Aim for a minimum of 7-8 hours of sleep or rest (laying in bed without your phone) daily. Adequate sleep is crucial for optimal physical and cognitive function, supporting muscle growth, skill acquisition, body composition changes, strength gains, and healing processes.
Prioritize nutrition by aiming for 0.8-1 gram of protein per pound of body weight daily, distributed across meals, and consume a variety of protein sources, favoring leaner options if genetics dictate. Additionally, target 800 grams of fruits and vegetables daily to ensure adequate micronutrients and fiber, which helps crowd out less nutritious, calorically dense foods and supports overall tissue health.
Consider a foundational supplementation regimen including daily creatine, omegas (taken at night to avoid ‘fish burps’), and Vitamin D, especially for athletes or those in northern climates, as these may support brain health and reduce concussion symptoms. Supplement with a good multivitamin to cover basic micronutrient needs, and use blood panels to identify specific deficiencies (e.g., B vitamins for MTFHR gene mutations) or environmental/genetic needs.
Spend 20-30 minutes each evening sitting on the ground in various positions (cross-legged, squatting, long sit, side saddle) and fidget as needed. This practice helps maintain tissue integrity, restore normative range of motion, improve hip and hamstring comfort, and reduce fall risk, as the body adapts to increased movement exposure. Aim to be able to get up and down without using hands.
Pepper your daily environment with inputs to encourage varied movement, such as using a fidget stand under your desk to swing your foot while standing. This helps prevent being stuck in a ’tiny movement language’ and keeps the body moving throughout the day.
Adopt an intensity distribution for your workouts: 80% at 80% effort, 10% at 90%, 5% at 95%, and 5% at 100% maximum effort throughout the year. This approach prioritizes consistency over heroic efforts, allowing for better long-term progress and avoiding burnout or missed training days.
Dedicate 5-10 minutes of your warm-up to playful, dynamic activities like throwing a medicine ball, jumping on a mini-trampoline, or practicing new skills like rope flow. This explores speed, novel movements, and PNF patterns, preparing the nervous system more effectively than static activities like foam rolling for high-intensity work.
During warm-ups, incorporate dynamic apnea work, such as taking a 10-second inhale on a bike, holding your breath as long as possible, and then recovering with nose-only breathing. This challenges respiration and prepares the brain for high CO2 levels, enhancing psychological readiness for intense activity.
Use smaller diameter foam rollers or balls to mobilize tissues, focusing on areas that feel uncomfortable or stiff to compression. When you find a sensitive spot, stop, take a 4-second inhale, contract the muscle for a few seconds, then slowly relax and exhale, repeating 2-3 times. This technique desensitizes tissues, restores range of motion, and can reduce delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
When performing tissue mobilization (e.g., self-massage, rolling), ensure you can always take a full breath and maintain volitional control over the muscles to avoid going too deep or causing excessive pain. Limit work on any single tissue to five minutes and consider doing it before bed to improve adherence and promote relaxation, utilizing it as an ‘off switch’ for the nervous system.
Avoid immersion-based cold exposure for 6-8 hours post-training if your goal is muscle hypertrophy or strength, as it can attenuate adaptations. For injury healing, prioritize heat (heating pads, hot water bottles, sauna) over ice, as ice can rate-limit the body’s natural healing processes. Utilize sauna sessions for stress resilience by practicing slow, nasal breathing in uncomfortable heat, and consider weekly contrast therapy (sauna-cold-sauna-cold) to inform your readiness state.
Address deficits in hip extension, which can lead to hamstrings overworking, by regularly performing the ‘couch stretch’ (kneeling with one knee in a wall corner, foot up the wall, progressing to an upright torso). Reinforce hip extension in training with exercises like rear-foot elevated split squats, lunges, tire flips, or overhead presses with a tandem stance and front foot elevated, focusing on glute squeeze and maintaining breath.
To achieve full overhead shoulder expression, move beyond exercises that limit range of motion (like some barbell presses or lat pulldowns) and incorporate tools like kettlebells or dumbbells. These tools naturally constrain you to finish with your arm straight up and down, parallel by your ear, ensuring the fullest expression of overhead motion and improving shoulder health.
Move beyond isolated abdominal exercises like crunches and train the trunk as a ‘spinal engine’ that drives power, focusing on global flexion, extension, and rotation. Incorporate movements like hanging leg raises with twists (e.g., right foot to left hand) to challenge the spine’s full range of motion and improve functional power.
Maintain physical vitality by regularly incorporating jumping and sprinting movements into your routine, as ‘when you stop jumping, you start dying.’ This can range from low-impact activities like trampolining or jump roping to more intense forms like hill sprints or maximal wattage sprints on a bike, to maintain quick movement and control through range of motion.
Incorporate neck strength training, such as bridges or using a four-way neck machine, ensuring safe execution by closing the chain (e.g., hand on the ground). Strengthening the neck significantly reduces concussion risk, can alleviate shoulder pain, and contributes to overall strength and brain safety.
Pay attention to pelvic floor function, especially during activities like urinating or high-impact movements, as incontinence or pain can signal dysregulation. Practice glute control (e.g., squeezing your butt while sitting) and perform myofascial mobilization of the abdomen and pelvic floor region with a ball, contracting and relaxing muscles on sensitive spots, to improve function and address stiffness.
Perform simple myofascial mobilization at home to ensure tissues (skin, fascia, nerves) slide and glide freely over underlying structures, which is crucial for unrestricted movement and reduced tension. Test by trying to slide skin over tendons (e.g., Achilles); if it’s adhered, gentle mobilization can improve tissue dynamics and range of motion.
Use your gym time not only for strength and cardio, but also as a diagnostic tool to identify and address asymmetries or areas with limited range of motion. Vary how you perform tasks, like switching which side you re-rack weights or staggering your stance, to uncover and correct imbalances for better posture and strength distribution.
Recognize true injuries (e.g., clear mechanical trauma, bone sticking out, snap/pop, red flag symptoms like fever or severe functional impairment) as requiring immediate medical attention. View other pain or dysfunction as ‘incidents’ or ‘requests for change,’ which can often be addressed through self-care, movement adjustments, or training.