Pushing your body and mind is very important to building resilience and strength. That said, too often as a society do we push our bodies and mind too high, too frequently, and unnecessarily.
Stress is a very important human biological response important for survival and strength. But, in personal and business life, we have introduced too many false stressors in our days like “I have to get this done”, “what will they think of me”, “I don’t want to fail”, “I’m going to be late”, etc. which is a made up stress yet still has the detrimental affects of stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol).
As athletes, we are told to train harder, train through the pain, no pain no gain, etc. I ignorantly fell into this category for many years. Because of an immense passion to educate myself with an open mind, I’ve come to realize there are so many things we can do with our diet, fitness, mindset, and lifestyle choices to reduces the activity in the parts of the brain that trigger stress hormones.
Over the last few years, I have built and continue to work on building up an aerobic heart rate base for optimized oxygen intake and fat oxidation, which reduces excess free-radical damage, inflammation, and oxidative stress. I’ve worked hard to build up, and continue to build, strength, mobility, technique, explosiveness, and recovery while focusing 💯 on my nutrition and mindset to eliminate excess stress to my brain and body. Finally, I allow myself to rest when my body tells me it needs it. I’d rather have fewer days at 💯 than more days less than my full potential.
Rather than not training, like the old me, or training too frequently when not feeling 💯, I train hard 3 days a week, go all out 1 day a week, have 2 active recovery/aerobic and gymnastic ring days, and take a full day off when need be, while riding 4-5 days a week.
The benefits and improvements I’ve seen with my energy, body composition, strength on and off my bike, mindset, recovery, digestion, and mental focus were in fathomable at the beginning but now I’m a believer. 💚✌️
-Josh P.
