Serenity Through Sweat

Health values

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about health values and decision making in health and wellness.

I recently heard Dr. Anthony Balduzzi as a guest on the Primal Blueprint Podcast. Dr. Balduzzi is a naturopathic medical doctor who runs the Fit Father Project, a website and fitness program geared towards helping busy fathers get and stay fit and healthy.

Speedy and El Duderino’s first camping trip

This is a goal that is as admirable as it is enormous, especially considering the myriad of health issues that plague most Americans. What stuck with me more than any of the specifics of Dr. Balduzzi’s health and fitness recommendations, was his take on the use of goal setting.

There is plenty of research and technique on goal setting, how to do it effectively, the benefits it has on outcomes, etc… What Dr. Balduzzi does with his clients, mostly father’s, is get them to link their goals to everyday health and wellness choices.

Getting used to the sleeping bag and the tree tent

While individual daily habits are easy to overlook, if those same habits tie in to your overarching goals they will be easier to maintain.

Want to be able to play with your kids, a morning mobility practice will lubricate muscles and joints and help prevent injury.

Want to go on that family hiking trip, eating a healthy diet and losing a few pounds makes climbing the mountain that much easier.

The best hiking destinations have playground at the end

Want to live long enough to be a part of your grandkid’s lives, a regular exercise routine promotes longevity.

And while it’s sometimes hard to see how reaching for pecans and berries instead of Ben and Jerry’s makes you a better father. If you’re goal is to be able to keep up with your kids on adventures well past your 60’s one of those choices is supporting your goals while the other isn’t.

SerenityThroughSweat is paradoxically both a selfish and at the same time selfless pursuit. The mental and emotional reprieve, the hormonal release, and the physical benefits of SerenityThroughSweat are ones that I alone enjoy. At the same time, being a healthier, stronger, calmer, father and partner is something that pays dividends to the whole family.

Aligning your health and wellness choices with your overarching goals means you need to first identify those. These can be as specific or as broad as they need to be based on your own situation.

Two zwift rides with 3400′ of climbing. Happy to feel back in the saddle with team TriGoodBeer

Maybe you want to be able to plan that family hiking/biking trip, or maybe you just want to dance at your child’s wedding. For me, I never want my health or fitness to be a reason I turn down an opportunity, especially one for a family experience.

While that isn’t always the driving motivation of my health and wellness choices, (that selfish part of SerenityThroughSweat) it is a guiding principle along the journey.

Stroller running El Duderino to the neighboring playground

What are your goals and are your current health, wellness, and lifestyle practices supporting them?

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

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.

Level of concern

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. Celebrating Mother’s day this past weekend had me thinking about the mother’s in my life and what makes them so special. While they exude more qualities than I have the poise or prose to present, I think more than anything it is their dependability.

I spent the waning hours of Mother’s day getting ready to go back on the road for work. This meant meal prepping, (for both myself and the family) packing bags, and studying checklists and procedures. I knew didn’t have to think twice about my wife’s ability to handle the rambunctious boys with grace and aplomb whilst I was otherwise occupied.

For that matter I don’t worry about them when I am on the road. Sure I think about them and I know the difficult situations and challenging logistics parenting two young boys solo presents. Still, I know that this is an endeavor in which she excels, doing a far better job than I ever could, day in and day out.

My level of concern is never taxed, knowing that she is capable, and they are in good hands. That alleviation of concern is such a powerful gift that mother’s give to their sons and their partners.

El Duderino has been going through a particularly needy phase where mommy has to be the one to help with whatever the present problem is. Whether it is pushing his pants down to use the potty or separating stuck toys, mommy is the only one capable of providing assistance.

While this is particularly frustrating since often times I’m right next to him trying to help and my wife is otherwise occupied, she has that magical mom ability to bring down his level of concern and return him to a benevolent toddler state.

No matter how old I get, or how difficult and different the problems in my life present, there is a calming effect that talking them through with my own mother always seems to provide.

The popular Twenty One Pilots song of the same moniker says “you could bring down my level of concern, just need you to tell me we’re alright, tell me we’re okay.”

Thank you to all the mothers out there, especially the ones in my life, who are constantly bringing down our level of concern, and helping use get closer to serenity. Happy mother’s day.

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

5k, a ride with Layla, and a stroller run with El Duderino to pick up supplies for a Mother’s day craft project

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.

Conquer

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week we made a family project out of rehabilitating our conquered side yard.

I say conquered because the side yard was suffering from a very specific problem. Our water system was malfunctioning and dumping salt water into the surrounding soil.

Like the conquerors of old, the earth was left scorched and salted, preventing any sort of regrowth.

History is filled with examples, both recorded and theatrical, of conquered lands left as scorched and salted earth. The question left is how to rebuild and regrow?

El Duderino helping with the color profile

Grass was clearly not the answer since the salt prevents new growth. So we decided to go with a hard scape. That meant lots of heavy lifting from yours truly.

3 ton of stone, 1,600 lbs of cinder block, and another thousand odd pounds of pavers later, we had reclaimed our conquered side yard.

We added planter boxes for herbs and veggies, and flowers in the cinder blocks for color. The once conquered space is better than it ever had been or even could have been for that matter.

The scorched earth presented the necessity to rebuild, but also the opportunity to reimagine and redesign the conquered space.

Being conquered is not the ending, it is a state of transition. It is in that transition, that struggle, that defines the path ahead.

A lot of things have been scorched, salted, and otherwise conquered over the past year, what are you doing to reimagine the space going forward?

El Duderino’s first fishing trip with grandpa while daddy got some laps around the lake in

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

Control

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to revisit another Dune quote that I was thinking about while wrangling my raging toddler.

I’ve spent the majority of my life in the practice of controlling and manipulating other people’s bodies. Wrestling and jui jitsu, at their core, are martial arts of control.

The rule sets are somewhat different, which alters the strategies, reactions, and the way that engagement with an opponent plays out. But, both are incredibly similar in the objective of controlling and manipulating your opponent into a certain positions or techniques.

With jui jitsu especially, I’m reminded of another Frank Herbert Dune quote. “He who can destroy a thing, has true control over it”

In the context of the book, Herbert is talking about a natural resource, and that the ability to destroy it, but also the ability to be without it after it is destroyed, is the true measure of control.

In jui jitsu, the goal to submit your opponent often manifests as true control of a joint. Armbars, shoulder locks, and chokes, are all a form of control over another person’s body, with the ability to destroy that particular part.

Jui jitsu is self described as the “gentle art”, because despite the ability to destroy another person’s joint being the main focus, it can be practiced (if done correctly) at full intensity, without fear of injury. The same thing is hard to say for other martial arts especially ones with striking.

While Herbert’s definition of control is incredibly accurate and very fitting for grappling arts, I would submit that it is overlooking a different element of control that is equally as important

The last two weeks Speedy and El Duderino have transitioned back into daycare. They visit a small in home facility with a provider that takes wonderful care of them. Speedy has been happy as a Clam, but El Duderino, being older and having spent the past year home with us, is struggling to adjust.

This has brought on many of the inconsolable temper tantrums that “allegedly” were frequent in my younger years. I find myself now on the other side of the equation, and trying to exert over it a modicum of control.

I find it interestingly ironic that a toddler having a temper tantrum can be accurately described as both out of control, and self destructing. If the ability to control a thing is based on the ability to destroy, one if our definitions needs a reworking

Once again I find myself manipulating and controlling bodies, this time a raging toddler instead of a fellow grappler. With that change comes a different meaning of control.

The most difficult opponents to grapple are those that respond and react in unpredictable ways. That sums up the movements of a temper tantrum pretty well. Once it escalates to a level where my 40+ lb tasmanian devil could hurt himself, his little brother, or start breaking things, I step in with the attempt to control.

With just shy of 30 years of grappling experience, it isn’t hard to keep him in positions where the risk of injury or property damage is almost non existent, regardless of his erratic movement. Just like the gentle art he can be at full intensity and I’m not worried about hurting him. But unlike the gentle art, I’m not looking to destroy anything (except maybe his current mood)

This type of control has, as it’s foundational definition, compassion and preservation rather than destruction. When I’m truly in control of him I’m no longer worried about him hurting himself or somebody else. Just like a wrestler who lifts his opponent off the mat is responsible for his safe return, this level of control is focused solely on the safety of the other.

I would argue that while being able to destroy a thing is indeed control over it, being able to prevent it’s destruction requires just as much, if not more control.

I’ve always been grateful for the many gifts that grappling has given back to me over the years. This new level of control is just one more blessing, and one I look forward to sharing with my boys (once they no longer require me to practice it on them of course)

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

Running, cycling, and heavy bag with a predatory audience

Lurking

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This past weekend we had a 6ft gator lurking around our backyard. It got me thinking about what other threats are lurking.

I was especially ready to hit the heavy bag on Saturday. My wife had a hernia repair at the beginning of the week. That left me dealing with a rambunctious 3 year old El Duderino, and a nonpliant newly toddling Speedy, neither of which were ready for a week without mommy snuggles.

Our reptilian friend still lurking in the background

I first noticed the gator when I started to hang the heavy bag. The heavy bag seemed to be a magnet, drawing the gator to the water’s surface in the middle of the lake, and then swimming a beeline to the lake’s edge at the foot of my backyard.

With a gator at the water’s edge, I thought about my level of risk aversion, especially while wearing boxing gloves and hand wraps, and being focused on my workout rather than the reptile. The threat was lurking, was I comfortable with it, and was there anything I could do to be more prepared?

Ultimately, it was the thumping of the heavy bag waking up Speedy that ended my workout, not our neighborhood gator. I found myself with my sweat cut short and my serenity still lacking.

My blood still pumping from the first five rounds, my patience worn thin from a challenging week, and now an interrupted sweat session, blinded me to the threat that had been lurking closer and closer throughout the week, my temper.

My wife did not deserve my frustration, but she was the recipient. My boys did nothing out of the ordinary to precipitate my descent from mostly calm fatherhood, but nevertheless there is was.

The threat (my temper) had been building all week, lurking below the surface, and was finally exposed by the accumulation of minutiae.

An old boss and friend you used to tell me “this business is full of traps, what is the trap that is going to get you?”. He wasn’t referring to parenthood or marriage, but I think it applies equally to both.

This week the trap was one of my own making, born out of my inadequacies. To my wife and boys I am sorry. This week I fell short of serenity. But, as El Duderino often says, “maybe we could try again tomorrow to make the good choice”.

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

Back in the saddle with Layla and some longer running miles with the boys in daycare

Family tradition

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about a family tradition I was able to finally get back to.

Part of the traditional polish Easter meal as far back as I can remember in my family has been pierogi. My family makes pierogi the way Hallmark channel families make Christmas cookies.

There is an assembly line of pierogi production that involves the whole family and consumes not only the entire kitchen but also the entire day.

The dough is made from scratch, rolled and pressed into circular form, before being stuffed and crimped. The cabbage (a family favorite) is sauteed for hours before being ready to fill the pierogi.

Each pierogi has to be boiled and quick cooled before being stored. The pierogi have to be wrapped so they don’t stick to each other in the freezer when it is time to fry them.

I have bypassed this family tradition and labor of love for the past three years since El Duderino was born. Every year I said I wanted to do it, and Easter came and went without me making the time.

Speedy helping crimp pierogi, and acting as official taste tester

The past year has put a lot of things in perspective and a family tradition was not something that I was going to pass on again.

That said, pierogi production isn’t exactly a toddler friendly activity. So my wife and worked together to make sure we could keep the boys active and still share the tradition with them.

She took El Duderino out for the morning and afternoon while I worked at a furious pace during Speedy’s morning nap. I then finished production one handed while holding Speedy after we both stopped for a lunch break.

Despite the fact that El Duderino has passed every time I’ve fried up some pierogi, I’m glad I made the time to share this tradition with my boys, and my family.

There are always a plethora of excuses not to do something, especially with two young boys ruining around. One of my biggest parenting struggles, is deciding what things I want to pass down to my boys and what things inevitably fall by the wayside.

This year family tradition for back in the win column, and I mean to keep it there.

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

Je ne sais quoi

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I want to talk about an indescribable quality, a certain je ne sais quoi, that is a child first learning to walk.

Je ne sais quoi is a French phrase that is a used for “a pleasant quality that is hard to describe”. Literally translated, it means “I don’t know what”.

The first time I remember it being used was in a Sonic commercial for boneless wings. One guy says the wings are going to help him out with the ladies as his wingman, to which the other replies, “oh they’re going to give you that, je ne sais quoi?”. “Wait what did Jenna say, did she mention me by name?” Go back and give it a watch, it is still just as hilarious.

That hard to describe pleasant quality can mean a lot of different things based on the context. As Speedy is starting to test his legs walking, I struggled to come up with the right words to describe his (and every other child learning to walk) demeanor.

Perseverance, determination, discipline, there are plenty of words that come to mind when we don’t give up in the face of a challenge that we have deemed worthy of our time and energy.

Learning to walk obviously fits that description, but there is something different about a child’s approach to the particular learning process of walking for the first time.

Walking is an innate human ability, and thanks to modern medicine we can see examples of adults learning to walk again after some form of trauma. However, the approach is significantly different from that of a child learning for the first time.

Discipline doesn’t really apply because babies don’t have a regimen when it comes to learning to walk. Sure there are some things they try before taking those first steps (walking toys or pushing chairs, and pulling themselves up on furniture,) but those are organic experiments more than organized plans towards a desired goal.

El Duderino helping install cabinet locks and wash cars, he even brought his own tools

Perseverance is perhaps a little more apt, but still misses the mark. Most kids will pull themselves up on a surface, fall in an attempt to walk, and then appear to lose interest and revert to crawling, only to appear inspired anew in a few minutes. Is it really perseverance if it appears to be a first attempt every attempt, or if you seem to lose interest and the regain it on an apparent whim?

There is perseverance, determination, and discipline. There is pain, frustration, eventually triumph, and a slew of other emotions along the way. Still there is a innocent, indescribable, pleasant quality, a je ne sais quoi, about a child learning to walk that is inspiring.

Speedy taking his mobility vertical

As adults we encourage each other to take “baby steps” when learning something new. I always assumed this meant small, measured, slightly nervous steps, like, you know, a baby takes. Maybe I’ve been looking at it all wrong. Maybe that je ne sais quoi of a child’s learning is less about unsure legs and more about being undeterred in the face of upright mobility, and approaching the challenge organically when the body and mind are ready.

I still can’t quite put my finger on what exactly it is. But, if we all continue to learn into adulthood, the way a child learns to walk, with that certain je ne sais quoi, we’ll all be that much closer to serenity.

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

Some windy runs (17mph in the face on my tempo run) and 10 rounds of heavy bag therapy