Thought of the Day: Real-Food?

Some people mock me for eating the way I do - eating good wholesome real food for health.  They are happy to advocate drinking a whey protein shake or some other concoction that has more chemical processing involved in its manufacture than a teenager's chemistry set?

I'll stick with real-food rather than a poor substitute. Thanks.

Workout: Tabata Tuesday

Workout:

Tabata Intervals (A 24 minute workout - including rest periods)

• 20sec Pull-Ups, 10sec rest - (repeat for 8 rounds).
• rest - 1 minute
• 20s Backwards Crab Walk, 10s rest - (repeat for 8 rounds)
• rest - 1 minute
• 20s Crocodile Walk, 10s rest - (repeat for 8 rounds)
• rest - 1 minute
• 20s Row, 10s rest - (repeat for 8 rounds)
• rest - 1 minute
• 20s Double Unders, 10s rest - (repeat for 8 rounds)

* Go as hard as you can and as fast as you can during those 20s periods of work.

--

Note:

Please scale all Fitness Explorer workouts and playouts to your current ability.  This may mean increasing or decreasing the weights prescribed, modifying distances and times, or changing number of sets and reps to complete.  Get adequate rest and sufficient nutrition to fuel the activity and to aid in recovery.  Work hard and play hard but never sacrifice correct form.

Please visit the exercise FAQ for details on individual exercises or consult the advice of a registered exercise professional to ensure safe execution of the above movements.

If you are new to this mode of exercise, try one of the beginner's circuits

Perform a warmup prior to activity, here's an example Fitness Explorer warmup

Watch    Fitness Explorer video's here on YouTube

Guest Post: Exploring Fitness & Finding Mastery

This is the third in a series of guest posts by Susan Alexander. 

Quick recap: The first and second posts were about Mindset and Motion, which are the first two principles of the model I created to empower any change you want to make in your life - whether it's exploring fitness, learning to eat sensibly, remaking yourself in some way, or any other change.

This post is about Mastery, the model's third principle. Mastery is a feeling - a super powerful one that happens by itself when you're doing something difficult. Once you learn to recognize Mastery, you can use it to amp up the learning process we looked at in the last post.

Mastery - what it is

Mastery, for our purposes, is that feeling we've all had at some point, the one we get when we’ve been trying over and over to do something new, and we finally do a small part of it - not perfectly or completely - but just enough to make us think, "I can do this" or "I'm on the right track."

This feeling plays a bigger role in learning and change than you might think. Here's an example. Suppose evolutionary fitness is new to you and you're trying to learn it. When you start, it feels different from what you're used to (like drifting from machine to machine in a big-box gym). You try the elemental moves and none of them feels right. Until one does. You haven't nailed it, but you do it well enough to think, "Wow - maybe I can do this stuff after all." That's Mastery. Then you keep working on that move, and another and another, and gradually, they start to feel right - just enough to make you feel more and more mastery. Eventually, entire WODs start to feel right, and eventually, evolutionary fitness becomes your way of working out.

Mastery is what fuels this process. It's what makes you willing to grit it out.

Mastery - how it works

Hmmm, you might be thinking. Mastery from small triumphs - why is this so important? Because it's hugely powerful, that's why. Decades of research bear this out. Mastery is the very thing that sustains change and learning. It's what keeps us in the game - by revealing the potential of our efforts and making us feel good about what we're doing. Once we feel mastery, even a little bit, we want to feel it again. It's the memory of mastery that makes us want to continue what we've started and keep improving along the way. It's a naturally occurring reward that happens for a reason (that's free and non-caloric). Learn to make use of it.

Mastery - how to get it

In order to feel Mastery, you have to be doing something that’s difficult for you, something you can achieve only if you stretch yourself. So once you feel mastery on one level, you have to raise the bar in what you're doing in order to feel it again. It’s this continuous, upward spiral that leads you from where you are to where you want to be.

There is a huge upside to feeling mastery as an intrinsic reward and allowing it to fuel your efforts: it makes change easier. If you discount it, or think you've just gotten lucky when something goes well, you'll undermine your own efforts. Be nice to yourself in the change process. Let yourself feel Mastery. Be in charge. Fix mistakes when they happen and keep iterating. You'll create your own supply of intrinsic reward that way.

The takeaway

Mastery is the source of the very things we often tell ourselves we don't have: motivation and perseverance. The best part is what few people know: Because of mastery, you don't have to wait to feel motivated before you get started with learning and change. Motivation can come naturally, later on in the process. Whether your change relates to health, nutrition, work, or some other aspect of your life, once you start, you'll get better at it with practice. You'll start liking the process and the feeling it brings, so you'll want to keep going. And when you want to keep going, you do keep going.

What's next?

So far, we've covered the first three principles of the model I've created for change: Mindset, Motion, and Mastery. In the next post, we'll cover the fourth (and last) principle: Measurement. OVER TO YOU: Think back to something you've tried to learn. Do you remember feeling Mastery? Is there a change you're contemplating that you could try to fuel with Mastery? Let's talk in the comments. See you there.

Susan Alexander blogs at gooddisruptivechange.com

You can follow her on Twitter at @SusanRPM4.

NOTES & FURTHER READING

Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi:

Flow at 3-4, 16, 19

The Evolving Self at xviii, 17, 189

Beyond Boredom and Anxiety at 22-23

Edward M. Hallowell, M.D.,

The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness at 134-45.

Workout: Sprintathlete

Sprintathlete

Workout:

3 x 20s Drivers

Sprint Row Triathlon Concept 2 (damper setting of 5) - 300m, 150m, 75m

300m 

• Atik: 1.06:04
• Saf:  1.07:09
• Darryl:  54.7

150m

• Atik: 32.6
• Saf:  31.6
• Darryl:  26.6

75m

• Atik 16.2
• Saf 16.2
• Darryl 13.2

Note:

Please scale all Fitness Explorer workouts and playouts to your current ability.  This may mean increasing or decreasing the weights prescribed, modifying distances and times, or changing number of sets and reps to complete.  Get adequate rest and sufficient nutrition to fuel the activity and to aid in recovery.  Work hard and play hard but never sacrifice correct form.

Please visit the exercise FAQ for details on individual exercises or consult the advice of a registered exercise professional to ensure safe execution of the above movements.

If you are new to this mode of exercise, try one of the beginner's circuits

Perform a warmup prior to activity, here's an example Fitness Explorer warmup

Watch    Fitness Explorer video's here on YouTube