CONNECT: September 19, 2014

When the Mindset Changes, Big Things Happen

Spoiler Summary: Remember the old saying "you can do anything you set your mind to"?  Although "anything" is a pretty tall order....setting the mind certainly starts the ball rolling.

One of the harder aspects that my team faces on a regular basis is convincing someone that the situation is not hopeless and that they have the power/strength/fortitude to make the changes necessary to live a healthier, safer and better-quality life.  Sure there are the folks who simply don't want to (and seemingly don't care), but that's really a very small group.  The far larger group are the folks that may have let life get ahead of them some......they had a few years where they were running in the red-zone maybe and now they are showing the signs of wear.  It could be their health - maybe their blood pressure has been (for no obvious reason) creeping upward; maybe their joints are starting to ache or they're finding themselves weaker for some reason; or maybe they're just feeling run down.  These folks, because they are such a big part of any population, may start to question and then ultimately be convinced that this is the "normal aging process" or that they've got bad-genes and there's nothing that can be done.

Yesterday was a busy day.....the fall usually is for the Pro-Activity team.....and although with "busy" sometimes comes stress....we love this time of year because the fall is often when we get to cross paths with folks we haven't seen in a year and talk about prevention - when we talk about personal risk-exposure and management of the risk.  Yesterday was a good one.  The day started early in a busy location - but a place where there are many familiar faces, three of which I have great gratitude for because they were part of the team that gave "prevention" (and my team) a shot more than a decade ago and another who is a living/breathing success story on health change, the kind of before/after you don't believe at first glance. It's always nice to see the faces of people who believe in solving big (and sometimes towering) problems.....but there were two others that morning who really stood out to me:  

• One was a person who has, in the last 2 or 3 years made his personal health & safety a real priority.  He's gotten leaner, he's changed his diet, he's taken exercise seriously....and although he still hasn't achieved every goal he's set (mostly because he's always pushing on to new goals) he has made substantial progress and seen his risk go from pressing to minimal.  It can be done.

• The other was a person who, in only the last 6 months, had a bit of a wake-up call.  He saw some very real and somewhat alarming change in his risk profile and (most importantly) decided he was going to do something about it. Much like the first guy - he decided to change some things with nutrition, exercise, stress and sleep....and the results were awesome.  He went from "high risk" to "low risk" in six dedicated months.  Impressive.

But perhaps the best part of the day was also when it was at its longest. We had traveled to a second location by then and were nearing the 12 hour mark.....the time when fatigue sets in.....just in time to meet with a person who I recognized, but candidly, wasn't feeling super enthused about talking with.

 

• One year ago (almost to the day) I met this gentleman for the first time....and unfortunately I had to share some very alarming news with him about his personal-risk picture.  It's not a conversation we like to have....and we know it's not a conversation others like to hear.....but it's a critical one...so we have it.  I wasn't confident at the time that he would take the action necessary and make the changes he needed to impact his risk level....but he did.  I looked at his risk picture and was stunned - I said to him "this is a whole different story than last year isn't it? Congrats".  He looked at me and smiled broadly.  He was shocked that I even remembered him - but how could I forget?  He had drastically changed his risk....he was a healthier person....and we both knew it.  After the shock wore off his face he said "I feel like a new man"....to which I replied "you are a new man, congrats".

The day was long...and not every scenario and conversation were ideal....but the theme couldn't ring out any stronger - changing our health, changing our ability to work safe, changing our personal risk picture starts with "setting our mind".  When we believe we can do it, we almost always figure out a way.

Thank you to the folks from yesterday, and thank you to the many many more who are taking steps to live a healthier (and probably longer) life.....it may have felt like just a pebble in the ocean when you started, but the ripples of your effort go further than you know.

Have a great week,

Mike E.

MOVE: September 12, 2014

We're so specialized it hurts....maybe it's time to change it up

Spoiler Summary - is it better to know a little about a lot of things or a lot about a relative few things?  Neither....and both.

I got to spend some time with two workgroups today that couldn't be more different.  One job requires lots of very awkward postures, high repetitions (at times) and now-and-again high force - a classic injury-risk job classification.  The other is almost the complete opposite - and also a classic injury-risk job class.....how can that be?  How is it that two totally different scenarios could produce very similar levels of risk? The short answer is - they have one very important thing in common - they are highly specialized.

There is a physiological concept at work here - the double edge sword of specialization.  Specialization, or in physical-function terms "specificity of training" describes, in physical terms, the phenomenal impact of patterns on our body.  Every single time we do something, we become more efficient at it, becoming close to automatic (the "lower brain" function I described last week) after enough reps.  It's one of those truly amazing human capacities but....this level of specialization can sometimes be the very thing that gets us.

I lined up for the start of the marathon last Sunday knowing the time I had to run was faster than I ever had in that particular event.  I also knew that I had been training for months and was happy with my fitness.  Although anything can happen on race day, I was confident that I could meet the goal.  The race started like most do.....with a few miles too fast - the freebies of adrenaline.  I settled in and ran the next 18-20 miles at a hard, but steady pace.  At mile 22 (i.e. 4.2 miles to go) I was hurting....at mile 24 (2.2 to go) I was dying.....and a day after pushing that last 1/2 mile really hard to barely meet the goal (cutting it WAY closer than I thought I would).....I couldn't take even a single step without significant discomfort - OK, it was pain.  How is this possible?  Six weeks ago I went 140.6 miles, which included a 26.2 run - why was 26.2 so hard this time?

The working tissues of the body (i.e. the "movement system") respond to three critical training variables:  frequency, duration and intensity. Based on the balance of those three, the body is tuned to perform somewhere between the maximum potential capacity required and absolute minimum capacity needed - in fitness terms, the "functional threshold".  In the case of the work-groups I described, the frequency is daily for both, the duration is probably similar (8-12 hours on most days) for both, but the intensity is completely different between the two.  One group runs the risk of overuse (higher intensity stimuli repeated over time) and the other runs the risk of under-use (low intensity stimuli repeated over time).....and both run the risk of breakdown - all because the body attempts to match the "request" (variables) - but not a thing more.

If you use a complete range of movements everyday and you'll stay flexible......use only a partial range and you'll get tight in some areas but not others.....sit for hours with your hips at 90 degrees with a flexed posture and eventually even just getting fully upright will be an achy chore.  On the other hand, finding a way to counterbalance work with proper exercise, nutrition and rest (MOVE-FUEL-RECOVER-ENDURE-CONNECT) and the body will stay strong and balanced. 

For me, my discomfort was both reasonable and predictable....I had asked my legs to push a pace that was faster (more intense) than I had trained, for longer (duration) than I was ready to maintain it. I asked a body that was specialized to run for a longer time (at a lower intensity) to go at a higher intensity for a shorter duration.....and the six weeks I gave it to switch from one specialty to another wasn't enough. Ouch.

There's a reason why "weekend warriors" are more likely to get injured than people who balance their training over the course of the week.  There's also a reason why seasonal injuries (raking leaves, shoveling snow and walking on ice) catch a few of us by surprise.....every single year.....and people who push beyond their training limits get to whimper their way up and down the stairs for a few days......the body is not a weak machine - but it does have reasonable limits.  The best news is - our actions (which can be changed/altered/balanced whenever we want) largely determine them.

Have a great week,

Mike E.

ENDURE: September 5, 2014

The Comfortable Calm of Routine.....

Spoiler Summary: The human brain might work best when it's able to focus on complex tasks rather than trying to keep track of every task - if this time of year feels a little like "getting back to normal" - that's one of the reasons why.

It's been a long time since Will Cobb and Gus Edwards penned their way into history.....107 years to be exact. Wait, you don't know who Will and Gus are?  Maybe you remember some of the chorus:

"School Days, School Days, dear ol' Golden Rule Days....

Reading and 'riting and 'rithmatic, taught to the tune of a hick'ry stick"

With the many changes since 1907, the lyrics probably wouldn't even make sense to the age-group their song refers to - I'm not sure how long ago the "hick'ry stick" was put away for example, but I'm glad I never had to find out if that particular "tune" was catchy or not.  But whether you learned the Golden Rule as part of your formal curriculum or not, one thing is for sure - the nostalgia of the good ol' days, "when life was easy" is something most everyone can get caught up in now and again.

But have you ever stopped to think about WHY life was so easy then?  Was the world just less stressful overall?  Perhaps - life certainly seems to get faster and more hectic year by year.  But is that the only thing?  Probably not - at least so-says the science of peak-performance.  Challenges that are intense enough to produce the stress response in combination with the skills to control/overcome those challenges not only DO NOT appear to do harm, they actually lay the neural foundation for moments "in the zone" - also known as peak-performance or, in psychology, the state of "flow."  

On the contrary, challenges that far outweigh skills cause anxiety and weaker performance - what is commonly referred to as the feeling of being "stressed-out."  So why, during a time in life when every year is a series of new challenges, was it so easy?  Some say that we tend to remember positives far more vividly than negatives - and there seems to be some truth to this - but that's not all.  

One key that often gets overlooked, and at the same time represents a tactic that anyone can put to good use is ROUTINE and the bottom-brain autopilot.  The human brain can largely be broken into 2 units: the "top" brain (literally positioned to the top and front) is used for analysis.  It tends to be slow & methodical and requires substantial sources of fuel to run.  The "lower" brain (deeper and lower) on the other hand is exceptionally fast, is "always on", runs on low-energy and is best suited reacting quickly. Imagine how much less stressed you could feel if you had twice as many (top) mental resources to work on the problems of the day....well, the more of the stressors that get shifted to auto-pilot, the more resources free up and are available to work on more complex problems. The more often we do a task, the more it becomes routine.....and when something becomes routine, we are able to shift which part of the brain is being used to accomplish the task. We literally free-up the top brain while shifting tasks to the lower-level, less resource-intense bottom brain.  

Maybe the school days were "easier" because there was so much routine.  The bus came within a few minutes of the same time - every single day.  Maybe you started your day with the Pledge of Allegiance - the same way every single day.  You saw the same faces that sat in the same seats.  You followed a schedule that was planned out for you and in many cases your choices (e.g. food in the lunch line) were limited.  In some schools even the clothes were "uniform" and therefore routine......less to keep organized....less to try and control.....less to stress about.

Whether it's health, prevention and safety or "reading, 'riting and 'rithmatic" - freeing up resources which allows for greater focus on the complex tasks of the day can help us to perform at our best....AND feel "easy" while doing it.  Here's to keeping it easy!

Have a great week,

Mike E.

CONNECT: August 29, 2014

The Most Fulfilling Switch of Them All....

Spoiler summary: The lights are on AND somebody's home!

Do you remember the sound of the teacher from Charlie Brown and the Peanuts?  It has become the universal sound for "I have no idea what you're saying"....and spelled something like: "wah wah wah." Can you hear it?

If you've ever been a student in a boring class, or been on the other side of a conversation where you were having trouble focusing, you understand what Charles Schultz was getting at....and on the flip-side, if you've ever been in the position of teacher....whether formally (teacher/parent/advisor) or informally (friend giving advice perhaps), you've undoubtedly seen the blank/absent look on someone else's face that so clearly says "I see your mouth moving, but I only hear 'wah wah wah'". 

But what about the switch? The switch is the moment when the blank stare melts away and clarity washes over.  Literally, like flipping a switch, there's a moment of clarity, the lightbulb goes on and not only is someone home.....it looks like someone hired a DJ.

I absolutely love the switch moment.  Seeing someone struggle some (sometimes enough to lose focus), fight to refocus and eventually, with a creative flash make the switch, instantly becoming better off for the new insight gained.  It's super cool and always exciting for not only the person but for anyone lucky enough to share the growth-moment. At that moment, when it all comes together, the person is forever changed, closer to the best version of them.

Of course, we're not shy in sharing the recipe: 

1. Mix even parts MOVE, FUEL, RECOVER and bring to a boil. 

2. Cool until the resulting ENDURE is firm & tough.

3. After applying to new adventures, CONNECT the new dots & share with friends

It's really that simple.....yet, it's never easy.  It takes effort and there are plenty of frustrations and setbacks along the way.  However, that's what it takes to be the best version of ourselves.....that's what it takes to achieve.  We're 8 months into 2014 and I know I speak for my entire team when I say that we are truly honored to have shared so many "switch-moments" already this year and are excited to see many more on the very near horizon.  It's AWESOME.....YOU are awesome.....but you're not done.

It's Labor Day weekend.  The summer may be (informally) over, but the work is not done. You've labored and boiled some home-brewed ENDURE of your own.....and whether it be a new school year, the hurricane season, the last hurrah of good weather before the winter weather....the next wave of challenges are on their way.....they always are.  But they're not here yet.  And with that in mind, if only for the moment, we hope you'll have a chance to sit back, CONNECT the dots & share with friends.....because THAT can be extraordinary all by itself.

Now, go do something.....relaxing.

Mike Eisenhart, PT

Managing Partner, Pro-Activity

MOVE: August 22, 2014

The Amazing Human Machine....

Spoiler Summary: There must be a limit to human potential, except we haven't been able to find it yet.

I guess I say it a lot - "the body is NOT a weak machine....you are stronger than you think".  I don't always use those exact words - but the message is the same and I say it confidently, because I know it to be true. Despite the process of aging, the stress (and sometimes over-stress) of life, the doubts that come with the unknown and the risk of injury or embarrassment now and again, some people just keep pushing the limit of what was previously thought possible.....some people just decide to NOT accept limits until they've been thoroughly tested.  That doesn't mean they put themselves in harm’s way....rather, they simply don't accept arbitrary limits - they think in terms of potential and instead of asking if something is possible, they ask "how do we make this happen?"

If you were to look at Joe you might conclude that he's a pretty ordinary guy.  Unassuming in his demeanor....an easy going approach toward most things.....curious but not overbearing......opinionated but not pushy.  If you got an email from Joe, you might be curious where "Always believe....accept no limits" (the personal mantra at the bottom of his email signature) came from or what it's referring to.  You might be curious that is.....until you asked him what he's doing on the weekend.  At that moment - when you hear something like "I'm going to try to break the record in a 24 hour bike race in Saratoga Springs" (which he did) or "I'm going to run up and down the side of a mountain for a full day" (which he also did) you might find yourself wondering less about his mantra and more about what drives him.

I'm not sure there's an easy answer.  By many measures, he is a pretty ordinary guy - 10 fingers, 10 toes and no mutations that I know of; yet his resume of accomplishments within his competitive domain is nothing short of extraordinary..... Take nothing away from his commitment to fitness - but it's not all physiology.....it's mindset.  A mindset that sees life as a series of challenges and chance to develop is a mindset that enables amazing growth as hurdle after hurdle are crossed and barrier after perceived barrier come down.

When I asked him about it, shortly after completing the Fat Dog 120 (120 mile Canadian trail race that includes total elevation change equivalent to climbing Mt. Everest) last weekend, he referred me back to his mantra:

“The "always believe" part is significant because if you believe in yourself & believe in your goal, you will do everything to get it. The "accept no limits" part is perhaps more obvious, don't accept what someone else (society, etc) thinks is the limit, set your own: It's your goal, your dream - have the guts to push yourself to do it.”

The truth is, we have no idea what the limit to human potential is.  For a long time "the limit" was the 4 minute mile - a mark thought to be physiologically impossible until 1954 when Roger Banister ran the mile in 3:59.4 - and then, within 3 years, 16 others did so too.  By 2001, the mark was being broken by High Schooler Alan Webb.

It wasn't a sudden breakthrough in training.  It wasn't a new shoe or piece of technology.  It was a breakthrough in mindset - a willingness NOT to accept the perceived "limit" of the times.....it was a willingness to believe.

Although my team tends toward tests of endurance as a convenient mechanism to learn about how best to overcome challenges and get to the other side of personal barriers - the principle is the same whether you're trying to endure a race, or trying to endure work, life or the other numerous challenges we face.

It starts with the belief that it's possible - the body is NOT a weak machine....and when it ends with the willingness to JUST.  KEEP.  GOING. it usually ends with success.

Have a great week,

Mike E.