Fitness – Page 6 – Serenity Through Sweat

Restricted movement

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. We’ve had numerous episodes talking about mobility, flexibility, and the importance of a movement practice, this week I want to talk about when our movement is restricted.

Or more specifically when my movement is restricted.

We are going to take a trip back to 2008. As a junior in college I was playing a lot of ultimate frisbee, running quite a bit, (with no attention to form or mechanics) and eating the staple diet of an American college student; pizza, beer, and whatever was free.

Homemade lava popsicles for El Duderino, and espresso pops for daddy

As a lifelong athlete and a hard charging 20 year old, I was in pretty darn good shape despite what I know now to be destructive habits. At one point I was running 12:30 for a two mile loop around my neighborhood after wolfing down value brand hotdogs and a natty light for lunch.

But that year, while home in buffalo for winter break, I woke up one morning and was unable to put weight on my left foot. No precipitating event, just getting out of bed was enough for my body to shut it down.

El Duderino and I on our Greenway playground ride

My mother was working at a hospital system at the time and I was able to get in quickly for a series of x-rays and consultations. At the ripe old age of 20, I had arthritis in both ankles.

I spent the next few days in an air cast, binge watching Lost, and feeling sorry for myself. Then I went down the internet rabbit hole of endurance sports.

quite a workout hiking with El Duderino around the black hammock nature trail

The way I figured it, I hate being told what to do, and even more so what not to do or what I can’t do. So not being able to put weight on my foot, naturally, I wanted to go the extreme other end of the spectrum. I wanted to run an ultra marathon, and I started researching events around me in Florida.

Now to this point in my life I had always been an athlete, but running was something I did to cut weight for wrestling or crew. I don’t think I had ever run more than a 10k as a cross training workout for one of my other sports.

As winter break wound down I was able to get back to normal. The way that most twenty something’s take for granted, that leads those of us in our thirties and older to say youth is wasted on the young. No PT, no rehab, no special diet, just binge watching DVD’s and thinking about running.

Getting back to school I went right back into the same patterns. I did try to run a little bit more like a gazelle and less like a linebacker, and for whatever that was worth it seemed to help. I didn’t end up doing my first triathlon for another few years, but I remember that experience of restricted movement as the catalyst for my foray into endurance sports.

I spent a large portion of last week stuck in my hotel room in Atlanta. While I was in the simulator getting back to work I had a COVID exposure and had to quarantine for a week. Despite feeling fine, and actually having more time for my many wellness related practices, (thanks to my rockstar wife manning the fort with El duderino and Speedy in my absence) I felt that familiar feeling of restricted movement creeping in.

It was the perfect time for one of my best friends and training partners to pitch me the idea of another Half Ironman. I hadn’t wanted to take on the longer distance since having kids, due to the training demands, but that feeling of being restricted may have overwhelmed my better judgement and the entry fee has been paid.

slowing down, and trusting the process. Building aerobic base with MAF heart rate.

Starting to build my aerobic base and milage back up is exciting and anxiety inducing. But, as anyone who has ever had their movement restricted can tell you, whether it was an injury, a government policy, or a training partner’s nasty pinning side control, being restricted often leads to periods of renewed growth and determination.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends

P.S. totally fine, tested negative multiple times, happy to get back to the family.

Flexibility

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’ve had some extended reading time this week, (more on that later) and I’ve been able to work my way through Two Meals a Day by Mark Sisson.

The book goes through diet, nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle changes all in the pursuit of metabolic flexibility. According to Sisson, and his co-author Brad Kearns, metabolic flexibility is “the capacity to match fuel oxidation with fuel availability, or switch between burning carbs and burning fat”.

El Duderino picked out a new toy after successful overnight potty training

The idea is that the Standard American Diet has led most of us down a path of carb dependency. If the body only ever uses carbohydrates as the fuel source it will “forget” how to burn fat as fuel. This is a use it or lose type of bodily mechanism, but one that can be retrained.

Mark and Brad are far more educated and eloquent in all of these areas, and if you are interested in these ideas, Marksdailyapple.com is a great place to learn more.

“Hello, front desk, we need more towels in room 1335” (Speedy *probably)

Beyond the diet and nutrition information, just the idea of flexibility in general is one that I’d like to reflect on. Having spent the majority of my adult life in jobs that are “on call”, and almost my entire life as a grappler, I appreciate the value of flexibility in all of it’s varying forms.

Being on call as a pilot has been an extremely rewarding and empowering career option. On call status forces me into a level of flexibility with regards to planning and prioritization that would otherwise be unattainable. When you never know when you are going to work, or how long you will be away when you do, anything you want to accomplish has to be easily adjusted or rescheduled.

When that post workout cold plunge is dialed in

All martial arts but especially grappling arts demand flexibility in multiple aspects of their application. Many of the techniques and physical movements require a robust flexibility just to be a baseline participant. Because they are arts, different styles emerge that require flexibility in how you attack, defend, and plan tactics and strategy. Finally any training regimen in martial arts is bound to incur bumps, bruises, and the occasional more serious injury, and this demand a flexibility in scheduling and approach to training different from other endeavors.

With a myriad of experience training, grappling, and flying on call, I feel confident in my level of flexibility. Still El Duderino and Speedy find ways to challenge that confidence.

Being a parent has been by far the part of my life that requires the most flexibility. This my come as a shock, but toddlers don’t care about your plans. The tight rope walk of setting boundaries while also modeling flexible behaviors and decision making is a daily struggle.

If metabolic flexibility is being able to seamlessly transition between fuel sources for a more efficient operation of the human machine, I want to model the same sort of seamless transition and flexibility for my boys when plans start to go awry. I want them to see that changed plans can mean new opportunities. I want them to roll with the punches as a part of their world view. I want them to be flexible in mind, body, and emotion, (and metabolicly too) because that represents an optimum human condition.

Much like serenity, flexibility is not a destination to be arrived at, but rather an attribute that must be actively sought after and trained. I hope that I can continue in the pursuit of both flexibility and serenity, and that one day my boys will take up the journey as well.

Back to sweating on hotel cardio equipment, trying to train MAF and fasted.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Energy

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I’m studying up to get back to flying, and I’m thinking about energy.

Flying is in large part a management of energy. You are moving a couple hundred thousand pounds of people, metal and combustibles at very high speeds and very high altitudes, only to return them safely to the ground.

El Duderino burnout the creative energy at Crayola Experience

Acceleration from standing still to eighty percent the speed of sound requires a lot of energy. Descending, decelerating, and configuring for landing, all demand a lower energy state, so that energy must be managed.

Long days flying multiple missions means I have to manage my energy state throughout the day as well. Add in nonstandard sleep schedules in becomes another complex problem to manage.

Most of the decision making that goes into flying an airplane is in one way or another, an energy management decision. For that matter, so is parenting and fitness.

Keeping your pace in check, monitoring your fluid and fuel intake, relegating your heart rate and breathing through the various sets, rolls, and miles, are all forms of energy management.

Speedy standing in the spray at the splash pad

Keeping your kids hydrated, eating real food, on some semblance of a sleep and nap schedule, and definitely running around outside to burn off some of that precious energy is a daily struggle (often one of futility)

Managing that energy properly, in every aspect, leads to better outcomes and it is a delicate balance. Expend too much energy, and you are going to have a hard time slowing down the aircraft and landing, finishing your workout, or dealing with ornery kids. Don’t expend enough energy and you won’t get off the ground, you won’t make any gains, and your kids will be doing backflips at bedtime.

The boys at dino world and sunset over lake Erie

Everything we do requires at least some of our energy, which makes it a precious commodity and one that should be spent wisely. Frank Herbert describes energy in Dune Messiah saying,

“Between depriving a man of one hour of his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy.”

While this might be a somewhat extreme view, the idea hits home, especially as I start to get busier. Energy gives you life and it’s your life, manage it wisely. Thanks for using some of yours to spend this time with me.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Tangible

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Today I want to talk about something I struggle with both personally and professionally, the nature of a tangible finished product.

I think all of us feel a sense of pride and purpose from a completed project. There is something about our own creation, something new where before there was something old, or even nothing, that fills a hole inside all of us.

Even the simplest of tasks can produce a spectrum of emotion inside and generate the momentum necessary for a positive day. But it is easy to overlook so many of our tasks because the world we live in has moved away from the tangible.

An early birthday celebration for Speedy

As a pilot I struggle with this concept. On a given three or four day trip I will fly hundreds if not a few thousand people. Each of them have a story, a reason for traveling, and connecting them from point A to point B is an important and fulfilling endeavor.

But, at the end of a long day of flying sometimes it is hard to remember where I even went. There is nothing to show for my day’s work, just another hotel room and another day’s worth of missions ahead. The service I provide is very real and valuable, but it lacks a tangible nature that serves as a validation and a reminder of worth.

Fitness has a lot of the same characteristics. Miles run or biked, kettlebells swung, pull-ups rep’d, they are all valuable and worthy endeavors. Oftentimes though we are left only with a puddle of sweat and delayed onset muscle soreness as our only reminder of the work that was done.

I think that is why I feel a special sense of fulfillment when I complete a project around the house. To build, to create, to progress through a planned project, producing something new, scratches an itch that is left unattended by my other endeavors.

My wife requested a new bench for our kitchen table. The project was a relatively simple one, and we were able to involve the whole family in one way or another. The result is nothing special, but it is functional, matches the existing table, and is more resilient than it’s predecessor.

Beyond that it is a tangible creation, a useful household item shaped by family hands, and a reminder of the fruits of our labor. The bench project has been a nice change of pace from a expiration based service job and a a fitness journey that is mostly solo (especially during covid).

I hope that we are all able to find serenity in both the tangible and the intangible as they ebb and flow through our lives.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Grind

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about an article from trail runner magazine I recently came across, and it’s scientifically backed message to embrace the grind.

The article (found here) references a 2019 study (found here) published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research on the training predictors of success in elite long distance runners. The cliff notes version, is that there is no magic workout, the greatest predictor of success is volume of easy runs.

As with any scientific experiment, it is important to understand what was being measured and tested, and what the limitations of the study were, in order to draw any reasonable conclusions about the results and what they mean for our own training.

The study only looked at male elite athletes, and categorized their training as: short intervals, long intervals, tempo running, easy running, and racing. The intervals and the tempo categories were differentiated by distance and percentage of max heart rate.

The athletes reported their training regimens as well as their results at events and the data was analyzed at the three, five, and seven year mark.

As David Roche from trail runner points out, every athlete is an N=1 experiment. For those of you not academically or scientifically inclined, N is the sample size in a controlled study. Roche makes the important distinction that even though 85 male athletes from the same sport were in the study, each one has his own biodiversity and variables which are important to acknowledge.

With all that annoying science and reading stuff out of the way, what this study really means for average joe athletes, is embrace the grind. The most significantly correlated predictor of success is volume of easy runs. In other words… Just go run.

It’s not the maximum effort, is not tabata or HIIT, it’s not a new pair of shoes or an altitude mask, it’s repetition of the most basic and fundamental motion that will ultimately predict success.

I think that is true of almost all endeavors, grind out the repetitive volume of the fundamentals, and the results will follow. SerenityThroughSweat is an ultra, and serenity is found in the grind.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Dependance

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about an interesting theory on exercise I came across in my reading, and why fitness becomes habit forming and can become

We talked a few weeks back about Breath, the book covering the science behind the lost art if breathing by James Nestor. After finishing his work, I followed the path to that of his research partner, Anderson Olsson and his book Conscious Breathing, and continued my own journey towards breathing better.

There is a lot of overlap in their respective work, and there is only so much innovation to be had in a bodily function that literally everyone does unconsciously. Olsson, differentiates himself in his obsession with CO², carbon dioxide.

heavy bag hangar and pull-up bar with my helper Bob the builder

Carbon dioxide is a simple gas that is the waste product of aerobic respiration. Olsson’s work is filled with all sorts of fun facts about the gas, that are interesting, enlightening, and perception altering.

For example, for those of you who haven’t abandoned your new year’s resolutions yet, weight loss is mostly in the form of CO². As your cells burn fat and carbohydrates for energy, you might lose some water weight in sweat, but the primary waste is your breath. (If you really want to nerd out, CO² is heavier than H²O).

Now try holding your breath. That hunger for air, those alarm bells blaring in your mind urging you to breathe, are controlled not by a lack of oxygen, but rather by an excess of CO². As CO² builds up in the bloodstream it alters the pH of the blood. Chemoreceptors in the brain measure these changes and regulate your breath to maintain appropriate levels of both gases.

First time on the heavy bag in over a year, felt good after seven 3 min rounds

The chemoreceptors, sensing an increased level of CO², will dilate blood vessels, and increase oxygen absorption, in order to regain balance. Exposure to higher levels of CO², will result in higher levels of oxygenation. Higher levels of oxygenation result in feelings of calm, content, and euphoria. This has been commonly referred to as a runners high, or in the case of this blog, SerenityThroughSweat

This is where Olsson’s theories become interesting. Exercise increases our metabolic rate, increasing the relative amount of CO². Olsson theorizes that many athletes have subpar breathing habits both during workouts, and in their everyday life. This leads to a condition where the athlete becomes dependent on the workout, as a means to increase CO², thereby increasing oxygenation potential afterwards, and the beneficial feelings that come with it.

Athletes become addicted to working out because it makes them feel better in a way that is possible by just breathing better. We become dependant, on our own waste byproduct.

All nasal breathing, and trying to consciously lengthen my exhale

This blog has been a forum for me to explore the many ways in which routinely increasing my own metabolic processes brings about a certain level headedness that then permeates to all the other facets of my life. The idea that this makes me an addict, chasing my next fix of CO², is a bit simplistic for my taste, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting.

It also means, that there are other ways to achieve that same sense of serenity, if Olsson is to be believed. Breath work, if done properly, can produce the same CO² imbalance, without all that pesky running and lifting heavy things getting in the way.

The lungs, intercostal muscles, and the diaphragm, can all be trained just like anything else. Just like you wouldn’t train your chest muscles while running in order to improve your bench press, you should train your breathing independent from your cardio. Breath work done on it’s own is important, and can help fill that gnawing ever present dependence we feel as athletes for a good CO² imbalance.

Breath work has provided me with a welcome new challenge, and an extra dose of CO² especially on those days when I can’t fit training in or I need some recovery. We all have our dependence on something, here’s to finding constructive ways to satiate the habit.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

I’ve been doing this with the boys in the stroller and it is a doozy

Tradition

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. With Christmas behind us, I was thinking about all of the things I did growing up with my family, and the things I want to do with my family now. I started to wonder, what makes a tradition?

By definition, a tradition is “an inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action, or behavior”. Basically anything we pass on to the next generation is a tradition.

Upper thigh parade in the new shorts for the 2020 Christmas Half Marathon

The creation of, and passing on of tradition is a powerful responsibility. I think it is important to not only explore the actions and behaviors that we are passing down themselves, but also the why behind them.

This year marked the ninth annual Christmas half marathon. What started out as an excursion in masochism and mindfulness to combat being alone on Christmas, has turned into something more.

Speedy and El Duderino ready to get the festivities started.

In 2012, after signing up for Ironman Florida to take place the following November, I ran 14.5 miles on Christmas day. While keeping my training volume up after a recent half iron triathlon and a century ride, the run was really about being on call over Christmas and not being able to see family.

As a charter pilot and particularly one junior at the company, I spent the next several years running half marathons on or around Christmas, either in different cities or on hotel treadmills. Finding solace in street, and comfort on the concrete, I pounded the pavement to combat the rising tide of frustration, emotion, and solitude that went hand in hand with professions that work through holidays, especially away from home.

Milk, cookies, carrots, and our letter to Santa

This pattern continued from 2012-2016. Five years, five half marathons, mostly a steam pipe venting pent up holiday emotions while working away from home. Then in 2017, El Duderino was born at the beginning of December. In addition, my grandmother passed right around Christmas in 2017.

I was planning on being home for Christmas 2017 one way or the other. But that year I was home with my wife and newborn son. I was in-between jobs on a sick time paid paternity leave from my prior charter job, and getting ready to start at a new airline that would be my career dream job. With a three week old baby, a well accumulated sleep debt, and the emotional toll of a lost family member very fresh, the pavement was calling for a whole host of new reasons.

2 is 1, and 1 is none, has never been truer than when your toddler takes your roller after you’re done running 13 miles. Thank God for backups

What started as an escape from solitude and an outlet for frustration, had changed with my growing family. There is a clarity that endurance challenges offer in a way nothing else can quite match. Whatever stresses or anxieties you lay on the alter of repetitive cardiovascular motion can be alleviated with the proper offering.

Over the past few years, managing my holiday schedule has become as much about being home with my growing family, as it is about making time to log those miles. My physical, mental, and emotional state has been different each year, and what I needed to get out of the run has been a little different as well.

A bold strategy for the days preceding the half marathon.

One aspect of SerenityThroughSweat is the process of working through those demons out on the pavement, in search of being a better person. The tradition of a Christmas half marathon, has helped me in what can be, despite it’s many joys, a stressful season.

Long distance running during the holidays has become an established pattern of behavior for me. While I would love to see my boys pick up and ultimately pass on that tradition, the run is just the mechanism and the reasons behind it, serenity, clarity, solace, relief, are what is truly important. I hope that those are the thoughts, behaviors, and actions, that are passed down through generations. In the end, I hope that I can raise young men who are capable of finding their own path to serenity, and making their own traditions

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Escape

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I spent the last few days in a tree stand in the woods behind my dad’s house. With all of the craziness of election day I was very glad to have an escape.

This was my first real experience hunting. I think I had followed along as a youngster but never actively participated. The idea of sharing a meal with my family from an animal I harvested has been increasingly appealing to me. Not only as a more reliable means of obtaining and knowing where my food comes from, but also as a connection with our most base self and a new challenge.

Like a lot of things discussed in this blog, (endurance events and parenting) the romanticized idea is much easier to digest than the actual event itself. My ideas of parenting before hand was helping with homework, or teaching the boys to wrestle. A lot of my parenting time is really spent keeping El Duderino from reaching things on the counter and washing out Speedy’s cloth diapers. Hunting followed very much along the same lines.

There is a lot of ground to cover between suiting up and walking to the tree stand and pulling that tenderloin of the grill. The romanticized ideas ask to often omitt the grind, but there is beauty to be found in that grind.

There is a very distinct beauty to sitting still and silent anywhere, but especially out in nature. Appreciating that beauty is not automatic, but rather requires mindfulness. The requirement for mindfulness is only accentuated by those things that would otherwise distract you; cold weather and wind, restlessness, first world problems communicated by an electronic device in your pocket.

My experience hunting in the woods was magical. One of the things I’m most appreciative of when it comes to my fitness and well-being routine, is the place those activities take me to. I can get out of my head and out of my own way finding a place of serenity, if only for the briefest of moments. Sitting in a tree stand watching the sun rise, the multicolor leaves fall, and the animals of the woods come alive took me to a very similar place.

Helping my dad drag his deer up a ravine and back to the house, cleaning, butchering and eating it all in the same night was a very powerful and fortunate experience. I felt transported to that same place of serenity I so often seek, but also felt a sense that others have been there before.

Running, grappling, and triathlon are largely solo pursuits, and while there is surely serenity to be found, it is largely a lonely endeavor. Hunting, cleaning, butchering, and learning from my father, who learned from his father, gave me the same escape but with a greater sense of all those others who seek serenity through that path.

Speedy’s first taste of meat, and El Duderino days go get some more

I couldn’t have asked for a better hunt, or hunting partner. I will be forever grateful for the knowledge passed on, as well as the experience and the escape it provided. I hope that you reader, can find your own much needed escape in this chaotic time, and the serenity that comes with it.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe, (warm if you are in the stand), and stay sweaty my friends.

Managed to get 3 runs in this week too with the travel and the hunting

Demons

Happy Halloween! Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I’m writing this after a nice 10 mile sunrise run while enjoying my first beer in a month. Halloween, sober October, and my post run afterglow have me thinking about demons.

Cheers to the final workout and Sober October celebration

This October I abstained from alcohol and sugar as well as completed the 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge. This proved to be a interesting combination in regards to how I typically quell my inner demons.

I am very fortunate to lead a life where most if not all of my demons are personal and internal. I’m not struggling to eat or find shelter, my family and I are healthy and secure. Most of my demons are the result of my own weaknesses; insecurity, jealousy, self doubt, self pity. SerenityThroughSweat is in large part, my journey of exorcising demons through exercise.

My personal weaknesses often lead to the creation of mountains out of molehills in otherwise benign human interactions. These have only been amplified by reduced social contact and the other stresses that come with Covid.

For me, alcohol often becomes a crutch to either dull, avoid, or replace addressing those personal inadequacies and interactions. Some demons are more or less benign and good to let go of, in college I was fond of the phrase ” nothing a shower beer can’t fix”. Others are more insidious, especially when left to fester when covered up with alcohol.

another sunrise smoke on the Z grill, brisket pork butt sweet potatoes broccoli and corn

Physical exertion and later on formal exercise has always been a tool I’ve used to exorcise those same personal demons. I remember one particular instance when I was probably around 10 years old. I have no recollection of what I was mad at my step brother about, but I remember that my solution was putting on my snow gear, and marching circles in the snow around the cabin we were staying in for hours.

I’m not advocating for exercise as an alternative to dealing with your problems. Rather, literally running from them (and then back) can be a means to clear your head and face them with a fresh perspective.

This month’s challenge was particularly interesting because neither of those options were available. Without alcohol those small things that I would otherwise shirk off with a beer at the end of the night were nagging until they were attended to. The kettlebell swing workouts, despite their intensity and benefits, coming in most days at just over 30 minutes failed to squash my more stubborn personal demons the way endurance cardio sessions have.

I didn’t realize how much I had been holding on to until finishing my run and then later sitting down to write with a beer (and a doughnut). This month was less a challenge of abstaining and swinging, and more a challenge of managing stress without my favorite tools. I have never lacked for discipline and perseverance in the face of a challenge, but I struggle constantly with my inherent character flaws.

15 in the final cluster on the way to 10,000

Sweating, in all of its various forms, and then being able to analyze and share my thoughts has been and continues to be extremely therapeutic. This platform has been a tool I can use to hold myself accountable and exorcise my demons, and for that I’m a grateful to you my reader. I’m also very happy to be done with Sober October and the 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge, so that I have my full arsenal of tools available to exorcise my demons.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.

Better Humans

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. As I draw to the close of my Sober October physical challenge, I’m reminded of a pro cyclist interview I read from the 2019 Tour de France.

The article was published here in Business Insider on July 9th, 2019 and is an interview of Canadian professional cyclist Michael Woods. Woods, at the time was competing in his first TDF and is now the only person to have ever completed the race and also have run a sub 4 minute mile.

The point in the article that stuck out to me is the prioritization required to get through the tour. A grueling 21 day event, the tour demands all of your energy and focus.

“When you finish a three-week race, you’re a better bike racer but a worse human being. Over this Tour I’m probably going to walk 5 kilometers over the course of the month — that’s it. And that’s not healthy. That’s not healthy from an impact-adaptation perspective. Humans are meant to walk — they’re meant to move around.”

I’m not trying to imply that swinging a 54lb kettlebell is in anyway the same as riding Le Tour, but I empathize with the singular focus and lack of fitness diversity in this challenge.

There have been a number of benefits to be sure. My core looks and feels stronger, my grip has gotten some much needed and often ignored attention, my posterior chain is firing better and stronger, and my posture seems improved and more natural, rather than something I am fixating on to keep correct.

All of those things are tangible, but my running has definitely suffered, and despite twice daily mobility sessions, there is a tightness that I can’t seem to escape because the challenge presses on in monotony. Beyond that, this challenge has not been particularly stimulating, but rather more of a trudge through the reps.

In addition to the sheer volume of reps, part of the challenge is maintaining focus and determination throughout a task that is mundane and monotonous.

Just as Woods said, and despite the benefits I have experienced, as I approach the end of 4 weeks and 10,000 kettlebell swings, I feel like I’m better at swinging a kettlebell but a worse human. I miss the diversity of jui jitsu, triathlon, archery, and other kettlebell and sandbag lifting. The combination of these activities together serve to be both mentally and physically challenging and invigorating.

I appreciate the 10,000 kettlebell swing challenge and it’s likeness to other monotonous and mundane life tasks, but I am excited to be done and get back to work on being a more diverse and better human.

Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.