Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week I’m reflecting on my 35th birthday. How I feel. How I’ve grown. What type of man I have become and what type of man I want to be.
Listening to Zach Bitter and Aaron Alexander on the Human Performance Outliers podcast, Aaron said something that made me reflect on my last decade.
Zach is very literally a human performance outlier as an ultra marathoner, and Aaron is a movement coach and author of the Align Method. Their conversation covered wellness topic such as mobility, training, breathing, and mindset.
Whenever you wade into the world of endurance sports, the somewhat unanswered, elephant in the room question, is that of longevity and vitality. What are the long term costs of pushing performance? What is the cost of being an outlier? Specifically on your long-term health and wellness.
Looking back, I have pushed myself pretty hard in the last decade. And not just physically. The volume of miles from triathlon training alone is staggering. Jiu jitsu, despite being the gentle art, takes it’s toll on the body. I’ve finished a graduate degree. Changed jobs twice. Found a partner and started a family. Just in the past few years I’ve cultivated new hobbies and habits.
I feel better now than I did at 25. I walk around at a lower weight than I did at the starting line of IronMan FL in 2013. (Which I hope is the lifetime peak of my training volume). I prioritize sleep and nutrition in a way that I was uneducated about a decade ago. I have more balls in the air now and struggle with balance, but find myself better equipped for that struggle.
Despite all of that, the question remains, am I burning the candle at both ends? Will this impact my longevity and vitality? My healthspan?
Aaron said something that I found incredibly reassuring. “your body adapts to what it is exposed to, even if that is nothing”
If you are exposed to nothing, your body will adapt to that as it’s default. The smallest offset can then be momentous. On the other end of the spectrum, if you vary and amplify your exposure, your body adapts. Your level of resilience is directly correlated to your level of exposure.
There are some obvious caveats. My days of thinking “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” are long gone. Lower intensity work, mobility, and less “demanding” practices like meditation and breath work are a critical part of my routine now. Not every session can be a grip it and rip it sweat fest.
Beyond what I expose my body to in search of positive adaptation, my boys become exposed to fair portion of it is well. They are always watching and listening. Being exposed to someone pushing themself. To someone who struggles, falters, and ultimately grows. I can only surmise what lens they see me through but I hope that the exposure is beneficial.
I’m grateful for all of the beauty, challenge, pain, and struggle that I have been exposed to. I’m grateful for all the ways my body has adapted over the last decade. I hope for continued exposure to push my adaptation. I hope that I find the appropriate level of exposure for my boys as well. In some dynamic interplay of exposure and adaptation, I hope to find serenity.
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.