10 Experience

Mobility for Weightlifting

Thu, 10 Feb 2022 13:05:00 GMT

Kelly Starrett said, “All human beings should be able and willing to perform basic maintenance on themselves.” at 10EX, we agree. It sounds like a lot, but it’s true. It can be as simple as PVC rolling, stretching, smashing or seeing a PT. Below we will go over 3 things. Positions which you have problems with, what the problems may look like to give you an idea and some possible fixes for the problems. Regarding the fixes and the person, just like optimal health, it all depends on the individual’s body and needs. There is NO one size fits all to this. There may be a one size fits most, but not all.

Before we dig in, quiz time: What should be the minimum time spent in a mobilizing position to induce change? Also, what should you do if you go numb? Think about it and the answers will be at the end.

Overhead Position – We will define this as having the bar over in anyway. Overhead squat, jerk, press, push press, or anything else with a load overhead.
Common Problems: may look like, but not limited too: Not being able to lock the arms with the bar overhead, the bar drifting forward when the descent happens in the OHS, not being able to get the bar locked out with the head through aka catching or pressing in front, the limbo affect with a bar overhead, and many others but these are the basics.
Fixes: Here is the tricky part and why it took me so long to put this together. If you can’t do one of the things above, you may think “well my shoulders are tight and I need to fix that” and you could be right! Could be wrong as well. Damnnit. It could be your lats, shoulder, pecs (which pull your shoulders forward into a bad position), muscle weakness, spine, scapula and/or could be anything that attaches to the to the upper body could be causing the problems. What should you do? Find the spots. Work upstream and downstream from the joint or sport you’re having trouble with. Find the tender spots, the non-tender ones and everything in between. Smash, stretch, work static holds (squat therapy) and check for improvement in that position. This applies to everything in the future too. One to get you started: Simple trap smash with a plate. You will need a lacrosse ball and a 25-45lb plate. Lay on the ground, place the lacrosse ball on your trap. Next, set the 45lb plate edge on your sternum like a tire rolling over you. Hug the plate and rock side to side with the lacrosse ball under you. Do 2min per side. This is the Rx version. Scaled: hug yourself without the plate and rock side to side on the ball.
Resources – Absolute Tx (Zac and Maria), Kelly Starrett from Ready State, GoWOD, and ask a coach. How to search Youtube example: Overhead Squat Mobility Fixes, Overhead Shoulder Mobility, Scapula Mobility, Overhead Squat Kelly Starrett. Basically add Kelly Starrett to anything and you should have multiple videos on each thing you’re having a problem with.
Front Rack Position – Defined as a bar resting in the front rack position for receiving a clean, prepping for a press or front squat.
Common Problems: Low elbows, wrist pain, finger tips under the bar not allowing to grasp, bar hovering above the shoulders not resting at all, or anything that causes problems in that position. Ideal Position: Bar in the front rack with full grip and upper arm parallel to the ground.
Fixes: Could be anything from the wrist to arm to shoulder to back muscles. Sensing a pattern? Like a someone who never got over their previous relationship’s status, it’s complicated. Start with the shoulder and work your way out, upstream and downstream. Same as above, smash, stretch, static front rack hold, etc… One to get you started: banded front rack stretch. Youtube it. Easy and can be adjusted to make harder or easier by the band size. Spend 2min per side. DON’T GO NUMB.
Resources – Absolute Tx (Zac and Maria), Kelly Starrett from Ready State, GoWOD, and ask a coach. How to search Youtube example: Front rack mobility Kelly Starrett, Improve front rack mobility, how to front squat better, best stretches for front rack position. Ask a coach! Remember to always mobilize and then retest to check progress.
Squat Position – Defined as the bottom of the squat, whether front, back or overhead squat.
Common Problems: Not able to keep the heels down throughout the whole movement, knee pain, ankle pain, feels like you’re doing a good morning instead of a squat, caving of the knees, hear us saying LOWER LOWER LOWER LOWER LOWER LOWER and you reply with a I AM! or dirty words, hip pain, takes you 30min to air squat below parallel, and others.
Fixes: Could be anything from the hips, hamstrings, ankles, quad, thoracic spine, achilles or many other things. I know, it sucks. We want you to explore and find what’s right for you. We can help along the way too. Ask us and we can give you some stuff to try. We will take a picture, mobilize you, take a picture and see if it improves. Simple. If it does, do it. If not, don’t and try the next thing. One to get you started: Banded 3-position Lunge. Similar to a 3-position lunge, but you use a band attached to an upright to help pull the front knee out more.
Resources: Same as above. Youtube: Kelly Starrett Squat Mobility (Maybe even try his 10min squat test and see what happens), Improve squat mobility, etc..

I know it’s taken a lot to get to this point and thank you for sticking around. To recap, do some digging and find what works best for you. We will guide you and you can work on it. Bring ideas to us and we will do the picture test to see if you improve.

Minimum effective time is 90sec to 2min. If you go numb, you stop. That’s the nerves, leave those bad boys alone. Now go couch stretch.

As the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”, and it definitely goes along with fitness. Come in early do 30 jumping jacks then grab a roller, lacrosse ball, a band or hop on the wall for some squat therapy. You will feel and move better, I promise. Invest in yourself.

Take care and I hope this helps to guide you on a healthier path.

-JustinNew Paragraph

2021 Outlier Challenge

Sat, 02 Jan 2021 18:02:00 GMT

With each new year at 10 Experience, we aim to challenge our members and ourselves to sharpen our minds, our habits and our lifestyles. To whittle away at a #10exlife.

The Outlier Challenge provides precisely that structure. Like previous challenges, this year’s version takes a fresh approach to the general blueprint we know to be effective. So, it’s our hope to bridge the gap between 2020 and 2021 by building upon the words printed on the most recent 10 Experience hoodie:

Easy choices, hard life.

Hard choices, easy life.

What does this mean? 2020 has been an unpredictable collection of events, where up equals down and inside means out. Normal routines suffered as we tossed, turned, and braced for daily impact. The structure of our day – in particular our healthy routines – suffered as a consequence. This year’s Outlier Challenge centers its design on rebuilding those lost structures. How? By making a ‘hard choice’ to be uncomfortable every day.

If the uncertainty of this year’s pandemic taught us anything, it’s that optimal health offers the best protection from a non discriminative virus. It also acts as a shield defending us against stress, anxiety and the unknown. Be it a viral infection or any other life-threatening situation, sound lifestyle habits – healthy eating, adequate sleep, daily movement, and fellowship with friends and family – can only improve our life.

The 2021 Outlier Challenge offers everything mentioned above. It comes with more purposefully designed rigidity and more intentionally sturdy guidelines. It promises rigor:

Don’t scowl. A marine much tougher that us once quipped, “discipline equals freedom.” We tend to agree. Stick to the rules of the Outlier Challenge and find yourselves liberated from 2020’s long shadow. It’ won’t be easy, but that’s precisely our point. If your 2020 was successful and doesn’t actually resemble ours – a year laced with frustration and self-sabotaging behavior – keep at it! For the rest of us needing motivation to start again or looking for a bridge to cross the COVID chasm, the Outlier Challenge is sure to answer that call.

‘Choose hard’!

Ready, yet!? REGISTER HERE !

-10ex

(Don’t worry, you’re not on your own. Coaches…participants…near or far and just like the hurricane of 2020, we’re ALL in this together.)

10 Rules for Gym Life

Mon, 20 Jul 2020 15:34:00 GMT

Lessons from the Book of Our History

The present is the past rolled up for action, and the past is the present unrolled for understanding. – Will Durant

In 2010, two bonehead kids leapt from a plane without much of a parachute or any real understanding of how to safely land. By a stroke of luck, they survived the fall. Some think that ‘fortune favors the bold’; others, that ‘diligence is the mother of good luck’, but not me. I’m not here to make argument for either. In fact, I stake no claim over undiscovered veins of truth. I’m simply thankful to be here.

And, here we are – 10 years into “J and G’s fitness experiment.” It is with our sincerest hearts and our deepest gratitude that we offer thanks to each of you, our fellow travelers. To our friends and family, the friends that became family, and all those who lent support from the pink dawn of our earliest days – cheers! Without you, we would still be a sputtering idea, a seed lying dormant, a ship with no sails. To this day 10 Experience is just an idea #10exlife. You animate that idea. You give it life and legs. You are its breath. You are its pulse. And you alone permit us to continue into the great unknown brimming with hopeful hearts.

I haven’t always been, but I’m a sucker for curious books and interesting thoughts. And I’m especially romantic for language that can sketch an idea into a neat picture. If a decade of our gym’s history were a book, that book would be filled with uncountable lessons. But, how would it read and what’s the premise? That line of thought – considering the gym as a book – swept me up and plopped me down, once more at the keyboard in an attempt to capture my thoughts like lightening in a bottle.

Here’s where I landed: my sense is that a proper gym is somewhat equivalent to the live version of a self-help book. A proper gym offers lessons of all brand in real time and in real terms. If we really pay attention, the gym teaches us principles of the scientific process, psychology in part and parcel, how to invest (in anything), and more than a little about morality. Lessons by the metaphorical handful. Each of these ‘rules’ might fill entire chapters or whole books. Billy Shakespeare once wrote that brevity is the soul of wit. So with what wit I might muster and little more adieu, here’s my best stab at paring down the most potent lessons from spending the past decade in the fitness trenches.

1. Make a single decision that makes a thousand others.

I’ll say it firmly. Decide to make your health a priority! It’s a simple 7-word declaration. That decision, once made, ‘pre-makes’ the thousand other daily decisions on your plate (entendre intended). What do I eat, should I join a gym, can I skip on sleep? Optimize. Streamline. Determine what is essential. Discover the meaning behind less but better. Invest your time, your energy, and your efforts working towards that end – health! It won’t be long before you notice the might of compounding interest.

2. Whatever you do, don’t pity the fool (hint: you are the fool).

Mr. T had it all wrong. The liar is a tyrant, because he cannot stand being a fool. Don’t be a tyrant. Freedom to be foolish IS one of the keys to success in the gym or elsewhere. In some form, exercise makes everyone feel foolish – weak, sluggish, and under prepared. All learning always involves certain indignities. But, that’s the rub! That’s humility – I am not yet what I could be but watch what I’ll become.

3. Understand what your ego IS (and can devolve into).

Pride blooms from our ego’s seed. It propels us towards virtuous ends today (back squat PRs and accomplishments galore). And tomorrow, it plays vice – striking us like a serpent when we least expect it (arrogance and hubris are it’s poison often leading to injury and failure). The sooner we acknowledge both sides of our ego’s coin, the sooner we might learn to better weld its spending power. Internalize this acronym, E.G.O. = embedded growth obligation. And take notice the next time your ego’s obligations serve you well…or run afoul.

4. Listen to fitness’ endless lessons on morality.

I don’t say this lightly. Each day exercisers are afforded an opportunity to meditate on subtle applications of the golden rule. Treat yourself like someone you’re responsible for helping. The pursuit of health/fitness isn’t a singular game. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum as a solitary lift, workout, or diet. It’s a set of behaviors that extend over the course of your life. We must all participate – winning some…losing some – so that we’re permitted to continue playing throughout the next 1000 games.

5. Examine your reasons for exercising.

In my best Socratic voice, I ask, “Why do you exercise?” Is it to qualify for the Boston Marathon? To compete on the Olympic Weightlifting stage? To pitch on opening night in the MLB? If no was the answer, perhaps it’s time to refine your attachment to specialized and often damaging training protocols. I repeat – why do you exercise? Particularly, what about exercise is fulfilling? Examine those thoughts and endeavor to train in ways that compliment that end. Then, embrace your inner Vulcan spirit – live long and prosper!

6. Defend moderation!

With my dying breath, I’ll cry, ‘moderation forever!’ Truly the habit of eating small, frequent meals is likely our culture’s way of ‘self-medicating’ to compensate for a broken metabolism. Instead, set your sights on nutritional moderation…metabolic flexibility. A metabolically flexible person possesses the ability to use both fat and carbs as sources of energy based on availability and need. They fast and they feast, and they live as vibrant models of nutritional efficiency.

7. Remember: it’s not your fault.

During your next diet foray, you’d do well to acknowledge the beautifully tragic design of human nature. You are literally hard-wired to eat professionally. We all crave tasty foods, we all gobble up that food, and, almost instantly, we all seek out the next interesting treat. That behavior is literally coded into our operating program. It’s in our software. What do we do? We recognize the fault. Then, become intentional about ‘rebooting’ the system. Eat proteins, veggies and fruits, herbs and spices, and some fat at every meal. Also, speaking of morality, you can’t ‘cheat’ on food or a diet – you simply eat food. Good or bad, learn to recognize the impact of your dietary decisions.

8. Conspire to greater things.

Find fellow conspirators. Then, together build a bright, shining lighthouse for others wandering through the darkness. Successful people find value in unexpected places. The best people in the world know this. Every great community is built around a secret that’s hidden from view. If these years have taught me anything, it’s that a group of gym-goers can be a conspiracy to change the world. Share your secret and the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator.

9. Embrace the creative and constructive value of struggle.

Where is what you most want likely to be found? Where you are least likely to look. In the bottom of the well, deep within a cave…on the other side of that horrible sounding workout or undertaking an impossibly tough diet. I believe that we’re all better when employing practices of the ancient Stoics. Stuck in a rut? Find yourself wandering about aimlessly? Seek hardship. Take an extended fast. Be cold. Walk instead of drive. Deprive yourself of a daily luxury and notice the beautiful contrast of life. With a little luck, you’ll be surprised by your ability to turn suffering into achievement.

10. Carry the fire.

During any fitness pursuit, you’re sure to meet trial and tribulation. Temptation awaits at every turn. So too awaits an opportunity to play your particular part as hero or villain. To be sure, sometimes you will take the easy road. Sometimes you will be the bad guy. During those times, you’d do well to remember that it’s (your behavior) not permanent, nor is it definitive. It’s a simple action. Nothing more. You must endure a little burning if you are to give a worthy light. Then, find it much easier to resume living harmoniously, working on something greater. To choose good for goodness sake. Not just to live, but to live for something.

It’s my understanding that philosophers try to see the part in light of the whole. I’m no philosopher. But I’m quick to recognize the value in seeing this moment reflected in the light of the past decade. Boy, what a ride. Like a great book, you’ve taught us so much…and yet, there’s much more to learn. With each reread of our history, we might master ourselves at the margins. We observe flaws in judgement and notice faulty decision-making patterns. We treat ourselves respectfully. We gradually improve – slowly, inching our way to becoming less wrong. Ironic, isn’t it? That very process cuts right to the bone of self-improvement. Learning a touch more about our many different selves. I may be off here, but in its purest form, a genuine practice of self-improvement and personal growth has exceedingly little to do with superficial vanity. Jacques Maritain once wrote that a person achieves self-mastery for the purpose of self-giving. I tend to agree…and I used to bristle at the idea of self-help books.

An old tongue likes to wag.

G-

PS:

11. Wear a helmet.

This was the eleventh rule and, while it was a finalist, it didn’t quite make the cut. I’ve not formally written since October’s crash. Without the helmet, there’s a good chance I’d not be here attempting to sketch my own ideas into neat, little pictures. More importantly, without support from you, there’s a zero percent chance my wandering words would land on interested eyes, ears, and minds. That fact is not lost with me. You humor this bumbling, bike-wrecking fool. Thanks for that too! I’m learning to love my life’s version of fate – amor fati. But I need no lesson in loving each of you.

CrossFit at a Crossroads

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 19:44:00 GMT

If you’re familiar with the original ideas behind CrossFit (the idea that we as a business fell in love with), you know about hard work, community, self-improvement, acceptance and all things the like. Charging towards health and wellness via voluntary hardship and sweat equity is the surface level idea. Look one layer deeper and you find themes involving the warm embrace of others, acceptance for who you are, and working collectively at improvement.

Since Greg Glassman’s disgusting misuse of a major platform hit the headlines, themes of community have seemingly been lost by the very man that for so long sat atop the brand. It is painful to observe that the man we once viewed as a revolutionary in the fitness industry has a heart so misaligned from that of the 10ex community. We never considered that the mind of our then hero, now antagonist, might be morally bankrupt. It is a tough pill to swallow.

Fortunately, the monstrous actions of one individual cannot bring the wholistic good of functional fitness to a halt. After a flood of emotion, a great deal of time spent hashing-out corrective action, and a commitment to a true change of course, CrossFit and its affiliates (us) have started rebuilding. Watching developments from afar, we are pleased to see CrossFit’s decision to remove the cancer that is Glassman. We’re also cautiously optimistic with the introduction of new owner and CEO, Eric Rosa. Rosa made his direction clear in his initial statement – “ Racism and sexism are abhorrent and will not be tolerated in CrossFit. We open our arms to everyone, and I will be working hard to rebuild bridges with those whose trust we have lost . ” As a 10 year CrossFit veteran, Rosa understands how to own and operate affiliates and knows the power that the CrossFit community has in Colorado, the United States, and worldwide.

10 Experience was born from an idea that encompasses a life lived to the fullest…mentally, physically and emotionally. A # 10exlife is one grounded in fitness, but rooted much deeper. The 10 Experience is one designed to inspire those within our community to truly live, with or without the CrossFit name. A CrossFit affiliation is not permanent and we are in no position to guarantee that 10 Experience will wear the ‘CrossFit’ badge for life. What we will guarantee is our continual commitment to inspire through fitness. Our foundation rests firmly upon love and acceptance.

2020’s been a bumpy road for us all. Emotionally-charged decisions are tough. May our 10ex actions speak much louder than one “Glass man’s” words and may all of our members understand just how valuable you are. Very.

Thanks for holding the line and continuing to trust us with your fitness through the thick and the thin.

-10ex

The post CrossFit at a Crossroads appeared first on 10 Experience .

April ‘s Outlook

Fri, 27 Mar 2020 20:04:00 GMT

Hope Floats and a 10ex Rolodex

With excitement, we present our idea to develop and maintain a 10ex Rolodex.

Why?

Who?

When?

info@10exlife.com

What’s the gym’s plan for April?

Donuts + Decision Fatigue: A Secret Success Formula

Sat, 05 Oct 2019 19:11:00 GMT

SCENE: A local artisan donut shop buzzing with happy patrons. Sweet and savory smells fill the air accompanied by the grate of freshly roasted coffee beans. It’s a place engineered specifically for the sensations. It’s a foodie’s dream.

Enter: HEALTH-MINDED COUPLE, DONUT SHOP ATTENDEE

DONUT SHOP ATTENDEE: (speaking to newest patrons) Hi! Welcome to our donut shop, home of the city and the state’s most award-winning donut creations. How can I serve you?

HEALTH-MINDED COUPLE: (with stars in their eyes) I think we need a minute to decide. My, what an impressive selection you have. What’s YOUR favorite donut here?

DONUT SHOP ATTENDEE: (grinning) Probably the peach fritter or our salted caramel and whiskey – we’re actually sold out of it. But, the blueberry cream is delicious. So is our pumpkin spice cake…the tiramisu…the Boston Maple bar…toasted coconut…PB&J…(he prattles on)

HEALTH-MINDED COUPLE: Ahhhhhh…so many delicious-sounding choices. I guess I’ll have the peach fritter, says one…and I’ll have the cream cheese and apple pie, the other adds.

DONUT SHOP ATTENDEE: Excellent choices. What else? You can buy half a dozen for the price of 3 donuts today.

HEALTH-MINDED COUPLE: (internally debating about the remaining capacity of their stomachs…having just eaten burgers, fries and more) Errr…well, we were only planning for a single donut each.

DONUT SHOP ATTENDEE: Are you certain? Our donuts are just as tasty tomorrow morning…especially after a long day of travel.

HEALTH-MINDED COUPLE: (rationalizing) Well, we’re already having a donut. What’s the harm in enjoying a few more? And, since you offered….and the deal sounds so great. We’re in!

If you believed this story to be hypothetical to help me better illustrate my point, you’d be wrong. While it might not fit the classic “Decision Fatigue” model outlined by Roy Baumeister, it does well at highlighting a more subtle lesson we aimed to bake into the 10ex Back-to-School Challenge cake. Did you notice?

Classically defined decision fatigue occurs when we lose ability to decipher between what is important and what’s not. In other words, the more decisions we force ourselves to make, the more the quality of those decisions deteriorate. And, more fatigue leads to even more irrational trade-offs when making decisions. Car dealerships offer the most obvious place to witness decision fatigue. After the push and pull, after all the negotiation of sales price, and finally after the decision to purchase is made, what happens? Buyers are asked to make handfuls of other ‘bolt-on’ purchase decisions. This warranty, that coverage, this service, that product…how much quicker (less carefully) do buyers rationalize a glut of hundred-dollar decisions after deciding to spending thousands? I dare say, it’s often. The cumulative spend after agreeing upon final vehicle price is often much more than the consumer realizes. But, they rationalize it all away after a ‘win’ at the bargaining table.

Anyway, some of you likely considered the general nature of our 10ex Back-to-School Challenge to be simple – maybe even elementary. No performance metrics? No body measurements? No counting calories or macros? Why nothing complex? Simple. Because we like to see you succeed. And in our view, the success formula looks something like this:

good + good = EXCELLENT

The rules of the game were easy (we’re playing a game, right?). Be sure to train every day – without the added pressure to ‘perform.’ When you eat, eat from a broad list of approved foods. The challenge aimed to leverage success precisely in your favor. By making one very important decision, you made hundreds of other future decisions. Sneaky, eh? The single, important decision was simply to participate. All remaining challenge-based decisions were made for you…and guess what that did? It absolved everyone from the inevitable pits of decision fatigue. The “WHICH SINGLE DONUT DO I EAT?” question never occurred to you (hopefully). Nor did the “Should I exercise today?” doubt.

good exercise habits + good eating habits = EXCELLENT results

The body rewards execution, not ideas. And, while being a fan of ideas, adding complexity (confusion) for its own sake, only shines light on the fool. It cheapens the nature of what works. We believe proper diet and exercise not only yield better health, but often times frees up bandwidth to make us smarter, psychologically braver, more creative, more energetic and much more influential. That’s the kernel of what we’re truly after here. Simplicity is a worthy long-term pursuit that leads to sustainable health…wealth…and relationships. We hope that making the single decision to join us makes a thousand other decisions substantially easier.

G- aka a wannabe Donut Boy in TN

References:

McKeown, G. (2014). Essentialism the disciplined pursuit of less. New York, NY: Crown Business.
Adams, S. (2013). How to fail at almost everything and still win big. New York, NY: Penguin Group

Test Post

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 12:21:00 GMT

Most of us have an area in our life we wish we were performing better in. That part of us that doesn’t quite fit into our own skin. It could be a touchy subject that our spouse and friends know to steer clear of, the elephant in the room. It could be the promotion you still haven’t received, the credit card you haven’t paid off, or the weight you were supposed to lose by the beginning of summer… in 2012.

And because you’re wearing this very uncomfortable skin that’s not quite your size I am happy to tell you that you are exactly where you chose to be today .

I can already hear the objections rising up so let me explain why.

You see I totally understand your story. I understand because it’s yours, mine, and everyone else’s. Sometimes having a new baby, a busy time at work, or the worst timing for a medical emergency/broken down car/economic depression can happen. There are a million and one events in life that can derail us. They are not always fair and can seem impossible to overcome when they show up knocking at our door.

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths.”

-Arnold Schwarzenegger

At that point we do an admirable thing. We give up on our dream. We set it aside to go fix the problem. We change our identity and become the superhero who knows exactly how to work overtime and take care of a sick parent. We do it because we want to make sure the story has a happy ending. We do it out of love.

And life goes on.

And sometimes the situation gets better. And sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, the situation that called for a superhero 6 months ago no longer needs a hero to save it. But there you stand in cape and tights committed to action. Except now it’s time to go home. Time to write a new story.

Where you stand today is a result of many choices. Some of your hero moments were the big decisions that shaped your trajectory. Like I said, I’m proud of you for doing that. But now it’s time to get back on the path. Your path. The one you stopped telling yourself that you wanted because it hurt too bad to think that it may never come true.

You might think it’s too late (it’s not).

You might want to try, but feel that you strayed too far (you haven’t).

You have to remember you have the power of choice. And it’s a good thing that you do. It gives you the power to turn your greatest adversity into your greatest strength. You always have the option to shy away or to stand and fight.

It’s time for a new story. You’re the hero and you’re at the turning point in the movie of your life. So what are you going to do next?You’ve endured hardship, learned tough lessons, and fallen time and time again. Wouldn’t this be a great time for everything to turn around?

Maybe you can recruit someone to help you get there, a long lost friend or a wise old mentor. Maybe you need to crank up “Eye of the Tiger” and experience the training it will take to achieve your success.

The time to act is now. Don’t slip back into your old story. You are the hero. The power of choice brought you here. Your choice decides what happens next.

So what are you going to do?

[GYM OWNER:] Add a call to action here, like: “Schedule your Free Consult here” with a link.

The post Test Post appeared first on 10 Experience .

The Immortal Jellyfish and You: A Blueprint to Live Long and Prosper

Thu, 25 Apr 2019 15:55:00 GMT

In the past , we’ve discussed the difference between fitness as sport and fitness as a life-long pursuit – these are starkly different end games. If you find yourself in the ‘fitness as sport’ camp, these following opinions of mine (and others) are of lesser concern. However, should you find yourself in the ‘live long and prosper’ camp, I believe the subject quite relevant and worth the noodle. Want to live forever? Continue reading.

Imagine, if you will, the ability to respond to a life-threatening injury, illness or stress by reverting to an earlier stage of your life. With little effort, you could snap yourself back to a more youthful you predating the condition and essentially start again, but with deeper knowledge. You could live forever. Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? It’s not! Through a rare, natural process called, transdifferation, this process actually happens. However, I’m sad to report that unless you share genes with the immortal jellyfish (Turritopsis dorhni), the shadow of mortality still follows you (and me) everywhere.

Now, while we may not be born with such transdifferation traits, we are armed with a slightly-different-but-somewhat-as-nifty process called autophagy. Rather than transforming the injured and stressed parts of our body into more youthful versions (like the immortal jellyfish), we’re instead able to live longer and increase prosperity with the aid of a process called autophagy (pronounced: aw-TAH-fuh-jee). In Greek, autophagy literally translates to ’self-eating.’ Lucky for us, the process is a bit more refined than the translation. In layman terms, autophagy is our body’s way of cleaning out the fridge. It rids us of damaged, injured, or otherwise useless cells and promotes the generation of healthy, replacement ones. In other words, it contributes not just to a longer life, but an increased health span too (health span is the portion of life that’s worth living).

Want to stave off senescence? How do you live a life that enhances and optimizes longevity? Want to bio-hack your way to autophagy all-stardom? There are a number of basic lifestyle habits that appear to encourage the utilization of autophagy. We’ve learned these strategies by studying the Blue Zones. The term Blue Zones, coined by researcher Dan Buettner, are known as areas of the world where people live both the longest and healthiest lives. The good news: if you’ve followed some of our suggestions along the way, you’re well ahead of the curve. I’ve done my best to synthesize them into basic DO versus DON’T practices below:

ON RECOVERY

ON NUTRITION

ON MOVEMENT

ON SOCIAL CONNECTION

ON LIFE’S PURPOSE

Now, this simple idea of mine is already a bit long in the tooth. And clearly, each bulleted point deserves its own blog post (some have them already), but in brevity’s name, I opted to distill them as best I could. Like me, I believe you all subscribers to the 80/20 principle. Wherein, we might gain 80% of the understanding we seek by applying a mere 20% of the effort. This sort of approach allows us to glean the lion’s share of comprehension – the principles to live long and prosper – without committing to the masterful process of granular research. With that extra time and energy, we’re left to live our richer, more vibrant, and now extended #10exlife. As a bonus, we also afford ourselves a bit of space to work up a mental sweat – whittling away at the idea of our life’s mission.

Can the immortal jellyfish do that?

G-

Resources:

Blue Zone. (2019, March 09). Retrieved April 22, 19, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone

Brett, and Kate McKay. “An Introduction to the Spiritual Disciplines.” The Art of Manliness, 28 May 2018, www.artofmanliness.com/articles/introduction-spiritual-disciplines/.

Turritopsis dohrnii. (2019, April 14). Retrieved April 22, 19, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii

The post The Immortal Jellyfish and You: A Blueprint to Live Long and Prosper appeared first on 10 Experience .

The Threads of Ariadne: A Love Letter to End the Outlier Challenge

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 15:00:00 GMT

You made it! Only a few weeks of Winter’s gloom remain and the end of the Outlier Challenge is already upon us. Wasn’t it a quick 6 weeks? With each year’s Challenge, we attempt to deliver a fresh package of full-bodied human (10) experience. Likely, that meant a bit of mental and physical stretching for everyone. Whether it was noodling on the sophistication of Zone portioned meals or staring down an ice-cold shower, we hope you found yourselves properly tested throughout the journey. Moreover, maybe it goaded you into questioning what it really means to be fit and live a vibrant, healthy life. It’s that line of thinking and patchwork idea – what does it mean to live a proper life – that I hope to stitch together here.

You’ve probably heard one coach or another mention the hero’s journey throughout your time at the gym – probably referencing a workout, a brand of metabolism , Jordan Peterson or maybe even Steve’s favorite – Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was that heroic thread that lead me into a mythological deep-dive as the years transitioned and the Outlier Challenge began. At best, my understanding of myths were shaky. These are the oldest stories we know and I wasn’t sure how to interpret them. Are they fact…fiction…a fiction more true than fact? To find out, I did the most ‘obvious’ thing: signed up to take a Greek and Roman Mythology class and plunged head-long into a Joseph Campbell book .

To be clear, I’m not here to harangue you into reading Homer or Ovid, nor to virtue signal from atop an ivory tower. But, I do believe there to be a relevant mythological story worth sharing as we hem-up the end of this year’s Challenge. It’s the story of Ariadne’s precious thread and it’s a love story – kinda. Briefly, the girl (Ariadne) falls in love with the boy (Theseus). This boy is slated to be offered as sacrifice to a monster (Minotaur) living in a maze (the labyrinth). To save the boy she loves, the girl gives the boy a sword to slay the monster and a ball of thread in order to retrace his steps escaping the maze afterwords. Long-story-short: it works and the two sail into the setting mythological sun.

I can hear you already. Galen, how does all this even begin to relate?

Hopefully, like Ariadne’s gifts to Theseus, the Outlier Challenge armed you with genuine weapons to face your daily monsters. Swords like:

Likewise, when the monsters of our personal fitness are slain, we hoped that the nonfitness related Outlier challenges would provide a guiding thread to find a way through life’s own version of the labyrinth. How does one best live a human life? That’s a riddle with no definitive answer, but we think it’s spun with one thread of quality, loving relationships and one thread of humble, self-discovery. Too often we look for great wealth to save us or a great authority to answer our questions when all we need is a lone piece of string.

Wherein lies the truth of a myth? That answer is as deep as it is wide. But, I’ve tied myself to the notion that myth teaches what’s far below the surface of literature and art. It attempts to get at the gist of what it means to live a proper human life. Sounds a lot like philosophy, doesn’t it? Shakespeare said that art is a mirror held up to nature. Perhaps the fabric of timeless philosophy is knitted on the frame of a mythological loom. Who knows. What I am certain is that like Ariadne’s love saved Theseus from the labyrinth, we hope that our admiration of you Outliers at 10Experience helps you to realize the same powerful potential available in your life’s unique maze. A fitness challenge is merely a challenge until it refines how you view yourself and updates the way you choose to live. When you acknowledge your inner hero, you recognize the greatness of your own strength…and leave that selfsame guiding thread for all to follow. In doing that, you not only enrich your own existence, but you nudge the world in a much better direction.

Still carrying fire (plus a ball of thread),

G-

References:

Campbell, J., Moyers, B. D., & Flowers, B. S. (2012). The power of myth. New York: Turtleback Books.

Online Courses From Top Universities. Join for Free. (n.d.). Retrieved January 23, 2019, from https://www.coursera.org/learn/mythology/home/welcome

The post The Threads of Ariadne: A Love Letter to End the Outlier Challenge appeared first on 10 Experience .

Movement…The answer to Cancer?

Sun, 16 Sep 2018 13:52:00 GMT

Whether you have dealt with this problem from a distance or up close, cancer has come up on your radar at some point in your life. Truth is, technically speaking, you have cancer right now. There are cancerous cells all in our bodies, that are only triggered/turned on when a fragmented version of our DNA is created and then replicated several times throughout the body. When it has been replicated over and over without being discovered, it may be too late for us to intervene. So, what can be done to prevent this from happening or what could someone do as a means of treatment for these diseases? Fortunately, I had the pleasure of listening to a man named, Daryll Edwards at the Ancestral Health Symposium to find out. Daryll is a Movement Coach, a Nutritionist and the creator of the Primal Play Method (a fun, functional fitness program for children and adults alike). I hope to disseminate his thoughts as well as he did at the symposium.

Food vs Cancer
First of all, it is difficult to find out what will activate or helps cancer grow. Most people think that glucose (by-product of carbohydrates) is what all cancers feed on. In reality, cancer feeds on glucose (carbs), lipids (fat), and amino acids (protein). It obviously pays for us to research on particular cancers as much as possible, but don’t mistake this excerpt as a complete erasing of nutrition as a means to promote movement as the only cure. Nutrition is equally as important as exercise in this equation and is an additional proprietor to the prevention or debilitation of most metabolic diseases.

Movement vs Cancer
Hippocrates (the great Greek Scientist/Philosopher) might have once stated, “Walking is man’s best medicine”. So, how can movement be a tool against metabolic damage and the like? Is it really that simple? The better question is, are you really so far removed from your ancestors that you can’t treat cancers the same way they would? It is true that you are infinitely more advanced from a technological standpoint. However, from a physical standpoint, you and the caveman/cavewoman who possesses your genes are pretty identical. So, with that information, let’s jump into this situation from a fundamental vantage. Cancer reaches much further back in our known timeline than you may think. It predates mammalian life altogether! Furthermore, aging is a huge reason that we develop cancer in the first place. Our ancestors didn’t have to worry about this for the most part.

However, we have a secret weapon. Physical activity! Not the shiny, illustrious secret you expected? Sometimes, simplicity elicits the proper results for our problems without the need to be fancy. When it comes to physical activity, there are a plethora of benefits that come along. Decreased insulin resistance, reduced systemic inflammation, reduced fatigue, increased immune system function, increased mood and focus, as well as elongated telomere lengths and increased DNA repair capabilities.

So what do we have to do to activate this super hormone? According to the U.S. Surgeon General, the WHO (World Health Organization) as well as many other leading health authorities, it’s as simple as following this chart.

To take things even further, there are governmental entities who are implementing exercise protocols as a means of cancer treatment. One of them being COSA (Clinical Oncology Society of Australia). What are the results they are reporting? Decreased cancer-related fatigue, decreased psychological stress, improved quality of life across the spectrum of different cancers, decreased risks of adverse side effects, as well as reduced risk of CVD disease.

It’s safe to say that science, nutrition and exercise are all in their infancies. It is also safe to say that we do not have a fool-proof, 100% proven prevention plan for all metabolic diseases. However, we do have a SIMPLE, yet EFFECTIVE, approach to a long and healthy life. So what do we do? Here are the best protocols we’ve found: eat well (natural foods), sleep like logs (7-8 hours), form and keep meaningful relationships, and GET MOVING!

-Steve

The post Movement…The answer to Cancer? appeared first on 10 Experience .

Conspiracy in a Cabin

Sun, 19 Aug 2018 15:59:00 GMT

On a rainy weekend in the fall of 2009, a handful of unhappy kids stole away to a cabin to vacate their life. As you’d imagine, they followed standard Sevier County cabin protocols. They ate, drank and made general merriment. But as the day grew dark, so too did the color of their thoughts. They waxed a bit about philosophy, food and fitness, but mostly, it was a discussion peppered with resentment and despair.

They critiqued the world. Why hadn’t it fulfilled the promise of success they had so often heard? They resented their jobs. Weren’t’ they to be places of satisfaction? They resented their coworkers. Don’t they see how valuable we are? They resented the ‘man’ for holding them down. But more than those, they resented themselves for making so many unexamined and irresponsible decisions. Lucky for them, as they gulped down the final dregs of cheap wine, a fateful idea began bubbling it’s way to the surface. That idea turned those two kids’ lives upside down. It turned them into conspirators. And likely, if you’re reading this, it did you too.

Nietzsche said many, many things of remark, but the one most germane to this story reads, “Madness is rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, #423nations and ages it is the rule.” (This, ironically, written before he went mad. Let’s all hope we don’t soon suffer the same fate)

As I reflect again on the madness of the previous 8 years, I realized that thinking critically might be the most conspiratory thing of all. By my estimation, successful people (like you), find value in unexpected places; in thinking on the ‘known but not understood’ first principles. So I write today for a twofold reason. The first is to offer thanks for a debt not soon to be repaid – your trust in our fitness and lifestyle design. Happily, we are ever in arrears! Never can we praise you enough for joining this delicious conspiracy of fitness excellence.

The second, curiously enough, to reconsider the idea of a conspiracy. We all think of conspiracies in terms of lunar landings, Kennedy assassinations, and areas named ’51.’ Today, not much unlike that dark, rainy weekend so many years ago, our task is to find sustainable, ethical and real ways to not just make the world different, but better – to go from zero to 10ex ?…to inspire through fitness. Peter Theil, author of Zero to One, said that conspiracy is linked with intentionality, with planning, working towards longer-term goals…in a world where you don’t have conspiracies maybe those things disappear as well. Maybe we need more conspiracy than less. Maybe not.

I’m starting to believe that the best people in the world already know this. Every great community is built around a secret that’s hidden from view. If these years have taught me anything, it’s that a great is a conspiracy to change the world. When we share our secret, the recipient becomes a fellow conspirator. And to that, we again eat, drink and offer a cheerful toast for conspiring to move the world in a better direction. Conspiring to inspire…now, there’s a thought.

Kings to you,

G-

References:

Holiday, R. (2018). Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the anatomy of intrigue. NY, NY: Portfolio/Penguin.

Thiel, P. A., & Masters, B. (2015). Zero to one: Notes on startups, or how to build the future. London: Virgin Books.

The post Conspiracy in a Cabin appeared first on 10 Experience .

Case 423: Cholesterol v. The People

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 20:04:00 GMT

Like clockwork, the seasons change, time sneaks by, and despite it seeming like just yesterday since your last, Doc Rx informs you that your annual lipid panel has been ordered. Fear sets in, but you can’t quite decide if the fear is spawning from a razor-sharp needle, soon to pierce your self-proclaimed thick skin, or the results of the dreaded report that will leave you running to Google for translation. Did you listen to Doc and avoid the evil, saturated fats and foods high in cholesterol? Are you on a fast-track to being put on a statin, the most prescribed pharmaceutical drug in the world? Allow me, your non-credentialed, non-board certified, gatherer of relevant research information to attempt the unpacking of what is a very confusing, moderately intimidating, “total cholesterol” story.

Let’s take this down one layer at a time. What in the world is LDL, HDL, and triglycerides anyhow? Glad you asked. The glass half-full side of me opts to lead with the good, proceed into the bad (maybe), and finish with the ugly.

The good : HDL. That aforementioned Google search plug boils down a quick-and-clean definition looking something like this: “NOUN biochemistry 1. high-density lipoprotein”. So it appears that HDL is simply a dense lipoprotein. Great, now what? A deeper dig explains that HDL is uniquely created and secreted by the liver and intestine. (1) Its main role, the role defining it as “good”, is the transport or “clean-up” task that involves transporting excess cholesterol from bodily tissues to the liver. The cholesterol synthesized in these tissues is fast-tracked to the liver for disposal. Want an efficient clean-up crew? Ensure that your HDL level is nice and high, and by high, I mean >60 mg/dl.

The bad (maybe ): LDL. Back to Google we go for a terrifying search result: BAD. For most, this is where the reading stops. Let’s dig a bit deeper. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL), also a transporter of cholesterol by trade, is commonly associated with plaque found in arteries. How is this little guy so much worse than its denser brother? It’s all in the fluff. But, is it safe to say that the simple presence of LDL in the blood is purely responsible for jamming the arterial roadways with plaque? While studies show that an elevated LDL reading does correlate to an increased risk of experiencing a heart attack (2), the devil may be in the details. Understanding that there are people experiencing heart attacks, despite having low LDL levels, challenges the status quo that states: Low LDL=good. Inversely, how do we explain the fact that all people wielding high LDL levels aren’t dropping like flies? Allow us to try and agree on a few things, while leaving the waters a bit hazy. There is no excuse for discrediting the vast research that shows the negative connection between elevated LDL levels and heart attacks. However, the study of endocrinology – more specifically the role of LDL in the body – is a very detailed, quite complex network of rabbit holes that has yet to be perfectly pieced together. Don’t believe me? Click Here to learn about LDL oxidation and let this content toss another wrench into your understanding.

The ugly : Triglycerides. Simply stated, triglycerides are the thousand-foot view showing how much fat is present in the blood stream. More specifically, they are the end product or final breakdown of fats (lipids) from the simple carbohydrate rich or deliciously fatty meal that you just ate. They can also be found floating the main stream during a fasting window as the body breaks down stored fat to use for energy. If you eat more than your body needs at the time of consumption or are temporarily under-fed, triglycerides will be found en route to their storage site for later use. They may also be heading out for work with available energy in hand. You may be asking, “These don’t sound so bad, what’s the big deal?” I see where you’re coming from. Let’s approach it with this: like most things in life, more doesn’t mean better. Studies and observations now show that consistently elevated triglyceride levels may be associated with a few things:

1) An increased risk in developing heart disease or experiencing a heart attack (3)

2) A greater chance of fouling normal processes, resulting in conditions like obesity, metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol levels, etc.

With these themes in mind, maintaining triglyceride levels <150 mg/dl is our best option to avoid any or all bumps on our road of good health. Now that we have a base understanding established, lets square a few things up, dig one shovel full deeper, and bring this chat full circle.

We want HDL levels high. And I mean, excitement level after ‘PRing’ your favorite lift high. How do you do that? Well, the good news is that by simply reading this and being a 10 Experience member, you are on the right track. Eat good food; real food. Perform some form of physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day, 3+ days a week, and maintain a healthy weight or strive to reach one.

Check.

We want LDL managed. Your head may still be wading through the above LDL fog. Here is how to attack it in layman terms: cut out trans-fats. I understand that giving up that beautifully constructed, processed, snack cake is a monumental task, but it is a must (a quick dig into what a trans-fat actually is will likely leave you running anyhow). Replace the franken-oils (trans-fats) with foods high in Omega-3 fatty acids. Eat wild caught fish, healthy nuts, grass-fed meats (believe it or not) and, for ease sake, take a quality fish oil supplement.

Check.

We want triglycerides low. Easy stuff. Follow the guidelines listed above, kick the booze, and avoid a diet high in refined carbohydrates like sugary sodas, breads, Oreos, and pasta (sorry Olive Garden, I still love you).

Check.

And here we are, the final 9 pull-ups of Fran. I hope that this was equal parts beneficial and enjoyable. I sure have had fun writing it. If you take anything away from the quite wordy content above, please allow it to be these few themes:

1) “Total cholesterol” is confusing, dig deeper

2) Your health, well-being, physical and physiological longevity, happiness, and success is in your hands, not the pharmaceutical company’s.

Being curiously curious shows that you are on the right track. Just by dedicating yourself to furthered self-education shows your worth and by understanding the importance of investment through the avenue of fitness/nutrition proves your #Outlier status. Perhaps, if we continue to move a lot, eat more to fuel and less to please, and strive to be more human, when Doc brings in the results from that ole’ lipid panel and asks how in the world you have improved your numbers without statins, you can simply give an innocent smirk and tell him that you have chosen to live a #10exlife.

Cheers,

-Taryn

References:

The post Case 423: Cholesterol v. The People appeared first on 10 Experience .

In Defense of Moderation: The Story of Metabolic Flexibilty

Sat, 04 Aug 2018 20:40:00 GMT

“The hero is a pattern of action, designed to make sense of the unknown; they emerge wherever human beings are successful.” J. Peterson (Maps of Meaning)

Let me frame what I’m about to say with this: on the surface, I’m not suggesting anything that most of you might not already suspect. More often than not, we ‘understand’ considerably more than we actually ‘know.’ But, rare are the times that we know ‘why’ we do what we do. Taking that idea and filtering it through a nutritional lens, we’re told a story (about how to eat, in this case), which we don’t fully understand and then act in accordance to it’s misinterpreted principles. So, I’m here to simply ask for your thoughtful consideration.

Throughout the last month or so – through giving lecture, hearing lecture, and general reading – I began to develop the faintest idea of a new story (new to me, at least). It’s here that I’ll present it – hopefully coherently. Let’s begin:

The Story We’re All Told: Think in Temperance

Aimed at longevity and health? Well then, moderation is the law of the land. Move more, eat less calories, but feed very frequently…and all variety of food is acceptable in moderation. Even preferred. Nutritionally, nothing carries too much weight. And, because every flavor of food is fair game, we need only employ master-level self-control while eating whatever we’d like and merely log extra miles on the treadmill. Easy enough.

The Reality We All Occupy: Think Again

We’re genetically programmed – wired to eat – in a completely inverted fashion. In truth, evolution trained us to move less, eat more and perpetually seek novel, or extremely tasty, food (we’ve previously written and lectured on this idea). The stark truth is that for the first time in modern history, death and disease from overconsumption out number death and disease from starvation. The moderation schtick has clearly failed the Western world and this bill of nutritional goods we’ve been sold is rotten. Fast, we need rigid and formal nutritional guidelines. Nutritionally, everything matters more than we thought!

We need a hero (a believable…a useful framework for eating). But from where and by whom? Do the principles of Paleo orchestrate a return to vibrancy? Do we distill the devil in the details of macro counting? Can the king of Keto lead us back from the void? Will fasting expedite our return to the promised land? We’re all after a new ‘truth’ and eager to wield it’s metabolic might. But, what is the truth?

It’s here that we finally approach the crux of that emergent story of mine. The one that I thought was original – my new story – but as it turns out, isn’t. I’m not the first to conjure this idea – far from it. There’s nothing new under the sun, they say.

Here’s the rub: I believe we properly prescribed the idea of ‘moderation’, but propose that we simply miffed the application. Now, what I’ve come to call ‘nutritional moderation’, has previously been coined by those much smarter than me as, ‘metabolic flexibility.’ Metabolic flexibility, outside of sounding entirely more scientific than moderation, is ‘the capacity for an organism to adapt fuel oxidation to fuel availability.’ In layman terms, it’s the ability to use both fat (ketones) and carbs (glucose) as sources of energy based on availability and need. A metabolically flexible individual empowers themselves with the ability to transition between fats and carbs. They, their mitochondria, unconsciously vacillate between utilizing ketone (fat) sources while not exercising and then back to glucose (carbs) for more energy efficiency during exercise. It’s a brand of efficiency that gives any system a run for it’s money. Essentially, metabolic flexibility occurs at the energy-producing, cellular level. Think of a hybrid vehicle that seamlessly transitions between battery and petroleum reserves. It’s the same idea. The ancient genius behind our energy-using design is no different.

Under normal circumstances, the mitochondria, and by extension our metabolism, should be very flexible in shifting between fat and carbohydrate as a fuel. Unfortunately, that story we’re told and proceed to follow, creates damage. We generally live in an overfed state (feeding frequently on suboptimal sources of carbs and fat). That state retards our ability to use multiple sources of food as fuel (fat and carbs). And so the line from the story we’re told neatly connects to the ‘sicker than ever’ reality we occupy. What’s more, imagine if ancient man were forced to eat every three hours and account for each calorie consumed. Would he have turned nose to a cache of fruit while in a state of ketosis? Absolutely not, he wouldn’t have survived. And none of us would have the capacity to read or write, much less, consider these ideas. This might seem harsh, but ‘the popularity of small, frequent meals is likely our culture’s way of self-medicating’ to compensate for our broken metabolism (malfunctioning mitochondria).

*The other obvious analog for fitness – actual flexibility (mobility). If we become stiff and unable to move properly, we increase the likelihood of injury and wearing out our joints. Maintaining our hips, knees, and shoulders and ensuring proper spinal alignment is important for the same reason that keeping our mitochondria mobile is important.

The New Story of Moderation: A Different Model of Temperance

With deeper consideration, we might better come to both ‘understand’ and ‘know’ what drives our eating habits. Then determine ‘why’ we should apply certain lessons from the new, more fully-developed nutritional story. So what IS true? The old story of moderation certainly has proven to be a false truth. That’s clear. And, it’s irresponsible to argue against the value of paleo principles, counting macros, intermittently fasting and states of ketosis. In the new story of moderation, they all have their utility. The new hero knows this.

Shakespeare was famed for saying, “All the worlds’s a stage…and one man in his time plays many parts.” I dare say, the hero of our new story of moderation strategically employs and plays each of those nutritional parts…in periods of calculated moderation. That hero understands that like exercise, nutrition might also follow a seasonal model. This hero (you) learns to responsibly weld each of those nutritional strategies as their tale continues to unfold. Like the flexible and mighty mitochondria, nutritional heroes understand the framework of therapeutic nutrition: quality foods paired with a precise understanding of what food actually is – delicious energy. Then, they sometimes eat lots of carbs and they sometimes eats lots of fat, but rarely ever together. And, when faced with choosing between nutritional evils, they’re wise to consider a fast. Heroes of this brand fend off sickness and disease, malfunction and metabolic malice on all fronts. By not tilting at quixotic windmills, these heroes instead shine like lighthouses, as beacons of hope to those that behold them.

Mighty may your mitochondria be,

G-

References :

Galgani, J. E., Moro, C., & Ravussin, E. (2008, November). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2584808/

House, E. (2016, June 17). The Best Kind of Flexibility: Metabolic Flexibility. Retrieved from https://www.onnit.com/academy/the-best-kind-of-flexibility-metabolic-flexibility/

Peterson, J. B. (1999). Maps of meaning: The architecture of belief . London: Routledge.

Wolf, R. (2017). Wired to eat: Turn off cravings, rewire your appetite for weight loss, and determine the foods that work for you . New York: Harmony Books.

The post In Defense of Moderation: The Story of Metabolic Flexibilty appeared first on 10 Experience .

Developing a Seasoned Fitness

Sun, 15 Apr 2018 15:35:00 GMT

This weekend’s weather makes a clear point: the seasons have transitioned. Spring has arrived (at least for now). Gone is the bitter wind, the piles of snow and that gloomy period of dormancy. Nigh are warm and longer days, blue skies and everywhere the sparks of life (growth). Mother Nature’s figured out a great many things, the seasons not least among them. All this philosophical weather-waxing isn’t for naught, I promise.

Recently, I’ve shared a curious number of conversations that appear to point me towards a conclusion that, like Mother Nature’s seasons, crops up almost in-line with the weather. The seasons of training aren’t too dissimilar from those we notice here in temperate Tennessee. Fitness, during the cold months of the CrossFit Open (aka Winter), takes an intentional and dormant-like turn away from vibrancy and growth. Programming (your fitness) recedes into a weekly survival mode, pivoting in the cold and Castro-like wind. Naturally, we hunker down and weather the storm. Lucky for us, our Winter (the CF Open), only lasts a few weeks.

As we recover from the intensity of that season, healing – of sore joints and bruised egos – occurs and soon appear anxious buds of growth. How many of you silently pledged to do that first – muscle-up, handstand push-up, double-under, pull-up, etc? Or made committal alms to your future self for improving subpar skills? Great news. Truly.

It’s here we finally run into the crux of my argument. By my estimation, it’s a simple, but elegant injunction – throughout this Spring of your fitness growth, take a more responsible approach towards your success. To paraphrase Greg Glassman, a true master pledges oneself to learning and and then relearning fundamentals…over and over and over. How can you sharpen your air squat? Where does your movement pattern break down during a Snatch? Why does this happen? Start there and this season’s regrowth is sure to pack the most powerful punch you might imagine. Treat yourself as if it matters because it does.

Like the arborist prunes the buds of his fruiting tree, we too must prune our efforts towards a real and productive direction. If you’re aimed at true growth, take some time to reflect on what’s kept your fitness success at bay. In that way, we might all consider taking a methodical, deliberate and plodding approach to the not-so-complex puzzle of cultivating our best fitness. When we succeed, how much better might the next CF Open (Winter) season feel?

All training is an act of philosophy.

G-

The post Developing a Seasoned Fitness appeared first on 10 Experience .

TONYA FARMER– BRISTOL’S 2018 OUTLIER LIFESTYLE CHALLENGE WINNER

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 23:01:00 GMT

Like all Outlier Lifestyle Challenges, the 2018 version presented a dynamic array of tests – nutrition, movement, recovery, community and reflection. This year, we measured success along with a spectrum of ‘metrics’ (4 varied markers of fitness, daily/weekly challenges and body composition measurements). Tonya excelled at all measures and reaped the rewards. She PR’d all her tests, lost 11.8lbs, 6+ inches and logged the highest point total by a comfortable margin.

Here’s what our 10EX Coaches have to say about Tonya…

The OLC is aimed specifically at nudging participants into orienting themselves towards their untapped potential, their ‘ideal.’ One of this year’s tasks required participants to put thought to words in long-hand responses to a few writing prompts. Tonya’s words give clearer shape to what it means to invest some time on ourselves:

“You did it and kept it going…You are a role model for your students and your boys…you are stronger both mentally and physically…Hopefully, I’ve inspired someone along the way.”

Cheers to you and your journey, Tonya! You’re an inspiration.

-10 Experience

The post TONYA FARMER– BRISTOL’S 2018 OUTLIER LIFESTYLE CHALLENGE WINNER appeared first on 10 Experience .

Melissa Lawson – Morristown’s 2018 Outlier Lifestyle Challenge Winner

Wed, 07 Mar 2018 23:33:00 GMT

Like all Outlier Lifestyle Challenges, the 2018 version presented a dynamic array of tests – nutrition, movement, recovery, community and reflection. Melissa met each challenge with her trademark smile and a steady resolve to grow. This year, we measured success along a spectrum of ‘metrics’ (4 varied markers of fitness, daily/weekly challenges and body composition measurements). In the most balanced fashion, Melissa showed substantial improvements across each.

Here’s what our 10ex Coaches have to say about Melissa…

Cheers to you and your journey, Melissa! You’re an inspiration.

-10 Experience

The post Melissa Lawson – Morristown’s 2018 Outlier Lifestyle Challenge Winner appeared first on 10 Experience .

Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #6

Sun, 11 Feb 2018 17:05:00 GMT

An Outlier understands how relationships give meaningful shape to limited time.

Last week’s challenge, when properly met, required us to while away some time in daily meditation. Hopefully at times, feelings about family, friends, and relationships settled near the top of your thoughtful heap. This week, ironically, offers us the most capitalistic opportunity (there’s Valentine’s Day) to cultivate relationships within both individual and community circles.

“It is not the clay the potter throws, which gives the pot its usefulness, but the space within the shape, from which the pot is made.” – Lao Tzu

Much of the same philosophy can be applied to our social health and fitness. Stretch a bit with me here. I’m no Lao Tzu, but I’d posit that it’s not the time we possess which gives our life its purpose, but the relationships (and acts) within that time, from which meaning is gained. In short, what’s there provides the means; what’s not provides the purpose. Our lives provide the ‘pot-like’ utility, a framework to be used. It defines what’s there – a limited time and chance for opportunity – the capacity to fill our life’s pot from ‘wall to wall’ with experience. How we choose to fill our ‘pot of life’ – our actions, our decisions, and our relationships – provide the purpose. Combine ingredients: individually strong relationships, immersive community and purposeful intention. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and enjoy helping-after-fulfilling-helping.

The recipe for a #10exlife is nutritiously rich and delicious because it’s oriented towards relationships. This week’s challenge is two-fold:

#1 – Bolster a single relationship:

#2 – Connect within your #423nation community:

G-

The post Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #6 appeared first on 10 Experience .

Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #5

Fri, 02 Feb 2018 17:22:00 GMT

Week 5: OBSERVE YOUR THOUGHTS

An Outlier knows when the prose of life demands punctuation.

How often do we intentionally reflect on moments with proper consideration? The short answer: not enough. In his Meditations , Marcus Aurelius (according to one historian, responsible for the most defined period of prosperity and human happiness in modern history – the Pax Romana) reflected that “nowhere is more peaceful – more free of interruptions – than your own soul.” Perhaps, he had a few things squared away on both personal and political fronts. Who seeks more prosperity, more happiness (purpose)?

Every day this week, we ask you to spend a few silent and mindful minutes gazing into your own soul. Meditative moments deliver a dyadic punch, knocking us soundly into better physical and psychological states. A cascade of benefits await – 76 Scientific Benefits of Meditation .

Need guidance? We suggest downloading the HeadSpace app (it’s free in the App Store/Google Play world). Andy Puddiecombe, cofounder of the company, lends the soothing timbre of his British accent to every guided exercise. It’s a wonderful place to begin learning how to observe your thoughts. If you’re a Sam Harris fan, he provides some basic guidelines here too.

As En Vogue, known for their prophetic lyrics, said…Free your mind and the rest will follow.

The post Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #5 appeared first on 10 Experience .

OUTLIER LIFESTYLE WEEKLY CHALLENGE #4

Sun, 28 Jan 2018 18:14:00 GMT

“Sacrifice who you are for what you can become.” – Jordan B. Peterson

WEEK 4: Leave Everything on the Paper

This week we have two challenges. The first will make your life better and the second will improve someone else’s.

Challenge 1: Take time to write down (on paper, no phones) what you accomplished that day OR take time to write down a to-do list for the next day. Why? Sleep is one of the Four Pillars to health and wellness defined by Robb Wolf (and many others), but if our minds are racing while laying in the bed, then inevitably it will make it more difficult for us to fall asleep and flourish the upcoming day.

Challenge 2: Handwrite two letters to two different people you deeply care about and tell them how they have impacted your life in a positive way. Gratitude can have many healing powers and always leaves us with a happier and more fulfilled life. Ask for their address and let the heart do the writing.

Cheers,

The post OUTLIER LIFESTYLE WEEKLY CHALLENGE #4 appeared first on 10 Experience .

Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #3

Fri, 19 Jan 2018 23:20:00 GMT

Week 2: Get Uncomfortable

An Outlier is confident because of their ability to bear hardship; leisured because of their toughness.

Past communications foretold of sacrifices awaiting us all. Let’s cut to the chase. In a variety of ways, this week’s Outlier Lifestyle Challenge asks you to choose hardship. Seneca wrote much clearer on the idea in his Mo ral Letter to Lucilius . Each of us confronts fate with the chance of achievement when faced with challenge. To earn your bonus points this week, choose and complete any 2 hardship tasks from the following list:

Truly, the ideas behind the challenge are more important than the challenges themselves. Control your perceptions. Direct your actions. Properly face hardship. After all, most of us live a #10exlife in the VOLUNTEER state.

The post Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #3 appeared first on 10 Experience .

Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #2

Fri, 12 Jan 2018 22:12:00 GMT

Week 2: Develop Keystone Habits

An Outlier leverages the power of habit.

Remember that version of your best self? Habits are the daily behavior that permit us to ceaselessly strive towards that self. Habits are also a sort of dislodging and best-self-defeating surrender to craving. Charles Duhigg, in The Power of Habit , claims that habits never really disappear. Instead, we simply edit our behavior loop. For this week’s challenge, we extract a parcel of the book’s thesis – the part heralding keystone habits. Keystone habits provide what we commonly call “small wins.” They help other habits flourish by creating new behavior standards AND they do well in curating environments where positive change becomes contagious ( It’s Not a Cult, It’s a Culture , remember?). Effectively, keystone habits start a transformative process. This week’s challenge involves 2 such habits (to be completed daily):

At 10 Experience, we attempt to encourage everyone to develop healthier, keystone-like habits. Once we – the collective ‘we’ – choose who we want to be, we all grow towards that purpose. Like a sheet of paper that once folded tends to fall forever that direction, let’s bend our will at growing into the best possible version of ourselves.

Turn the page,

G-

Duhigg, C. (2014). The power of habit: why we do what we do and how to change . New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks.

The post Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #2 appeared first on 10 Experience .

Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #1

Sun, 07 Jan 2018 17:13:00 GMT

A memory of Tonya M.’s 2017 bountiful generosity.

Week 1: Be charitable

An Outlier understands that the benefit of altruistic behavior is manifold. We choose to highlight only a couple:

Yes, your first lifestyle challenge is quite familiar. While your Facebook check-ins carry quite a charitable punch, this week we ask you to do more. It’s simple: donate unnecessary coats/clothes/shoes or any sort of unnecessary-to-you-but-vital-to-others stuff to a local organization (Goodwill, The United Way, local churches, etc). You can google: “charities near me” and find a cache of places.

Do well.

PS: As our tagline reads, we believe fitness to provide inspiration in directions that aren’t vanity related. A touch of virtue signaling is better than a blank check-in. So, when you find yourself trucking a bunch of stuff, take a quick picture and post it to social media. Use the hashtag #10exlife and let’s continue to carve out what the 10 Experience truly means.

The post Outlier Lifestyle Weekly Challenge #1 appeared first on 10 Experience .

On Voluntary Hardships

Tue, 02 Jan 2018 15:39:00 GMT

Once December was a month; now it is a year. – Seneca

Seneca wrote volumes of letters chocked-full of [Stoic] wisdom. And I am wont to describe the holiday season with a more befitting quip. It’s true, unlike any other season, the weeks preceding the calendar change are laced with parties and friends, food and family, and celebratory landscapes riddled with pitfalls (for health-minded people). As a consequence, we fall in. We crawl out. Then proceed as quickly as possible to the next bottom of the next pit. It is, this sort of self-defeating-yet-deliciously-rewarding behavior, almost as predictable as the local radio station’s 48-hour playlist from December 24th through 25th. In other words: it’s normal, it feels good and presents alongside a healthy dose of nostalgia.

From my vantage, the problem starts festering in the cold and gray weeks that follow. The epicurean fountain runs dry and we find the burning flame of the holiday hobnob snuffed-out, lickety-split. The habits developed in previous months are more challenging than they were before. The blandness of ‘healthy’ food, of a more muted social calendar, and the midwinter bleakness of January sits heavily atop our existence. It’s suffering (or the closest thing to suffering we modern Westerners experience) and feels as if we’re on the wrong side of a bad punchline. Now, isn’t this is the season for resolution? And, more, what’s the point of this unnecessary hardship?

In the 1930s, Victor Frankl, a man more familiar with suffering than any of us, developed a theory of logotherapy. Before he could apply it in his psychiatric practice or present it in book form, he and his family were hauled off to a Nazi concentration camp (his family didn’t survive, he did). Through his hardships there, he experienced the dramatic power of his logotherapy. In short, logotherapy is founded upon the idea that humans are motivated by the search for a purpose in life. In his case, brutal suffering ceased to be suffering at the precise moment he found some meaning to it.

* Let me assure everyone, I am not nor would I ever liken the challenges of diet and lifestyle to those of a death camp. Woe is anyone to make light the horrors of the Holocaust.

It’s from Frankl’s lesson’s that we might all better answer to suffering’s purpose. The upcoming Outlier Lifestyle Challenge is sure to present plenty of hardship. Some asks will certainly make you uncomfortable. It’s during these times that I simply suggest we choose to endure them both happily and voluntarily. According to Frankl, we can discover powerful meaning in life in three different ways:

In the weeks to come, you can expect challenges from outside the fitness box. We will ask you to make sacrifices. But we believe that gratification delayed is a sort of greater gratification. If nothing else, start by conceptualizing the highest good you can – fitness or otherwise. Then ceaselessly strive to attain it. Frankl calls that tragic optimism; beholding the best of our human nature – the ability to turn suffering into human achievement. An empowering concept, indeed.

Where is what you most want to be found? Where you are least likely to look.

(In sterquiliniis invenitur)

G-

Frankl, V. E., Lasch, I., Kushner, H. S., & Wnislade, W. J. (2015). Mans search for meaning . Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Seneca, L. A., & Campbell, R. (1969). Letters from a Stoic . Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

The post On Voluntary Hardships appeared first on 10 Experience .

Holiday Damage Plan 2017

Sun, 19 Nov 2017 18:22:00 GMT

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times for waistlines” Paleo Guru, Olive D. Meetz speaking of the holidays.

The holidays are upon us like a pair of tight pants, fitted dress/pantsuit from smaller memories of yesteryear. Hopefully, it is because you now squat double bodyweight and can spin like Rapunzel on an assault bike. It’s the time of year when you are segregated from the gym family to spend some much needed time with the immediate family to unwind, recharge, share nostalgia, meet the new additions to the family, congratulate relatives on accomplishments and reminisce about the beautiful memories of loved ones lost. Take the time for the present, practice gratitude and use these moments as healings session from the hard-charging, the nonstop beating of everyday life. Minimize cells phones, social media scrolling and football debates to have a conversation and learn something new about a relative or friend. Ask questions instead of making statements. Show affection instead of annoyance . Suck it up and listen to someone you don’t get along with even if they sound like Ben Stein reading a dictionary overusing “like” because they really don’t know what they are talking about. Kiss the old ones on the head, because you don’t know when or if you will see them again. Help cook, clean, and walk people to their car. Hold the baby so their parents can have some peace. Be the person your friends and family can depend on. Be the person you want to be. Take the winding road of various experience instead of the straight and comfortable interstate. Try to benefit everyone you contact. “Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.” – Marcus Aurelius Lastly, eat healthy foods…what…

There are two messages in this article…

Healthy food, you say? “But Thanksgiving, it is! Smell apple pies, we will!” – Yoda. We all know there are scrumptious family recipes and other sugar and gluten-filled food that we love to shove in our tongue homes. Below, we will go over 4 simple tips to help be as preventative to destroying the gut microbiome as well as not moving up a weight class in a couple days time. Here we go…

Hopefully, this will help you steer around the landmines ahead on the nutritional freeway.

This holiday season we are thankful for the best community in the world, you all. A glass raises to you with the sincerest thanks for the memories of another year and making the world a better place. Cheers, Outliers.

The post Holiday Damage Plan 2017 appeared first on 10 Experience .

Limits to Growth: A Cautionary Fitness Tale

Sun, 12 Nov 2017 15:49:00 GMT

I recently finished reading another book. Per usual, it prompted some thought about distilling its lessons into ones worth applying to my life and, from what platform I have, ask you to consider in yours. In oversimplified form, the book – Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update – reads something like this:

Let’s begin by defining overshoot. Overshoot, according to Google, is to pass a threshold unintentionally, especially by traveling too fast or being unable to stop. It’s for this reason I find myself compelled to share some curious similarities. While this isn’t a forum to discuss political positions, environmental stance or distribution of wealth, I posit the triggers of ‘overshooting’ growth on a global (environmental and economical) scale mirror those of overshooting on a fitness one. The theoretical essence of growth is universal after all – there must be a limit. Meadows reasons that there are three causes of overshoot: first, comes rapid change. Then, follows limits to that change. And, finally we see errors in perceiving limits or controlling change.

The nature of growth, concerning physical change i.e. the development of fitness, follows the same trajection. Join me in following our newest (theoretical) member, Billy Ordinary – let’s call him BO, for short – through an imaginary, and maybe familiar, fitness journey. The same story (relatively) could be told for Billy’s wife – Bobbi, his parents – Bruce and Barbara, and most anyone with untethered notions on growth.

It’s obvious that BO needed something in which to believe – he chose himself, his own fitness (might we all choose such benign pursuits). It’s easy to lose something in our haste to remake ourselves: a sense of limits, an awareness of the importance of our body’s resiliency and, ultimately, its limitations. The extreme case of BO makes a number of obvious points. Like proponents of endless growth on a limited planet with finite resources, BO overshot his target: fitness as he defined it. Ignoring obvious signals (losing sleep, lowering calories, increasing stress through training, overwhelming periods at work, etc), he made unsustainable choices and was literally forced into a fitness ‘recession.’ To steal an analogy from Meadows, the difference between a sustainable [fitness and BO’s] is like the difference between stopping an automobile with the brakes versus stopping it by crashing into a brick wall.

No matter the physical quest (be it competitive fitness, injury rehabilitation or, simply, to live long and prosper), I believe it our responsibility to create opportunities for education on the pursuit of, and provide an opportunity for, sustainable fitness. Opportunities that meet the needs of the present self without compromising the vitality of future ones (remember A Curious Case for the Morality of Fitness ?). When successful, fitness becomes a medium for real, unlimited growth (inspiration and fulfillment). Then we might turn the consumptive corner to see a most satisfying vision: the purpose of existence is much greater than physical expansion, consumption and accumulation. Perhaps we might even entertain the idea of ‘negative’ growth – to undo excess. And in the name of something greater than ourselves, drop below limits and stop behaving in ways that cost more than their worth.

Such is my hope.

G- ———> formerly known as BO

Meadows, D. H., Randers, J., & Meadows, D. L. (2010). The limits to growth: the 30-year update . London: Earthscan.

The post Limits to Growth: A Cautionary Fitness Tale appeared first on 10 Experience .

A Curious Case for the Morality of Fitness

Sun, 03 Sep 2017 15:37:00 GMT

A few months ago, I blindly stumbled upon a podcast that scratched a yet-to-be-cured itch. And a philosophically profitable misstep it was. This was my first introduction to Jordan Peterson. Peterson is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Toronto (formerly tenured at Harvard). In 1999, he authored Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief , a book I’m currently slogging my psychologically-ignorant self through. But lately, he’s garnered more acclaim, among other things, for his lectures on The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories. It’s from one of these talks that I attempt bridging my clearly biased notions to his.

During the lecture, Peterson discusses research pertaining to the social behavior of rats at play. The researcher, Jaak Panksepp, discovered a ‘play mechanism’ existing within the brains of juvenile rats (he also discovered that rats giggle!). These young rats roughhouse and tumble with both larger and smaller opponents. Individual rats win this game by ‘pinning’ the other. Simple enough, right? However, and this is where it becomes curious to me, for the game to continue in the future, the weaker of the wrestling rats must ‘win’ at least 30 percent of the time. If not, he quits playing. In fact, when rats experience excessive winning or losing, the game effectively ends quelling all future play. Is this an argument for Mickey Mouse morality? Maybe.

Distilling Peterson thoughts into something more digestible – life isn’t a singular game. It’s a set of games. To receive invitation to the game today, tomorrow, and in all the days that follow, one must ‘play’ – winning and losing – so that they’re permitted to participate in the next 100 games. In other words, for rats or otherwise, some moral rules of engagement apply beyond today’s game.

How does a group of playing rats relate to fitness? For me, this points to an argument for what Peterson calls a meta-truth. A transcendent truth, if you will. While we aren’t rats, the same morally conscious behavior can be applied broadly to our capricious pursuits of fitness. Like the rats, our game – fitness, in this case – isn’t a singular day, test or workout. It’s a set of training days over the course of our exercising lives. We must participate – win and lose – so that we’re permitted to continue training throughout the next 100 cycles. Granted, we aren’t directly competing with our buddies. Instead, we wrestle to find balance between our two-headed ego – the current one demanding a PR-at-all-costs today and the future one hoping for physically vibrancy 10 years from now. Both selves need to win often enough to strike a healthy balance. This means we must avoid viewing today’s success or failure in a vacuum.

To be clear, this is a far cry from a nod at mediocrity. Instead, it’s a call to action for high-order thinking, an intellectual fitness. If we win today at the cost of all tomorrows, how meaningful is winning?

Perhaps, there’s such a thing as fitness morality…perhaps not. Regardless, I believe the line of thinking to be an extension of a bigger one. But, when we whittle at our behaviors daily, they’re wont to assume a recognizable pattern. I realize the philosophical leap I’m taking. Regardless, it seems pertinent and worthy of thoughtful investigation. Jordan Peterson, my philosopher king, might advise us to live in accordance to the rules which we would have become universal law. In other words – live and stand in our own truth. Besides fitness, what might we achieve if we started playing all life’s games this way?

And that’s the moral of the story,

G-

Dr Jordan B Peterson, Professor of Psychology & Clinical Psychologist. (n.d.). Retrieved September 01, 2017, from https://jordanbpeterson.com/

J. (2017, June 06). Biblical Series III: God and the Hierarchy of Authority. Retrieved August 30, 2017, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_GPAl_q2QQ&t=5932s

Social deprivation and play in rats1. (n.d.). Retrieved August 30, 2017, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0163104780910778

The post A Curious Case for the Morality of Fitness appeared first on 10 Experience .

10ex Enough: Captaining our Soil

Sun, 02 Jul 2017 01:37:00 GMT

As some of you know, last year’s trip to Polyface Farm highlighted a need to amend a number of my consumptive habits (at least if I planned to continue standing in my own advice-giving truth). In the almost-12-month interim, I’ve done a fair share of agricultural-based reading, plucked some of the lowest hanging behavioral fruit and sewn some, what I posit to be, responsible seeds of changes. Now, I’m far from espying the pinnacle of Mount Salatin, but I choose to believe I’m slogging my way towards responsible citizenry.

A few months back, one of Trista’s coworkers, knowing my penchant for #HOAhusbandry, sent a book my way. I found its title, Ten Acres Enough, just curious enough to whet my reading appetite and peeled in. Its remarkably eloquent author, Edmund Morris, recalls his personal motivations for moving his family away from Philadelphia’s perpetual hustle to rural New Jersey in order to ‘learn to be content and happy’ on ten acres of land. Morris’ story, as you probably expect, speaks directly to both chambers within my heart of hearts – the risky business side and the pursuit of happiness side alike. From my agrarian readings, the book was remarkable. Rest assured, I don’t intend to beguile everyone into starting a garden (but, you should!). Instead, it’s my opinion that lessons from Morris’ nineteenth century pastoral practices might also shed light upon the recipe for cultivating our character…or what Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.

Awareness: No man conquers a farming difficulty until he sees it plainly.

If we fail to curate a degree of self-awareness – whether you’re after weight loss, muscle gain or improved health – it’s likely we’re pruning away the buds of success. Tired of a creaky knee or achy back? Can’t quite shake those last 10 pounds? Stuck at the same Snatch load for the last 6 months? Taking an objective and critical look at daily behavior is the key to solving such riddles. Developing awareness is a skill in itself – one that, like our gardens, requires little acts of honesty performed often.

Responsibility: If you would push a crop through, look after it yourself.

After tooling ourselves with the spade of awareness, we must learn to wield it skillfully. Clearly, the responsibility to make necessary changes lies with us alone. If you would prefer to lose those 10 pounds, solve the riddle of chronic pain or literally ‘push’ a PR through, look after it yourself. A garden won’t weed itself…and the man who refuses to take responsibility for his problems has no advantage over the man that fails to identify them.

Mastery: Let every foot of your farm show the touch of refinement.

The well-tooled and responsibly-skilled practitioner is just now on the path to harvesting this coveted change. Only after accepting the truth, can one supplant these ideas to everyday behavior. If knee or back pain derives from a broken movement and responsibility for modifying movement is ours, we must refine this behavior. Like building a rich soil, those traveling along the path of self-mastery – a complex and profound place – can count themselves fortunate after realizing that for every mile traveled, their destination lies two miles further.

I’m wholly aware of the tired ‘reaping and sewing’ farm cliches. But the principles of husbanding small plots of the land and those of refining the corners of human character aren’t too dissimilar. Through this lens (Morris might agree), nothing about life is commonplace and nothing is the in-between. The threads that join our every act and our every thought are infinite. If we permit it, many a happy and enjoyable moment can come between the slices of everyday work in the field or on ourselves. And as such, those things giving life value, be it gardening or fertilizing the human experience, ‘can be had for nothing…[they come] as gifts from Providence, and neither air nor sky, nor beauty, genius, health or strength can be bought or sold.’ Whether these grand and humanizing quests are aimed at food production or towards personal perfection, it is our hope that with a sound approach to fitness and philosophy, you find our teachings and your daily interactions at 10 Experience enough.

Masters of our fate…captains of our soil,

G-

Leonard, G. (1992). Mastery: the keys to success and long-term fulfillment. New York: Plume.

Morris, E. (2012). Ten acres enough: a practical experience, showing how a very small farm may be made to keep a. Place of publication not identified: Hardpress Publishing.

The post 10ex Enough: Captaining our Soil appeared first on 10 Experience .

Uncle Warren’s Principles for a Profitable Life

Mon, 01 May 2017 01:35:00 GMT

A number of my recent readings have pointed at shoring-up a personal blindspot – financial intelligence. As I wander into my, wait for it…middle-aged years, it seems prudent to have a more comprehensive understanding of financial fitness. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to bore you with fiscal jargon or involve much discussion in the way of money. And, by no means, should this dissertation imply that I’ve any sort of command on the situation

Early in my folly, I was lucky to be pointed towards Warren Buffett. Too obvious, right? I’m certain, you’re well-aware of the mountain of wealth he’s responsiblefor possessing. I was too (his net worth tips the scale a bit over $76 billion). However, I was less aware of his more mountainous and equally impressive wealth of knowledge. To quote a friend, the man is a proverbial, “fount of knowledge.” Much like his fortune, he liberally distributes this mental capital en masse via letters to his shareholders. These investment letters, laced with scores of wisdom, provide the principle from which I withdrew larger and over-arching truths about living from him, the Oracle of Omaha. I believe these lessons, and countless others, to be an investment worth everyone’s study.

Lesson 1:

“Run your business as if: (1) you own 100% of it; (2) it is the only asset in the world that you and your family have or will ever have; and (3) you can’t sell or merge it for at least a century.”

Let’s start by treating our body as if we own 100% of it – we do! Obviously, it is the only one we will ever have. And, like it or not, our family will depend on us for many years. Moral implications aside, we certainly can’t sell nor merge ourselves, but too often we might rely on ‘selling out’ to dependence on pharmaceuticals or ‘merging’ through invasive surgery and repair. In a nutshell, the responsibility of living long and well is ours and ours alone. The sooner we accept these terms, the earlier we’ll observe profit from taking ownership of our fitness and life alike.

Lesson 2:

“It is better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.”

We – as investors, exercisers, parents, friends, no matter the hat we don – need to do very few things right as long as we avoid big mistakes. Think about this in terms of proper movement or generally sound nutrition. It’s sometimes less seductive – this sticking to basic principles or known ways to success. Trendy, get-rich/fit-quick fads are the perpetual rage in the fitness and investment world. Yet, calling someone who follows the latest hypo-caloric diet trend, exercise program or life-hack a champion of fitness is, like Buffett quips, “like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a romantic.” The lemming analogy seems appropriate here. A follow-the-herd mentality, especially when steering the business of your fitness, is almost always bad. What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.

Lesson 3:

“It’s very important, always live your life by an inner scorecard.”

Enduring fitness, and I dare say happiness, is won by those who focus on both the quality and diversity of their time’s investment (read as: movement, nutrition, recovery, longevity) – not by those whose eyes are glued to the leaderboard. If we can enjoy Saturdays and Sundays because we haven’t checked Wodify scores or stepped upon the scale, might we give it a try throughout the week? This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t strive to improve on an objective scale. We should! Aiming at perfection is much akin to navigating by the North Star, it’s not a place we’ll ever reach, but it provides a guiding perspective for our travels.

Whether in the gym or our objectives otherwise, our energies are only able to be fully expressed with investment of our most valuable, nonrenewable resource time. Buffett has been quoted ad nauseam on compounding interest and it’s relevance to growing his compounding assets. I tend to agree; not concering my meager wealth, but in relation to an ever-profitable existence. Let us consciously chase these pursuits with the long-game in mind. Like Buffett in his annual letters, I’m compelled to share, in my greenhorn way, how I think so that you can evaluate not only our success as a fitness business, but also assess our approach to management and life in general. When we’re consciously judicious with how we invest time – with whom, doing what, and thinking of – we are sure to notice long-term gains in the caliber of life’s experience.

Still carrying fire ,

G-

Buffett, W., & Cunningham, L. A. (2015). The essays of Warren Buffett: lessons for corporate America . Washington, DC: Laurence A. Cunningham

The post Uncle Warren’s Principles for a Profitable Life appeared first on 10 Experience .

Carry the Fire

Sat, 11 Mar 2017 00:57:00 GMT

I want to be with you.

You can’t.

Please.

You cant. You have to carry the fire.

I dont know how to.

Yes you do.

Is it real? The fire?

Yes it is.

Where is it? I dont know where it is.

Yes you do. It’s inside you. It was always there.

For me, parts of McCarthy’s lessons were analogous to the conclusion of this year’s Outlier Challenge or, truly, any challenge we face (lucky for us, our challenges aren’t all dark and survival-based). On our respective journeys, we meet opportunities in which we might, in moral terms, choose be a good or bad guy. Eat junk. Skip sleep. Mindlessly watch tv. Glaze over a smart phone. Collect things for things’ sake. Forgo learning. Zone out during conversations. Destroy Mother Nature. Sometimes, we take the easy road. This year, like in year’s past and likely the future, it’s my hope that you too will choose to carry the fire. Choose to live in a way harmonious with some unspoken creed, one better serving you and those you touch. And why? For nothing more than the sake of goodness, for purpose…because, like Dostoevsky once wrote, ‘For the secret of man’s being is not only to live but to have something to live for. Without a stable conception of the object of life, man would not consent to go on living, and would rather destroy himself.’ McCarthy has left us plenty of fat to chew, lest our posterity truly find themselves in a world resembling his road.

I choose to believe that you, the #423nation, are a principled lot and are both stubborn and adventurous, yet independent enough to consider ideas contrasting your own. The unnamed father in McCarthy’s novel said it best, ‘Remember the things you put into your head are there forever…You might want to think about that.’ Perhaps, next you find yourself slipping into a behavior that mightn’t’ serve your ‘head’ or higher purpose (read as: eat an entire pizza, a dozen donuts, and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s), you might instead curate the fire you’ve carried for the last 6 weeks. It’s inside you. It was always there.

Think we’re simply working on fitness? I think we’re working on concepts.

G-

Dostoyevsky, F., & Garnett, C. (1912). The Brothers Karamazov. New York: Macmillan.

McCarthy, C. (2006). The Road. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

The post Carry the Fire appeared first on 10 Experience .

State of the #423nation: What is 10Experience?

Sun, 18 Dec 2016 01:01:00 GMT

As December winds toward end, I find myself reflecting on the year’s happenings. What were my mistakes? Successes? How could I have been more productive? From what experiences might I take lesson? Am I happier? Does life look the way I’d like? Collectively, we (coaches) are equally as curious about the gym’s dealings. How did our service improve? Did we evolve? Where’s opportunity? What are our blind spots? And, holistically, does the daily experience align with our stated purpose?

It’s with such thinking that we began whittling out some tough thoughts concerning the heading of our ship, the #423nation. Below you will see a picture of the commemorative mugs. They honor and celebrate the longevity of our faithful members. The OG’s, if you will. Printed on the mug is “10EX” – 10Experience. And a reference to a timeless rumination from beloved philosopher king, Marcus Aurelius. My task for this spiel is to share the meaning of those words in a possibly circuitous way and bring you all further into the fold…because in the end, like the Uncle Buffett asserts, we must have people to match our principles, not the reverse. Stay with me…

I’ll start with an aside from a recent book I’ve read – The Alchemist . In the story, a shopkeeper sends his son to learn the secret of happiness from the wisest king in the world. The young boy wanders in the desert for many days before finally coming upon a beautiful castle atop a mountain (where the king lives). After entering this castle, the boy sees a hive of activity. Orchestras played and business teemed from in every nook. The wise king conversed with anyone wishing to gain his ear and, thus, the boy faced a considerable wait. Finally, hours later, the boy had his chance to explain the nature of his search – to learn the secret of happiness. But, the king didn’t have time just-then to explain the secret. Instead, he suggests the boy look around the palace and return in 2 hours. In the meantime, the wise king does require a task of the young boy, “as you wander around, carry this spoon with you without allowing the oil to spill.” The boy saunters off, eyes fixed on the drops of oil in the spoon. After two hours, the boy returns. The king asks the boy about his noticings – of all the beautiful tapestries, gardens and pieces of art. Ashamed, the boy admits he had observed nothing at all. His singular focus was with the oil in the spoon. “Then go back and observe the marvels of my world,” said the wise man. Happily, the boy returns to exploring the castle. This time, he saw the gardens, the mountains and each piece of art within. When returning to the king, he was able to recall, in detail, all he had seen, but had lost the drops of oil in the process. Again, the boy was ashamed. The wise king then offers a piece of advice, “The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.”

Our story – 423 Strength & Conditioning, Five Rivers CrossFit and CrossFit 423 – isn’t too different from that of the parable. From inception, the nature of our business – the gym – was to help as many people as possible. We believed utopian fitness to be the secret of happiness. The best way we knew to serve that purpose was through this novel approach to exercise – CrossFit. Does anyone remember our original catchphrase? Proof. Not promises. The ’secret’ was to make people as fit as possible. We held the idea that you’d better finish every workout on your backside or else you couldn’t claim full effort, much less victory. Like the young boy, we’ve spent a fair portion of time focused too much on the oil: CrossFit competitor training or bust – #hatetheruns, National level Weightlifter or bust – #423barbell. And we’ve spun webs in a number of other wanderlust-like directions. Caveman Kitchen, anyone? Often times, these pursuits, while well-intentioned, didn’t precisely align with the original pursuit – helping people. But, it turns out, they do possess lesson-rich merits.

I suppose the 10Experience is an idea we’ve incubated for almost 7 years . Like the young boy, like Marcus Aurelius, we’ve wandered all over the fitness map and finally realized that we may have found what we’re after: not money or fame, not indulgence, but simply, how to live . Greatness is not a singular quest in fitness or business, it’s a human quest…and it’s a choice we hope [and wish to inspire you] to make daily. What makes a great human? I’m reminded of a quote a friend recently shared:

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, [lift heavy, run far, run fast, jump high, live free from pain], die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. – Robert Heinkin

Interesting, right? A short time ago, I had a conversation with a member in Morristown. He posed an equally interesting question (truly, the one leading into this exploration of thought). He asked, “Does your business look like what you wanted 7 years ago?” My answer – not even close. Like artists and chefs and authors, I choose to believe that we, as coaches and teachers, deal in inspiration. Our medium just happens to be fitness. Fitness can be CrossFit, but doesn’t have to be CrossFit . It can be S & C work, Weightlifting, powerlifting, triathlon-ing…but it doesn’t have to be. Our purpose, now more crystalized, is to improve life through the means of fitness – to provide gentle nudges that might yield a better definition to your secret of happiness. Perhaps, if you’re ever asked a similar question about your gym, something like “Is that 423 place what you expected?” We hope you might take pause to answer, “No. It’s 10x better.” Now, that’s the rub! What is the 10Experience? It’s simple: inspiration through fitness.

To the journey,

G-

Coelho, P. (1998). The alchemist . San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

The post State of the #423nation: What is 10Experience? appeared first on 10 Experience .

Distilling Some Thought on Resolution

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 01:03:00 GMT

Yea, the season of resolutions has returned. And, with it, renewed zeal for weight loss, inspired hopes to break less-desirable habits in favor of forming better ones, and plenty more. To me, there seems some modicum of logic applied to this behavioral revision. It is the changing of a year, a fresh start, and the pinnacle of the ‘I’ll start Monday’ notions. As one somewhat involved in the health and wellness field, I’ve always found it much more curious. Why not start now? How does a date of 1/1/__ change your intention (assuming there’s merit)? But, I digress…let me clear the air by emphatically stating – I take no issue with New Year resolutions. Wholeheartedly, I support any favorable behaviorial change.

While thinking on resolutions, I inevitably began to dissect the actual word. If you know me, you know I like words – their structure, origin, nature, meaning. You can’t spell etymology without the ‘g’ (nor geek). Stay with me, here…

resolution…

re – ‘again’ or to move ‘backward’

solution…

root word: solve

solve – to work out the answer to (a mathematical problem)

hmmm, to move back and work out the answer again…

There I was, resolved to reducing a common noun into it’s elemental parts, trying to tease out insightful deductions, when it struck me, like an apple to the skull – eureka! Except my epiphany was much, much less weighty than Newton’s (I hope the puns aren’t for nothing). My attempts to find hidden insights are an exact – maybe not exactly – analogy for New Year resolutions. I was taking a simple word and attempting to turn it into something complex. Why? I knew the definition, but I sought intricacy…while possessing proper understanding. We, resolutioners, behave in the same manner. We state a definitive goal of _____. It’s likely we know the path to achieve said goal – just like I knew the meaning of resolution. Typically, the solution involves consistent behavior in alignment with our goal – so simple. However, for some reason, we seek complexity when simplicity would otherwise prevail. In short, we try to reinvent the wheel when it already works rather well. Perhaps during this goal-setting season, we might all consider better tuning our other resolution (see: vision). May we focus on the finer degrees of a detailed life. Life…in technicolor. Anyone?

It isn’t lost on me – the timely nature of this post. Yes, the Outlier Challenge 2.0 is a few short days away. What will it involve? Check your email and review updated rules, scoring and structures. I promise, we didn’t reinvent the nature of the challenge. Why should we? The age-old axioms of nutrition and behavior still ring true.

To err is human to [begin again] divine,

G-

The post Distilling Some Thought on Resolution appeared first on 10 Experience .

Folks, This Could Be Normal: Nature’s Lessons from Polyface Farms

Mon, 08 Aug 2016 01:04:00 GMT

Preface: As a number of you know, last weekend we took a trip north to visit Polyface Farms . The event served as a formal fund raiser for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund . What do they do? They bolster the #FoodFreedom movement. Pulling directly from their website, they protect the rights of farmers and consumers to engage in direct commerce (the rights of farmers to sell the products of the farm and the rights of consumers to access the foods of their choice from the source of their choice). They aim to level the playing field, making it more difficult for government agencies to win wars of attrition that drag farmers through administrative and judicial hearings. Essentially, these funds enable farmers to spend their resources on farming instead of legal representation. With that in mind, we happily paid the ticket price and packed for a trip into the budding swath of verdure within the Shenandoah Valley.

He even laughed at my bad joke. What a guy!

Polyface Farm – the farm of many faces – is primarily known for one, Joel Salatin’s. Sporting his trademark straw cowboy hat and glasses, his was one of the first greeting us Saturday morning. Joel is the second-generation patriarch at Polyface. At 59, he’s man of sturdy build and an academic, penning 10 books. He proclaims himself a ‘Christian libertarian environmentalist capitalist lunatic’ (I’ve a few other descriptions for him including: genius, progressive, and inspiring).

For the next 3 hours, Joel would lead us through grassy pastures and muddy trails, past thousands of chickens, hundreds of cattle and pigs, all while eloquently articulating the harmonious architecture of relationships he and his family have honed throughout their 50+ year agrarian practice – his father purchased the modest farm in 1961 as a ‘worn out, gullied weedpatch’ that couldn’t support a single salary (annual sales are nearing $2 millions now). Polyface, on a commercial-scale, successfully mimics Nature’s natural pattern. On Joel’s farm, the ecosystem is regenerative and boasts a net positive impact, meaning it gives more than is harvested – an impossible model within industrialized agri-business. The once gullied pastures now boast ‘ecstatic copulating earthworms…willing to testify to the healing.’ Every electrified fence, every livestock maneuver, every turn of the wheel at Polyface is planned and executed with specific purpose. The purpose, put succinctly into Joel’s words, ‘Respecting and honoring the marvelous pigness of the pig.’ It’s at the (grass)root of everything. The essence of his work, which is considered by many the greatest farm on earth, is healing. For Joel’s and farms of the like, if natural order can be intelligently integrated, repair happens. It isn’t just happenstance. The land regains it’s robustness and is more resilient to caprices of weather (flood, drought, etc). Animals live in accordance to their nature and thrive. And the environment regenerates – the health of the biome returns. It’s beautiful. As we left that evening, bellies and hearts full from a meal provided by Polyface, I found myself smiling and curious how I might share the bounty of inspiration within the confines of a fitness compendium.

Joel is the most natural soundbite generator I’ve heard. Practically everything he say’s is quote-worthy. Throughout the day, I found myself scrambling to make a note of some timeless axiom effortlessly rolling off his cuff. Parsing my notes from Polyface, a couple of notions started to crystallize…

Joel says:

‘The earth is not a territory to be conquered like a conquistador. The earth is a benevolent lover to be caressed.’

‘True agriculture should be aesthetic and aromatic, sensually romantic.’

What if we replaced ‘earth’ with ‘body’ in the first statement and ‘agriculture’ with ‘fitness’ in the second? It would read:

‘The human body is not a territory to be conquered like a conquistador. The body is a benevolent lover to be caressed.’

‘True fitness should be aesthetic and aromatic, sensually romantic.’

Silly/smelly jokes aside, the principles ring true, do they not? Why not make every decision with intention, with purpose? The purpose of enriching the experience of life. Do we cheapen our existence by failing to honor the humanness of the human? All too often, I posit we do. Perhaps through CrossFit (wellness), we are better-afforded a path mimicking our true Homo sapiens self. Like the flora and fauna of Polyface, we thrive when properly rested, feeding in our best interests, moving enough to promote fitness, and sharing relationships with those we love. In those ways, the CrossFit model resembles that of Polyface’s (no, I’m not calling you farm animals). In the same manner of the Salatin’s tracts of land, our health can be regenerated, restored and undoubtedly, thrive – even if we’re ‘worn out and gullied.’ We only need begin. Like Joel’s legacy, our qualitative health ‘is tied to the cumulative effect of injecting sacredness and nobility into every little action’ of every day. Might we all starting living intentionally with the purpose of incubating the true essence of what life should be.

Where’s the beef?

G-

Board of directors. (2016). Retrieved August 24, 2016, from http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/about/

Salatin, J. (2011, July 25). Principles. Retrieved August 24, 2016, from http://www.polyfacefarms.com/principles/

TEDxTalks. “TEDxMidAtlantic – Joel Salatin – 11/5/09.” YouTube . YouTube, 2009. Web. 24 Aug. 2016.

The post Folks, This Could Be Normal: Nature’s Lessons from Polyface Farms appeared first on 10 Experience .

Grapes…then Raisins: Quantifying Quality in the Gym

Tue, 06 Oct 2015 01:07:00 GMT

Preface: I’ve spent more time reading in 2015 than I have at any other stage in my life, college pursuits included. This year, I set a goal of reading 20 substantial books by year’s end. It’s an arbitrary, scoreboard-like number, I now realize. Whether my reading habits are directly correlated to a back injury or not, I’ve yet concluded. Maybe it’s consistent – this desire to build one’s own library of books – with aging in general? I am 31 after all.

Of my most recent readings, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, has commanded a respectable amount of thought on my behalf. In a egregiously brief nutshell, Robert Pirsig (the author) chronicles a cross-country motorcycle trip he and son embarked upon in the early 1970s. Without delving too deeply into the plot, it’s outlines his metaphysical attempts to define quality and apply it to his philosophy (I haven’t tainted the story, should you choose to peruse – I promise). Quality. Perhaps a word you’ve heard us frequently harp upon? Ultimately, Pirsig’s struggle to define ‘quality’ provided the impetus for my quest to better articulate what we mean in our daily harangues. What exactly does rule #7 mean?

Let’s first examine life outside the gym. I surmise 99% of us live in quite a rush. We speed from one task, to the next. Scramble through our chores. Fly from work to the gym, and dash on to the next social engagement. The result is a sort of endless day-to-day shallowness, a monotony leaving one to wonder what happened [to the last 5 weeks, months, years] and sorry for the passing. I’m 31. What?! Such is life and I admit to much of the same behavior. To coin a common cliché, life happens…there’s no circumventing it. We put our heads down and run blindly to the next task begging for attention. We hurry. In truth, our culture focuses mostly on an end result – who wins and by how much. It’s life’s perpetual scoreboard from which we define and categorize everything and it’s all quantified.

In an eerily-similar way, we apply this result-oriented approach to our gym behavior. We hurry. What was the finish time? Load on the bar? Score? What was Rx’d? It’s [mostly] the nature of CrossFit. Anyone having trained in a CrossFit gym or group can attest to pursuing, against better judgement, the coveted ‘Rx’ badge of honor – myself included (of course, that’s not to say competition is without merit). CrossFit has encultured the same quantifiable, business-like approach. It’s a culture where judgements are passed, consciously or not, based upon a result. Fast, we define ourselves exclusively through the lens of a daily scoreboard and often we depart defeated – hopefully uninjured – filled with regret and wondering what happened. And more, searching for answers as to why improvements have not.

Quality ( n ) – the standard of something as measured against other things of a similar kind; the degree of excellence of something

With all the buzzing about, I’d want to offer a solution, a definition from my vantage at least, to this everlasting rat race; a shift in perception. Finally, here comes the quality stuff. Through my thinking, I’ve developed a visual definition – hat tip to Pink Floyd – to simply shift focus from scoreboard pursuits to the real kind. It’s rather simple:

In other words, I’d challenge you to change your perception. Shift that focus from ‘what’ (quantity) to ‘how well’ (quality) and you are certain to edge closer to achieving your ‘why’ (goals). Why did you begin this journey ? In real applications, what does this mean? It could mean a host of thing, like staying aerobic when aerobic intervals are programmed; having the foresight to decrease a barbell load in favor of better positions (positions that will better serve your long-term goals, instead of the temporary pacification of a score on the whiteboard). It may mean a complete substitution – KB swings in favor of a Snatch or a press instead of a Jerk. It can even mean, heaven forbid, modifying a few weeks of training in the name of longevity.

Does this mean I want you forever in limbo, a pull-up purgatory? Absolutely not! Instead, let’s simply find a better way. What is best…not for a score, but for you? Let’s lessen the haste to reach our next achievement (a muscle-up) and spend some time with the steps necessary to make it possible (scapular strength, mobility, coordination, etc). I simply ask you to slow down. See what happens if you don’t click the Rx button one day…nothing! Rushing implies that we no longer care. That we have other things demanding our attention. I lobby for your change because I KNOW you care. I do too :). With diligence, energy and patience – if we embrace this focus on quality – we’re sure to lead happier lives both in and out of the gym. Grapes…then raisins, said Marcus Aurelius. It’s not about the ‘not’ but the ‘not yet’. In all pursuits, acknowledge a process. Then, trust it. Still unsure? Ask Jon Eskola, he’s a pillar of knowledge on the topic.

To travel is better than to have arrived,

G-

The post Grapes…then Raisins: Quantifying Quality in the Gym appeared first on 10 Experience .

Gainz, Trains and Galpin’s Ideals

Wed, 02 Sep 2015 01:09:00 GMT

In lieu of our recent surveying, we journey, once again, back to our Paleo f(x) gleanings. This week we address the age-old question about strategies concerning post-workout nutrition. If you’ve perused any fitness magazines, you’re sure to have been bombarded with volumes of ‘thought’ on the subject. Skip breakfast. Eat this. Do that. Dissenting opinions flow copiously ad nauseam. And, as many situations crassly display, misinformation often reigns king. Lucky for us, Dr. Andy Galpin provided – your favorite and mine – relevant points of scientifically supported advice. To grossly summate his resume, Dr. Galpin is a professor at Cal State Fullerton , physiologist, former Nationally competitive Weightlifter and a member of the Barbell Shrugged team. He also trains a number of UFC athletes. Most interesting of all, he was a part of the first team to render a singular muscular fiber in glorious 3D . Geeks, celebrate with me!Before delving into the science-y stuff, it’s important to define what we’re discussing. Theoretically, the ‘post-exercise anabolic window’ is the notion that one has a diminishing period of time [following exercise] to consume X amount of protein, carbs, etc. Again, in theory, only during this window, can one capitalize upon or cannibalize, for lack of better term, their freshly completed work. Surely, most of you are familiar with ill-concieved [from my vantage] buzz words like, ‘gainz’, ’shredicated’, and the sort. These ideas, in general, have sparked a behavioral revolution in a number of gym-goers…guzzling their pre-workout energy drinks. Then, chasing their training with post-workout shakes. Sound familiar? But, is it all for nothing?

Does the anabolic window exist?

Conditionally, yes. And, according to Andy, conditionally – no. What?! Can such a calorie conundrum exist? Like almost everything, the truth lies in the degree of our application. As it turns out, the nutritional strategies we follow more adversely dictate the importance of feeding post-workout. Dr. Galpin, in a simplistic manner, boiled his research down into two truths. If training while fasted, the anabolic window should be managed with a serious sense of urgency. Contrastingly, if training occurs during a fed state, the window should be viewed with much less concern. Even more interesting, from my perspective, were his conclusions about the particulars of post-workout nutrition. He says, ‘the sooner you ingest carbohydrates, the better…and ingesting protein won’t hurt either.’ Yep, the name of the physique-progressing game is spelled with a CHO (carbohydrate).

Do I really care?

Let’s hope so. Remember, ‘shredicated gainz’? Whether we admit it or not, hypertrophy – the increase of lean, muscular tissue – is a prevailing theme. Want real strength increases? Hypertrophy. Looking for a leaner overall physique? Hypertrophy, too! After a healthier composition and general well-being? Hypertrophy to the rescue. As a general rule for our experimental purposes, exercise – strength AND conditioning – remains the control (see: constant). It’s the nutritional tweaking that elicits a coveted result.

Okay. So, how much is enough?

Dr. Galpin offered a few standards from which to begin our experimentations. In general, he doesn’t recommend fasted training simply because our ability to produce, and reproduce, high-level performance is [generally-speaking] tied to the amount of glycogen available for use. When fasted, those stores are considerably lower. And, unless we’re ketogenic (a disputable topic for a wholly different post), are better suited leaning (pun, intended) on carbohydrates for energy. His macronutrient recommendations for pre/intra/post-training are as follows (note: these parameters apply to those pursuing most every fitness-related goal):

And there you have it. A a rubric, a template, a place from which to begin you nutritional tinkering. How simple…protein, carbs and water (fat is essential at all other meals). Remember, these are numbers to be consumed before, during and after your training – NOT, to be confused with cumulative, daily requirements. In the future, we’ll dig even deeper. For now, let’s all take the time to digest Dr. Galpin’s well prepared advice.

#HateThePuns,

G-

The post Gainz, Trains and Galpin’s Ideals appeared first on 10 Experience .

Trial, Error, and Forgoing Elite God Complexes

Sat, 15 Aug 2015 01:12:00 GMT

We wrap up the Outlier Lifestyle Challenge with a touch of melancholy. Yes, the sun has set upon one of our most successful community-wide events. I wholeheartedly hope that, while showing breadth and depth in design, it only proves to be a starting point for an ever-inspired life, a place (or opportunity) from which to continue pursuing your evolution. Perhaps, new habits abound. Perhaps, you developed a delicate awareness of what might be possible. Perhaps, nothing changed whatsoever. Regardless of your success, and there was an abundance, I’m certain of one thing: the end of your journey is nowhere in sight. And another trial or challenge, if you will, awaits.

It’s easy, following a period of struggle, learning and success, to consider ourselves enlightened. In life’s perpetual pursuit of ‘something’…something like happiness, we find ourselves more informed than before, than others. Forging ahead, we develop a deeper understanding from our trials. And, after experiencing a certain amount of success, find what works. You mean the truth? That’s right – THIS is it. Hallelujah! It’s ours! Gradually, we develop an unshakable and inflated sense of infallibility. Proclaiming ourselves as an expert on matter X (see: nutrition, fitness, etc), we condemn the frail attempts of those not in the know, or at least ‘our’ version of it. This is the god complex and, sadly, it’s more common than we’d care to admit. I’ll be the first to confess, I’m sometimes guilty of wearing both the know-it-all and the one-upper badges of shame. It’s too easy to assume our habits are the best. What I do works, why would anyone dally elsewhere? Because! Because, like any of life’s venerable pursuits, those proclaiming to possess the answer are, typically, those furthest from it. Follow the man who seeks truth; run from the man who has found it, the old saying goes. Dogma, anyone?

During a cold December night in 1914, a substantial chemical explosion erupted in New Jersey. More than half of Thomas Edison’s plant was ablaze and with it, an immense part of his life’s work. Multiple fire departments sped to the scene, but the chemically-fueled inferno was beyond control. Edison’s son, Charles, in an article from Reader’s Digest (1961), recalled standing beside his father as they watched the flames destroy his work. Tranquilly, Thomas said, “Go get your mother and all her friends. They’ll never see a fire like this again.” Stunned, Charles tried to rebut but was silenced by more stoic words – “It’s alright. We just rid ourselves of a lot of rubbish.”

I dare not enumerate the volumes to be learned from the life and times of Thomas Edison, but, it seems appropriate to ferret out a lesson from this story. Particularly, his approach to what most perceive to be a monumental loss or, better yet, a challenge to his research. Regardless of his mighty success, Edison, in beautiful fashion behaved in a manner proving to be the antithesis to a god complex. He lived a life that embraced challenge…even those challenging his research. Embrace an obstacle? Yes, to Edison, a challenge provided opportunity to broaden understanding, chase evolution, discover…everything.

Before entirely ushering you gently into that great [OLC-ending] good night, I’d offer you a final challenge. It’s simple: forgo the assumption of having THE answer and seize opportunity to make mistakes while seeking it. ‘It’ being our next pursuit. Fail? Yes, fail! With gusto, I challenge everyone to face their, and every conscious being’s, most innate fear, the fear of shame and failure. These worries prevent progress on every front. As discussed, our most common misstep is one towards arrogance – assuming you’ve the answers to all those questions in pandora’s ‘box’ [of fitness]. I, along with Socrates, would argue that ‘only true wisdom lies in knowing you know nothing’. The rules of the OLC were meant to be broad with their stroke. Are they legitimate standards? Absolutely. Are they life determinants? Not quite. Without fear, go tinker. Try putting a wrinkle in your training, in your nutrition, your sleep. Then, observe the difference. Do you feel the same, better or worse? Use pictures, film, and other techy, tracking tools and, while you’re at it, pay extra homage to Edison for his additional help along the way. Try and try again, until you fail. Then, embrace the next opportunity, with fresher understanding and less ‘rubbish’ in tow.

Sure, it’s comfortable to lay down the law. It hurts to be challenged, to change, to adjust course. Admitting our fallibility is hard. But, you, like Edison, have the paradox of choice while facing obstacles. Pursuit of happiness, you say? Nay! That approach depends much too heavily on a destination. I simply ask you to seek happiness in your pursuit. Once you learn to embrace the eternal cycle of trial and error, you’ll notice immeasurable improvement in your disposition. Failure is an inevitable part of life….as is success. It’s no small task – to make mistakes. Particularly, making them in the right direction, but it may prove most enlightening along your way.

Seeking wisdom from the woe,

G-

The post Trial, Error, and Forgoing Elite God Complexes appeared first on 10 Experience .

From Chuck Taylors to Nanos: Reflections From a Half Decade of Fitness Business

Sun, 12 Jul 2015 01:09:00 GMT

I suppose I’ll open this rudimentary exposé with our sincere and resounding gratitude. To those traveling alongside for the duration, those contributing (even briefly) along the way, those supporting from afar, and those recently joining our ranks, our parents, our siblings, and everyone from the in between – thanks! Without you, we are nothing. 423 Strength & Conditioning is simply an idea. You give it life and legs. You provide it’s breath, it’s breadth and a pulse to continue in perpetual evolution.

Some say an entrepreneur jumps from a plane without a parachute and learns how to build it on the way down. On July 24, 2010, Justin and I took the proverbial [CrossFit] lovers leap. Both of us forgoing moderately successful, yet completely miserable, careers in favor of a new pursuit. A pursuit aimed squarely at hope. Hope for happiness and fulfillment. A genuine hope for something greater (we weren’t sure what ‘greater’ meant). What we did know was twofold: we loved CrossFit and thought the greater East Tennessee area would as well.

At that time in Tennessee, we were the only gym of our kind East of Knoxville. And, as I mentioned during the 423 Games, we opened shop in similar fashion – with a competition, a birthday (baby J was 25) and a group of early-adopting, crude CrossFit-ers (maybe 15). We ‘prescribed’ a workout titled, My Pet Rock. It was terrible. Terribly programmed, terribly judged, terribly hard (considering the capacities of participants), and…terribly fun!

Oh, much has changed throughout the past 5 years. And, if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to wax nostalgic for a bit…

There was a time when we, Justin and myself, coveted a 100 kg Snatch (that’s 220 pounds) like Blue covets Trista’s affection. In fact, I’ll never forget the day we both made the lift successfully. It only took 25, 30, or more attempts, but we did it. And, had you asked us that day, we’d have forever been satisfied with our first ‘three-digit Snatch’ for the remainder of our training life. I’m fairly certain we celebrated with a nice meal too. No, not 3 Hardee’s ThickBurgers, but a NICE meal – Golden Corral. A video, you ask? Good grief, I’m glad there isn’t one. We probably would’ve have spelled technique with a ‘k’ and looked equally as wonky. Yes, these were days predating Instagram, #hashtags, and most forms of self-loving, social media. Today stands in quite a stark contrast. A couple of weeks ago, Justin hit a 143 kg Power Snatch from the hang. Let that settle for a minute. For a period, we had ‘the chosen one’ – Trevor – join our ranks (he lifts professionally at MDUSA – look for him in the 85k A Session this weekend at USAW’s National Championship). His first Nationally earned medal hangs proudly in our halls. How much has changed in 5 years? This year, 6 of our lifters qualified for the American Open.

There was a time when we were enthralled by a series of videos posted to the Journal (THE journal, anyone?) titled, ’The Lake Tahoe Throwdown’. They featured an all-star team of proven CrossFit champions and a team with some unknowns (spoiler alert: see your program for team rosters). In Lexington, soon thereafter, we met Rich Froning Jr. and shared a conversation with him about this attractive chick with the voice only a mother could love (Camille). Yes, he was a ‘Jr.’ then – I’d bet his pops isn’t happy by the usurping of his namesake. By the way, he (Jr.) cursed freely in those pre-champion days. And, at the mention of videos, I’d be horribly remiss if I weren’t to reminisce about 2011’s YouTube sensation, ‘Caveman Kitchen’ – a Paleo cooking show offering a variety of weekly themes, dishes, and outtakes. I blush just thinking about the complete silliness we held in such esteem. Don’t bother looking, they’re safely set to private. But, if you’re lucky, we may share them again one day. As you’re all aware, CrossFit athletes are slowly turning into household names and the Games are broadcast on ESPN. Now, our idea of contributing to the canons of fitness knowledge is through a newsletter (The Outlier). By the way, we coined ourselves ‘Outliers’ before the book was ever sold.

There were times when we yearned for a 25 minute 5K run. Hell…not much has changed in that department. #hatetheruns. Speaking of them, they didn’t even exist. And we, Justin and I, were the great white hope for qualification (emphasis on great-in-size). Remember CrossFit Sectionals? It’s okay if you don’t. These were days predating the CrossFit Open. And speaking of the Open, the first workout asked for hand-release push-ups. Hand-release push-ups!? Around this time we called Steve, ‘Big Steve’, for obvious reasons. When he joined during week 1 (no, he hasn’t always been a coach), he could complete this many pull-ups —> 0. Goose egg. Now, he competes as a part of #hatetheruns at the regional level. This year we finished 20th in our region (our highest finish ever). And, ‘Big Steve’ has grown into the finest of coaches.

Yes, we trained with yard sale barbells before the Eleiko. We trained in Chuck Taylor’s long before Nanos. Much has changed throughout the last half-decade, indeed. And, while these changes have proven most enjoyable, much remains the same. Books, blogs, and podcasts alike preach from different stations to those seeking success. Often, they say, “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.’ I tend to agree. Our ‘room’ simply masquerades as a gym and we’ve gleaned aplenty from your presence. To those that were, are, and all of you to come, I raise my glass to what you’ve always been – that je ne se qua, the fulfillment of hope…something greater. I’ll forever owe you a debt for supporting us along this journey.

Cheers to the next five,

G-

Post Script: As an aside, I offer a both rare and rich glimpse into days long past. Months before 423 S & C crossed our mind, Justin and I attempted programming, competing and even a touch of writing in our very first blog. It was a flash in the pan and ironically titled, Fit Happens; Half Wits -N- Full Squats .

The post From Chuck Taylors to Nanos: Reflections From a Half Decade of Fitness Business appeared first on 10 Experience .

CrossFit: It’s Not A Cult, It’s A CULTure

Tue, 09 Jun 2015 01:14:00 GMT

Here we are, the final week of our Outlier Lifestyle

Challenge. How are things? Good? Great? Meh? Excited about retesting the OLC workout? Me, neither! Throughout the course of the past 60 days, you’ve doubtlessly experienced some struggle. I’d wager there’s been the internal, self-worth questioning type and more of the social-decision-making-in-front-of-friends type, too. Most likely, these instances hinged on nutritional choices, lifestyle changes and a general, from the outside looking in, faux pau-ness. Yes, like Hershey often alludes in their, “unchanged since 1899” campaign, change can be uncomfortable. It forces us to examine (see: On Knowing Thyself ) our historical habits and consider the impact of future ones. Indeed, change discomforts both those experiencing and playing witnessing to it alike. And, if you’ve participated in any modicum, you’ve made those around you, aware or not, less than comfortable. Why? I posit it’s a much deeper issue rooted among fear of the unknown (or grossly misinformed) and there’s bound to be a touch of shame. But, we can get into all my psyche theories later. This week we delve into the domain of talking to friends, family and anyone else seeking your guidance about _____ (insert: your gym, your training, your diet) with grace…and, more importantly, without finding yourself divorced, defended or fired. Let’s begin.

Problem: Their Concern For You Is Real

How many times have you heard something similar this? “Squatting, weight lifting, high-intensity, eliminating dairy, eliminating gluten, or ______ is bad for you. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into? CrossFit is a thinly-veiled cult – they’re all crazy.” I can’t begin to count the iterations. Is it frustrating? Sure. Is it genuine? Perhaps, but I’m reminded of an old cannon saying something to the extent of, “knowledge is power”. If you’re able to learn the ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ behind your new behavior, you’ll find your critiquing comrades much more accepting (and at a misinformed disadvantage). Explain your reasoning in an eloquent manner with reason and logic. Then, watch their furrowed brows soften. Maybe then, Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil and other self-professed, internet gurus won’t command as much of their blind loyalty (always be weary of those waving a guru banner). Who can argue with legitimate, resourced information? Wait, don’t answer.

Problem: Feeling Left Behind, Jealous and Rejected

Face it, those taking issue with your change largely feel as if you’re leaving them behind. These ‘healthy’ habits and changes increase your exposure to new ideas, new groups of like-minded individuals. And, from their vantage, this behavior may indicate an erosion of your relationship. “What will happen to our late night movie binges, gallons of ice cream, and willy-nilling lifestyle?” It may really feel as if they’re being kicked to the curb…alongside all your no-longer-necessary, ‘fat’ clothes. With this new group of ‘fit’ friends, a touch of jealousy is also to be expected. “All he/she does is workout – it’s no wonder they look that way. I bet they have a terrible personality. Anyone could look like that if they lived in the gym.” I guarantee you’ve all heard utterances like these in some fashion or another. What’s an Outlier to do? First and foremost – focus on your relationship, reassure them of your bond. Then, and again, explain your personal reasons for change. Share the benefit you plan to witness and plan activities outside of food or the gym. More importantly, set a quiet example through your behavior. My father, a wise man, once said, “don’t tell me, show me.” I believe there to be take-aways aplenty in his axiom.

Goal: A Positive Dialogue Through Graceful Discourse

Goal: Enroll Them In Your Change And Influence The Outlier Lifestyle

The best way to silence the naysayers is to enlist them. Without sounding peachy and appearing condescending, enroll them in your change. Explain the challenges you will face. Tell them how they can help you become more successful. Find a way to earn their vestment in your success and the impetus for their behavior will change entirely. Easier said than done, right? Maybe not. We’ve built-in a solution to the problem. This week’s challenge: bring at least 1 pal to the gym with you. How beautiful is that? They may help you realize success in the final week’s challenge (see their investment?) AND you can practice your gym/training/nutritional presentation simultaneously. It’s almost poetic.

When in doubt, I always reference John Welbourn’s golden rule for blending, pun intended, social behavior and personal change – “Don’t be weird.” Side note: you’ll find a number of other fantastic rules for living on that page. In other words, a drink here or a meal there, a missed workout, or a degree of unplanned variance won’t entirely sabotage your pursuits. In fact, I’d argue that they’d allow you to #bemorehuman than otherwise. And, as an added bonus, I’m sure your friends and family would appreciate the concession. Through all this agreeable behavior, our critics may glean what it truly means to live an Outlier lifestyle. More, if we’ve played our cards proper, they may even ask to tag along sometime. What’s the sweet spot? The answer, for everyone, will vary. But, to be sure, you’ll find it with a bit of tinkering.

Stay cultured, my friends.

G-

The post CrossFit: It’s Not A Cult, It’s A CULTure appeared first on 10 Experience .

You Are Not an Athlete: On Knowing Thyself

Sun, 07 Jun 2015 00:40:00 GMT

Openly, I consider myself a two-bit philosopher. Yes, I’m a nerd. I look for inspiration in language. I seek comprehension and knowledge from others’ experience. I ruminate. To me, our words and thought are powerful beyond measure. Socrates, known for his question-based method of teaching, is one of my favorite philosophers. If you’ve been around me much, you’ve likely posed some question relating to training, nutrition or, possibly, any topic. And, with great chance, I’ve offered an ambiguous, ‘let’s find out’ or ‘know thyself’ in response. If that’s been your experience, you may partially blame Socrates (and now, OPT). As a coach, I think I possess the capacity to understand my own faculties or, at a minimum, the limits of my understanding. Perhaps to combat the ‘meat head’ typecast, I’ve long embraced the path of a consummate learner, a struggling student of life.

A few months ago, and in a recent pursuit of fitness academia, [Justin and] I enrolled in OPEX’s Coaching Certificate Program (formerly OPT). In their own words, ‘[the CCP] is much more than a simple seminar, it is a 360 degree education that creates a distinction…it is in the OPEX DNA to pursue higher learning.’ As you may guess, being a self-proclaimed life-learner, I leapt at a chance to seek guidance and knowledge from OPEX’s founder, James ‘OPT’ FitzGerald (watch linked video, please). It’s my opinion that James stands atop the pinnacle in both the fitness and coaching arena. He is responsible for instilling the lion’s share of my programming convictions. You’ve possibly heard about the CrossFit Games? He was the first champion. James has been a pioneer in the strength and conditioning community for almost 20 years. In addition to developing a premier coaching certificate, he has worked with leaders in medicine to perform heart rate variability testing (HRV – look for articles on this soon), advanced the studies on recovery protocols and plays coach to a host of CrossFit Games and GRID athletes. Truly, he’s the maestro to a Beethoven-like symphony of fitness.

http://423snc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/IMG_0635.jpg

OPT – the coach’s coach. Terrible picture, fantastic experience.

“Coaches are more than educators. They are role models, life advisors, and leading community members that have far-reaching impacts on the lives of others.” – James FitzGerald

Shortly after registering for the the OPEX CCP modules, Paleo f(x) released their panel of presenters and, low and behold, James was among them. I was elated. The title of his talk, “You are NOT an Athlete”, garnered considerable interest. And, as expected, it was incredible. It granted me fresh vision and renewed zeal for coaching, for learning. I was left, and still am, inspired.

Preface: Again, the following summation is, to the best of my recollection, a fair analysis of James’ presentation. Please read with the understanding that my interpretations, while written in a sincere and most inspired manner, may not directly represent his assumptions. And, in the case that they contain falsehoods, I beg for both your and his pardon.

In a profound manner, James began his lecture with a question – why do we exercise? A few attendees offered their answers and a concerto of crickets chirped in harmony. For 99 percent of us, the goal of our exercise, is to ‘live long and prosper’, to possess physical capacity in whatever we pursue. On the tenants of exercise, James did share that anaerobic training is worthy of a deeper investigation and aerobic activity, the sustainable stuff you’ve heard me babble about, likely has a positive impact on cardiovascular health. According to him, exercise with proper prescription, proves beneficial for normal, obese, older, and diseased folks alike. Sure, these are all things we claim to know.

He ambiguously moved on to another question – why be an athlete? Again, audience members took a couple of throws at answering the mostly rhetorical question. However, a couple of general themes did emerge. As athletes, we participate in an attempt to win, to compete, to satisfy our alpha and competitive design. Sports, specifically team sports, provide an opportunity to contribute towards something beyond what we can individually achieve. Seemingly, these answers are obvious. Interesting, I thought. Was he leading us down a path to examine the validity of exercise or condemning exercise as a sport? Neither, as it would turn out.

After showing a slide containing images of an NHL player, an elderly couple, and a farmer, James posed another reverberating question – what does an exercise program for these people look like? The variety in response was too varied to recall. As an answer, James offered a most interesting health continuum:

vibrant -> balanced -> imbalanced -> athletic -> sick -> dead

The visual effect was rather influential. Yes, in terms of general health, James posits that ‘athletes’ are much closer to death than vibrant, thriving beings. The stress they endure to witness marginal adaptation (see: improve performance), often exceeds healthy levels. What?! Blasphemy! You mean to tell me Rich Froning is closer to being sick than he is optimal and balanced? In some of ways, yes. Here the training road diverges and, where all-too-often, we choose the misinformed path most-traveled, proclaiming ourselves to be ‘athletes’. Sure, it’s sexy to title ourselves as ‘athletes’, daily wading our way through multiple training sessions. Certainly, spending hours at the gym and logging miles on the track have a certain touch of romanticism. However, if our goal is to live long and prosper, yet, our training more closely resembles Rich’s, we’ve clearly zigged when we should’ve zagged. All this without mention of the countless concessions a serious athlete makes to sustain their training habits (see: 20+ remaining hours of the day centered on sleep, food, recovery, social life, etc).

It’s here in which James’ Socratic and most philosophic nature subtly presented itself to me. Simply, beautifully, and without waiver, he teaches self-examination. Why do we train? What are we doing to support that pursuit? Does it make us feel more alive? Does it inspire? Without proper vision, it’s all too easy to find ourselves muddled in the latest flavor of the [training] week – I saw X on Instagram or so-and-so did this on YouTube…it MUST work. Fast, we find ourselves in a dangerous dance of mimicry and misinformation – following an athlete’s programming lead without conforming to their less-visible and less-appealing lifestyle. It becomes a slippery, injurious slope and, I dare say, an unhealthy one.

Perhaps, it’s time we examine the dichotomy between an athletic pursuit and one aimed squarely at vibrance. So, are you an athlete or an exerciser? Good question. From my perspective, James wasn’t condemning athletic pursuits. No, not whatsoever. The emerging theme was rather clear: to encourage more thought on the path and direction of our training. In particular, what do we find in exercise that provides such fulfillment? There’s a rooted reason. Is it to live long and prosper or, contrastingly, chase performance? Endeavor to find those answers. And, then, does your training serve that purpose or are you just a slave to an unexamined pursuit? Sit, think, and dig into what you really want from your fitness, from your life. Then, if necessary, adjust the pitch of your sail. What are your aims? Start defining them and, then, come find me. I’ll be anxious to chat about it.

Still knowing nothing,

G-

The post You Are Not an Athlete: On Knowing Thyself appeared first on 10 Experience .

It’s Not Your Fault (But It’s Partly Mine): On Robb Wolf, Fandom and the Misplaced Blame Game

Fri, 22 May 2015 01:26:00 GMT

‘…the one that is most adaptable to change.’

If you were ‘fortunate’ to have spent much time around me during the infancy of our gym, you’re bound to have been exposed, through some medium or another, to a Paleo haranguing or two. Admittedly, I was an early adopting, Paleo extremist (circa autumn 2009). When opportunity afforded, I would seize every chance to play Paleo martyr. At heart, I accepted an unconditional mission to silently judge and inwardly condemn any noncompliant food habit, lifestyle, and basically all behavior raising, from my vantage, the [gluten-filled, processed] red flag of doubt. Ironically, if Kool Aid could’ve been Paleo, I’d have been drunk. And I’d have been served by the most adroit bar-keep around, Robb Wolf. If you doubt me, I’d be inclined to reference a younger Trista. Luckily (for me, at least), she carried the same warm and spritely disposition then too and, much to my chagrin, remained mostly unaffected.

Hopefully, by now, you’re all acquainted with my softened – I prefer ever-evolving – nutritional views, particular the ones centered on Orthodox Paleo practices. And, while these purist ideas have waned, my admiration of Robb Wolf has been nothing less than augmented. Robb is the New York Times Best Selling author of The Paleo Solution (aka the gospel from those days of martyrdom) and owner of NorCal Strength & Conditioning (one of the Men’s Health ‘top 30 gyms in America’). He hosts a top-ranked iTunes podcast , is a former California State Powerlifting Champion, Weightlifter, Ju-Jitsu practitioner, and, equally impressive, a father of 2. Basically, he’s still the bees knees. As you may expect, I was excited to hear him speak at this year’s Paleo f(x). The title of his talk was, “It’s Not Your Fault: On Novelty and Evolutionary Biology” and it was fantastic. In the following, you’ll hopefully find a respectable overview of his, perhaps my favorite, talk.

*I’d be remiss without first prefacing this read. While the following largely centers on the material Robb presented, the deductions and summations are largely framed, and limited, by my comprehensions. Should they not represent his declarations directly, I beg for both your and his forgiveness.

http://robbwolf.com/podcast/page/3/

Robb’s Paleo Solution podcast is worth everyone’s while.

Throughout the previous 50+/- years, society has taken a staunch, and mostly unspoken, moral stance on the means and habits with which we eat. Eating X food is BAD, but Y food is GOOD (I wish there were a way to put horns and halos upon those respective words). When it comes to meals, we’ve even attached moral indicators like, ‘cheat’. At what point did eating become an ethical battlefield? Hush, vegetarians. The word ‘cheat’ implies an air of immorality, does it not? Without question, yes. But, Robb presented an entirely different spin on this morally-rooted, nutritional blame game.

If you are fat, if you are sick and if you are broken, you’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. And, in actuality, you’ve done everything right. In fact, Robb even argues that you’re a success story. As we all know, super markets, fast food chains and Krispy Kreme are neolithic, and terrific, creations. Had they been available to ancient man, you can bet he’d resemble Ronald McDonald more than Cro-Magnon. Instead, though, our ancestors were a foraging bunch. Foraging, in my nonpracticed understanding, is, calorically-speaking, a low-efficiency activity. In other words, it requires lots of energy-spending risk without the promise of much reward.

Imagine pushing a sled around all day in search of berries and roots. Ouch! Ancient man was no fool, though. He quickly developed an optimal approach for foraging and it was simple – obtain as many calories and nutrients as possible, while doing as little as possible. Is there a catchy, new acronym to be coined here – AMCAP while DaLAP, anyone? Nah. In short, we learned to be efficient, energy-storing (see: nutritional calories) machines when times were tough.

Evidence based social fandom.

Interestingly enough, during that same time, we also became picky, to a certain degree, eaters. Robb defined this evolutionary development as palette fatigue. Yes, enjoying a large helping of berries sounds quite palatable to most everyone. But, can you imagine eating the same food during every meal for weeks on end? I, for one, cannot and, as it turns out, our Paleo parents couldn’t either. Moreover, ferreting out novel foods was even more beneficial to Grok than we might initially assume. Nutritional novelty was the key to his and, ultimately, our survival. Those tiresome taste buds limited his and his clan’s exposure to bioavailable toxins in food. I could be wrong, but I needn’t outline the affect of consuming lethal amounts of toxins. Variety, then, was truly the spice of [an enduring] life.

Yes, the definitive forces that made us who we are, are completely working against us now. All of us, myself included, eat like a professional. We’re all capable of downing dreadful quantities of salty food, only to chase it with super-sweet treats. The variety of palatial flavor, by evolutionary design, permits us to eat sinful (again with the morality) amounts of food that our body, in its machine-like efficiency, can store for times of famine. But, what happens? The famine rarely comes and the foraging, for most, is impossible to label as tough. Remember, Krispy Kreme?! And, adding to that tragedy of taste, our supermarkets offer 50,000 items with an average of 11,000 new and, wait for it – novel – products added annually. Shesh. We’re doomed! What on earth can we do?

With the sagacity I’ve come to regard, Robb acknowledged the dilemma and provided guidance. The easiest way to combat our evolutionary efficiency is to keep things simple. With the use of his Food Matrix , it’s easier to dispel this notion of boredom with common, nutrient-rich foods available at most grocers. Eat protein, veggies/carbs, herbs/spices and fat with most every meal. In the end, the math doesn’t lie, there are over 80,000 nutritious and financially, feasible meal combinations awaiting you and your finicky palette too.

Lastly, and what I opine to be most important, Robb suggests our dietary struggle remains for a reason. And, while waging the ever-changing nutritional sea, can our human brain always reign victorious over the more primitive lizard one? More simply – will we always take, conscious or not, the proper dietary direction? Of course not – much like the religious adherence during my pubescent, Paleo years, perfection should never be considered realistic nor obtainable. We should, contrastingly, embrace those trying times of turmoil and, like Justin already eluded , consider a shift in our perception of struggle. If we’re capable of making legitimate, sustainable change, novelty, morality and all those judgmental connotations dissipate. Yes, the struggle is reaI, indeed. Robb simply recommended embracing this evolution and the one to follow. We are, after all, the result of 4 billion struggle-filled years.

Long live the king,

G-

The post It’s Not Your Fault (But It’s Partly Mine): On Robb Wolf, Fandom and the Misplaced Blame Game appeared first on 10 Experience .

For Dad, Forever

Sun, 01 Mar 2015 19:32:00 GMT

“If it’s cancer, I’ll do whatever necessary to fix it.” These were exact words from my father on a sunny but frigid Saturday afternoon in January. For a majority of the three preceding months, he suffered from irregular abdominal pain, sleepless nights and witnessed an unexplainable loss of bodyweight – 35 pounds. Enough that, for the first time since his teenage years, his bodyweight dipped below 200 pounds. There was something amiss, it was certain. In due time, a number of tests were performed, a couple of weeks passed, and whatever healthy hopes I held onto were swept away with tempestuous force. It was Wednesday, February the 4th, when he phoned to share the results. He called at 2:39pm and, again, the weather was chilly, but brilliant and bright, especially considering the bleakness of this winter. The call lasted 10 minutes. It’s contents, I’m not wholly able to recollect, but all the tests confirmed – he was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma aka the C word. I yet struggle to articulate the truth, but reality is, my father has cancer.

Straightaway, I welled with emotion. My thoughts edged toward monomania. Question after unanswerable question reverberated like booming thunder in my unending monologue. My father, to me, possesses the pillars of every archetypal hero. He’s the definitive man: courageous, moral, erudite, ambitious, etc. How could he, possessing such breadth, such development, be stricken with a sickness of this magnitude? Incredulous. Without preparation, I was forced to consider his life as finite. And I was ill prepared. Worst still, acknowledging my father’s illness compelled me to face one of life’s much deeper and less comprehensible canons – my own mortality; a truth, albeit nebulas, that is rarely breached in my mundane, daily thinking. Once more, I was left with ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ aplenty.

When the emotional gale waned, my personal lesson was at long last comprehensible. This lesson wasn’t about cancer, nor did it concern mortality. It didn’t center on anything melancholy. No, it touched on a different C word altogether – character. Just like the sun had beamed on the days that bore grim news, the character of my father shone bright, brighter than ever, in his first words to me, “I’ll do whatever necessary to fix it.” What prose could be more revealing of character? My, what a sublime revelation! In the wake of his darkest day, my dad, my coach, my hero, had a lively and most gallant approach to news that cripples nearly everyone (myself included). Now, more than ever, I revere him with the highest veneration. Wearing a Stetson hat and sporting an attitude that would rival John Wayne, he fast approaches his third of six scheduled chemotherapy sessions with radiant optimism. His spirit is one to behold and, likewise, emulate. There is no despondence. There is only hope.

In the two-month interim, I’ve been permitted substantial time for self-reflection. My early reactions probably weren’t entirely atypical. And in reality, I doubtless took multiple throws at each stage of denial. Moreover, I realize that the words I’ve written are less about him and more of a soul-searching exercise for me – one where I brood for untold periods of time in search of a greater lesson.
Now, while these ruminations are self-serving, they do absolutely nothing to raise money, awareness, and fund research designed at curing this disease. It is for this reason I decided to share his story. Please – I beseech you – donate to the cause! Do whatever necessary to help others, like my father, like Charles, like Tom, like Pam, like Leanne…all those unnamed heroes willing to undertake what’s necessary to convalesce. Paraphrasing Lincoln, fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of [disease] may speedily pass away.

How can you help? My friend and associate, Grant Scalf, from CrossFit Ktown has already started campaigning for the LLS (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society). He is also lobbying to be the LLS’s Man of the Year…and he has my vote. Please, share this story with those that may also feel compelled to do the same. Then, follow the link below and donate! Everything helps and all is appreciated.

http://www.mwoy.org/pages/tn/knox15/gscalflew

CrossFit, our chase of fitness, and other trivial, by comparison, pursuits don’t merit much mention on topics like this one. But, through the lens of someone like my father, we are afforded considerable perspective while we, too, face our own set of ‘problems’. During this time of year, at the culmination of the CrossFit Open, I often witness dejection, frustration and other forms of self-loathing. It’s written on your faces. Should this be your case, might I offer a challenge? This month, this week, today, whatever your goal may be, whatever problem you face…will you “do whatever is necessary to fix it?” In the words of Edmond Dantes, I can only wait and hope…for Dad, forever.

G-

UPDATE: If the things you think determine the quality of your mind, I posit your smile takes on the color of your thoughts. Witness the smile of my father, the stoic. My teacher and advisor – a cancer survivor. I love that he’s holding my mom’s hand while ringing victory’s bell. She, the grandest of all optimists, played every bit a herculean role during his convalescence. Fondly did we hope, fervently did we pray, and now, nearly 18 months later, this mighty scourge of disease has steadily passed away.

The post For Dad, Forever appeared first on 10 Experience .

When the .1 is Worth 1,000,000

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 19:39:00 GMT

Next week, the world’s largest fitness competition commences. It’s Open season. I could provide you with a barrage of reasons why you should register, how it’s one of the most rewarding experiences for any CrossFitter. I could outline the benefit of friendly competition, or why, yes, even YOU, are good enough to participate – but, I shan’t. I do, contrastingly, hope to elicit an observable change in your approach. In years’ past, some of you have, undoubtedly, heard my haranguing centered on the Open and the importance of the ‘point 1’. 15.1, like 14.1, 13.1 or any previous year’s .1, is the most valuable workout you will perform during the 2015 open season. It probably won’t be the hardest, longest or shortest, heaviest, skill-rich or most entertaining, but its importance cannot be overestimated. Why? Because of attrition. Attrition, in definitive terms, is a gradual reduction in strength or effectiveness over time. And, for this article’s purposes, the strength and effectiveness of the CrossFit Open is exploited annually, vis a vis the occurrence and sequential forfeit of eligibility from injury, user error, travel, indifference and a host of other reasons.

For my uses, these reasons permit attrition to take root. How? It’s simple, every year, hoards of motivated people acting unitarily, as the strength and effectiveness for the Open, register. History has indeed, through successive years, revealed the pool of participants grows somewhat exponentially. For example’s sake, let’s say 1 million people register in 2015. Let us not reference, less we be indefinitely distracted, how much revenue is generated for HQ via team, judge, and athlete fees. Regardless, of that 1 million person ‘pie’, it’s fair to assume 95% of them will actually submit a to-be-validated score for 15.1. I assume this less-than-whole participation based on what I’ve seen first hand. Yes, it may be anecdotal, but I dare say the trend is universally prevailing. Therefore, we are left with 950 thousand scores and their appropriate points/rankings to be appointed – all before the initial week of the competition concludes.

This leads us directly into the second week. Again, to be fair, let’s assume the same percentage of participation occurs (remembering, of course, that 50 thousand people have already disqualified themselves following 15.1). Enter: week 2, 15.2; currently, we would be left a bolus of 900 thousand participants and subsequent points/rankings. Assuming this generous notion, a weekly participation rate of 95%, by the Open’s culmination, 15.5, a mere 770 thousand contributors remain – a reduction of almost 250 thousand participants. Ipso facto, the strength and effectiveness of the Open, 1 million spritely, optimistic folk, has fallen victim to a war of attrition (a theoretical war, of course). Ultimately, realizing a decline of (roughly) 25% participation and, more importantly for this article, the resulting erosion of previously legitimate scores. Sure. But, what does this really mean for 15.1? In the most simple terms, it means the points from 15.1 are weighted most heavily – by default, more than any weeks to follow. Furthermore, the preciousness of each point you are able to amass within the first workout cannot easily be described. I would even wager that one’s ranking, following the conclusion of week 1, can forecast one’s final placing, save a tens place or two. With a considerable amount of one-time contributors to the pie, the pie will be at its richest. And, inevitably, 180 thousand pieces of that pie will be sullied. Gone to waste. Points that could have served you, instead of Jane and John Doe. Sadly, the weekly wasting of points and rank, through this sort of attrition, continue upon their point-devaluing path throughout the entirety of the Open. It is after all, from those points that we are, by default, ranked. This ranking, as we know, eventually determines the best, but only of those still eligible. Ineligible scores, points, and athletes from previous weeks live to provide a perdition-like reminder of performances past, squandering points and gapping the week’s rank.

I posit it was CrossFit’s founder, Greg Gassman, that once said, “It is our observation that men will die for points…by keeping accurate scores and…defining the rules..we [are rewarded]…data [that] has important value well beyond motivation.” Such would arise a rare-but-worthy case deserving all the eggs and just one basket. Can it spell doom if our 15.1 performance is a flub? Maybe, but I’d reference Hate The Runs’ rise from the lackluster performance ashes of 14.1 to evince a regional berth – another anecdote. Perhaps, .1 can, by some manipulative prose, be as valuable as the 1 million. Perhaps, not. It is my optimistic hope that you are left with a two-fold lesson upon the completion of this petite read. One, whatever the hopper delivers on the eve of 2/26, you are physically and, more importantly, emotionally prepared to ‘die for points’ during your stab(s) at 15.1 – truly, in all the Open workouts. And, two, I implore that you not spoil any pieces of pie for those eyeing the entirety of 5 helpings – don’t be the statistic. Now, with all my love, go register and let us onward to the Open!

G-

The post When the .1 is Worth 1,000,000 appeared first on 10 Experience .

Tending Our Pride (and Prejudices) Ver. 2.0

Mon, 07 Jul 2014 19:36:00 GMT

When you cannot be just through virtue, be so with pride. -Eugenio Maria de Hostos

What are the first thoughts to arise when you hear or see the word ‘pride’? Are they thoughts of virtue or of vice? Do they produce a tone of disdain or one of admiration? Without dispute, there are compelling arguments for both responses. And, for my purposes, I dare say you are correct, unambiguously, despite any prevailing theme. Externally, pride attempts to tells the world who we are. It exclaims our worth and offerings. Conversely, its tune can malign, tell-taling of insecurity, egocentrism and pompousness. One that decries that I am the center of my world and, if descrying my behavior, I am of all importance. When we begin witnessing said ‘pride’ during our approaches to fitness, or life in general, through innate behavior, we are bound to witness heroic success and crippling failure.

As a Virtue:

Virtuoso: (noun) – a person who has a cultivated appreciation of excellence, as a connoisseur or collector of all things interesting and tasteful.

With an understanding of the lexicon, it’s not ironic that CrossFit institutionalizes such a definitive stance on virtuosity ( CF Journal: Virtuosity ). And, to be honest, we are undeterred, still pursuing vetted, virtuous efforts of our own. With patience and thorough mindfulness, we can venture towards perfecting our prideful and, moreover, a reflective approach to taming the pride within ourselves. And, similarly, when internalizing this notion, are then afforded the utility of our pride in it’s purest, unadulterated state. In such a state, it is quite powerful. When viewed through the lenses of our fitness pursuits, a governed control of our pride can serve as an ally. It’s mirrored in the quality of our movements (not just the sexy ones like Snatch and C&J, but in air squats, pushups, and dislocates; in the warm-up, for God’s sake). Pride, healthily harnessed, maintains integrity and honesty in recording scores/times, contributes to the preservation of our training area, and controls the ‘checking’ of our subjective opinions on programming. When successful, we have exploited a legitimate and providential power within the canons of these pious ideas on pride. Success here will only generate pleasing and…wait for it…virtuous outcomes. Take pride in your gym. There are countless other places where you can whittle away at this nebulous idea of fitness, but you have chosen us. Why? I’d like to believe it’s because of our (and particularly, my own) intoxicating personalities, exquisite beards, fashion sense, and well-developed calves. However, I would be amiss if I failed to mention the overwhelming support of our ever-flowering community, the diversity seen within our programming, and the boon of friendly competition experienced daily (with others and yourself). Not to mention, enumerable other descriptors concerning the distinctiveness of all places 423. So with gusto, I say, take pride in your training and your training space alike! There is no other place quite like it. Can you recount the times have you shared a success story about CrossFit or Weightlifting with a friend? More than you realize, I’m sure. Why? I choose to believe it spurns from a deep-rooted sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. You achieved something you didn’t otherwise think you could. And the result? A swelling of your pride. Bravo! Pride can, and often will, lead to virtuous endings. It fuels competitors when they need it the most and catalyzes all things related to peak, athletic performance. It fosters a calm, internal strength that provides solace and grit during times of desolation. Simply put, it aids in the tempering of specific personality traits that we, collectively, admire (Monte Bowen, anyone?). It develops leaders. In life and in sport, leaders are the lynchpin of success. And successful people wield such pride to fortify their perseverance, resilience, and resolve. Dare I say, defining characteristics, indeed.

As a Vice:

Vice: (noun) – a fault, defect, or shortcoming; a particular form of depravity.

Pride of the 423:

Our tallest task is finding the balance between permitting our pride to propel us towards virtuous summits and allowing it to drag us to the vice-rich caverns of dissolution. In life and in the gym, pride is a double-edged, melodramatic sword. One edge serving as our ally. The other, our nightmare antagonist, piercing every throw at progress. Chances are great that you’ve once heard the aphorism, “check your ego at the door.” But, I might suggest a small edit – “check your ego and start honing your pride after entering the door.” Learn to apply your pride to advantageous endings. If you do things right every time, you’re bound do things right all the time. Take pride in the quality of your air squat. Prove how attuned you are to a nurturing gym atmosphere. Reinforce a habit that’s actually worth reinforcing. Yes, these ideas seem trite, but in practice, still present a noble challenge. At its best (and worst), pride sets an example for others to follow. What can be said about your approach today? Yesterday? How about tomorrow? I’ll be the first to admit – there are days when my vigor vanishes, leaving me with a most loathsome temperament. Undoubtedly, at times, my pride turns vice and leaves me depraved. And far be it from me, to claim any profound state of enlightenment on the matter. But, I realize we must always leave room for improvement. I’ll never recoup enough time to reflect on the outcomes of my behavior, but I guarantee – I’m seeking solutions. And I’m doing so with…you guessed it, pride. Tomorrow is a blank page. Chase your felicity and do so proudly.

G-

Post Script: Don’t think for one second that I wasn’t burning to make the theoretical lion reference. I know, I know – big surprise coming from the guy with a couple of lion tattoos and hair that may (or may not) mimic a mane. Pride is also the term used to describe a functioning, social group of lions. A group that suffers and succeeds together. Honestly, I didn’t need one, but you’re free to insert any pun-rich segue of your choosing here. As my group of ‘lions’ you provide me, unequivocally, with copious pride. Watching you struggle and, consequently, evolve daily is an experience most cannot comprehend. And unknowingly, you’ve allowed me to take small part in those lessons. It’s grand – this consummate learning. How fortunate am I, to have been afforded such a precious perch? It’s a position to be envied. Rarw.

The post Tending Our Pride (and Prejudices) Ver. 2.0 appeared first on 10 Experience .