use it, you lose it.
Mobility enhances everything in your fitness.
Mobilizing your body can happen in several ways:
- Using specific exercises to activate and mobilize your body
- Using foam rolling and self-myofascial massage tools to help improve mobility
Dr. Kelly Starlett, a leading pioneer in the mobility movement, also reminds us that a supple body is key to consistent strength and muscle development.
If you want a lean, toned body, mobility is how you’ll build and maintain it.
According to Dr. Bo, “In my line of work, I’ve seen so many injuries come down to the client not working through a full range of motion,” Babenko says.
This means you need to be flexible enough to go through the full range of motion as well as have the strength to do this.
Here’s 12 Best Mobility Exercises, From a Doctor of Physical Therapy:
- Crocodile Breathing
- Single-Leg Supine Leg Raise
- Single-Arm Kettlebell March + Reverse Lunge
- 90/90 Hip Rotation
- Thoracic Foam Rolling
- Cossack Squat
- Shoulder CAR
- Sciatic Nerve Floss
- Dead Hang
- Banded Hip Mobilization
- Kang Squat
- Kettlebell Windmill
If you want to review the exercises, click the links above or click here to read a deeper dive by BarBend on how to execute each of these 12 exercises.
As always, the main thing is to be consistent, not perfect.
A 5-minute mobility time investment can go a LONG way in your fitness journey.
2.) Lift heavier with this technique
Sometimes what’s optimal isn’t always sustainable.
What works best is what you can be consistent with.
Whether that’s only a few squats and push-ups before your workout and a quick 2-minute post-workout stretch - if you can be consistent, that’s more important than being optimal.
That said, certain warm-ups and cooldowns can have a greater impact on your body and nervous system.
A warm-up and cooldown should serve as triggers.
They can be a switch to turn on your mind and body, preparing them for your workout while stimulating your nervous system to fire faster.
Plus, it tells your muscles it’s time to work.
If you want to lift heavier and get the most out of your workout investment, use the following pre-workout routine:
For pre-workout routines (5-7 minutes):
- Use mobility exercises
- Use dynamic flexibility flow
- Do 1-2 warm-up sets for your first 2 big strength lifts
*For warm-up sets, lift to 50-60% of your max intensity between 8-12 reps - repeat 2x before starting your first working set.
For post-workout routines (5-7 minutes):
- Use mobility exercises
- Use static flexibility or yoga flow
- Cooldown and relax your heart rate
Whether or not you do a ‘perfect’ warm-up or cooldown isn’t essential.
The most important thing is to get in the gym, warm up your heart rate and ligaments, get in a good workout, then cool down for a few minutes, and get back to life.
Fitness should enhance your life, not derail it.
Keep that in mind.
3.) Use this audio program
Our minds run on autopilot.
95% of what we do is unconscious.
So how do you rewire your unconscious behaviors and take more ownership?
By creating new belief systems.
If you’re struggling with motivation or self-sabotage in your health, I’ve found that using the right audio programs can positively impact long-term behavior change.
Working with high-level athletes, leaders, and high-achievers over the past 10+ years has taught me an important lesson:
You can never stop learning about yourself.
That said, I’ve tested and used dozens of mindset and subconscious-rewiring programs over the years.
Many are great.
A lot don’t do much.
This particular audio program has changed my life.
The creator, Dr. Chris Walton, is also the author of the book ‘The Gamma Mindset', which I recommend reading as well. 🙂
The premise of his book and programs is to go to the root of our subconscious mind and use a method called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) to help release stored emotions in our body and energy field, enabling us to access more of our potential.
Considering that only 2% of humans ever reach full maturity, we’re ALL leaving a massive amount of potential on the table.
Trauma and suppressed emotions lead the way with blocking much of our innate abilities, including higher-level mental, emotional, and even psychic faculties.
As with all things in life, repetition is key.
According to the Gamma Mindset about page:
“The Gamma Mindset is a scientifically validated Energy Psychology Technique that is based on the new science of personal change.
The Gamma Mindset Technique uses the head, heart, and body in the change process, creating a unique brain signature that puts your mind and body into a state of coherence.
This allows you to make rapid and profound changes to your thinking patterns and emotional reactions and gets all of you moving in the right direction with clarity, confidence, and purpose.”
Check it out here to learn more (no affiliation with this audio program; just sharing a great product).
1 Action Step
Choose one habit to end the year strong with. It takes 67 days to create a new habit.
Start today to get a head start for next year.
Client of the Week
What's the cost of health?
For Julie - her health matters.
Even though she was coming off of one of the most stressful and intense years of her life and was in a very low place emotionally and mentally, she knew her health was important.
The problem was that she didn't feel confident with her current strategy and didn't have the time/energy to create an effective plan.
Being a busy hostess and traveling to Europe for her upcoming cruise also left her unsure she could maintain her fitness.
But she committed to her health and herself.
So we got to work.
Strategy: We setup a moderate caloric deficit, had her track her nutrition 5 days a week, and focused on minimum 3 strength days a week while amping up her daily step count.
Earlier, we also shared a simple breathing technique, natural breathing, to help her re-center when she felt overwhelmed and stressed.
We also focused on creating a simple strength plan, which went through several revisions to support her body, even with several spinal injuries.
Gradually increasing intensity and weight per session started to yield very nice body composition results, as noted in the photos above.
Wins: Down 10 pounds of body fat, up several pounds of lean muscle, and several inches off her waist.
She rebuilt, gained strength across all lifts, and improved her nutrition and fitness to the point that she feels confident doing this for the rest of her life on her own.
Julie took the reins on her health.
All of us can do this. It's just one decision away for all of us.
You can do this too.
One Quote To Finish Your Week Strong
“There are really only two “rules”: 1. Build your meals from plant-based foods, especially vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and legumes (beans, peas, and lentils). 2. Ensure complete nutrition with a supplement of vitamin B12”
― Neal D. Barnard
Hosting another holiday potluck tomorrow.
Need to finish cooking the chickpea curry tonight.
Who knew I would start looking forward to cooking meals?
Feels like the Twilight Zone here...
As promised, get leaner on plants in under 5 minutes.
Till next week,
Want to share this issue of the HPV Letters with a friend or family member?
Just copy and paste this link:
https://www.veganfitnessredefined.com/newsletter-1
|
Didn't enjoy this email and want to be permanently removed from all future letters? Unsubscribe here.
To change your email or preferences manage your profile.
83 Alta Avenue, Yonkers, NY 10705
|
