adaptation

Change

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. This week, I want to talk about change, how we are the most adaptable creatures on the planet, and at the same time, are incredibly resistant to change.

It has been longer than I like since my last post, but as you know, life has a a tendency to get in the way.

El Duderino had his second cataract removal surgery this month, which saw me home with him helping him recover. By helping him recover, I mean making sure he gets all the requisite eye drops in. Sometimes, that done with a gentle hand and a gentle word. Other times, it was my best grappling skills to stabilize bodied in a pacifying manner.

Last time bouncing before surgery and healing time

The surgery went well, and El Duderino is on his way to a bright new future, quite literally. In the days immediately after the surgery though, he refused to open his eyes. Both the recently operated on eye, as well as the already recovered eye.

The first day after surgery is crucial for examination, I’m told. So much so, that the eye Dr asked about putting him under anesthesia a second time if she was unable to examine the eye.

It took every ounce of physical and emotional strength I had to hold him down the day after surgery. Squirming and screaming in the eye doctor’s chair, he was adamant on not opening his eyes.

Outside of normal human functions, breathing, moving, talking, the one activity I have spent more of my life doing than anything else, is forcibly controlling bodies. I felt uniquely qualified for this task, in spite of the emotional toll it took on me.

It didn’t occur to me that this change would be so jarring for him. I don’t know what his vision was before. I don’t really know what it is now. We have metrics that we can assign to vision, and those metrics have improved. But his lived experience, even as a very articulate six year old, is very hard to discern.

Going from a cloudy field of vision, to a clear field of vision, even with a brief hiatus in recovery seemed like it should be a good change. One to be welcomed and embraced. Instead, he retreated. He stayed in a self imposed darkness for almost three full days.

We were able to pry his eye open safely the day after surgery. Every other attempt to get him to open his eyes over the next three days was unsuccessful. Look, your favorite show is on TV, “no thanks”. Can you help me pick out some cookies to share with our friends? “Maybe you can just tell me about them”.

I’m not sure what he was thinking or feeling. The most I was able to get out of him was, “it feels funny when I open it”

And still, after the third day, his eyes opened, like it had never happened. He adapted to his new reality. How can we as a species be both so stubborn and so adaptable?

I’ve been doing a lot more grappling in the past few months as I transition out of triathlon season. I’ve also tried to train at different gyms across the country as I travel, preparing for an upcoming competition.

I was recently training at a 10th planet gym, known for their unorthodox no gi style, especially their guard. The head instructor commented that I had one of the best “wrestler guards” he had seen in a while.

Wrestlers are programmed from day one not to go to their back. I heard Daniel Cormier (UFC double champ and Olympic wrestler) recently say he can’t sleep on his back without having nightmares, a sentiment I had during my high-school wrestling days as well.

Cycling miles fell off a bit as BJJ season picks up.

As I have transitioned to BJJ over the last decade, I have made a concerted effort to play guard and feel comfortable off my back. At this point, most of my training time is spent there, fighting from my back, or at least the bottom position.

I have adapted extremely well to the new rule set and strategy of Jiu Jitsu. And yet, at this latest competition, I found myself stubbornly insisting on wrestling, despite almost none of my training and preparation for this competition, including wrestling of any sort.

Like a small child with my eyes closed, I clung to what was familiar, shaying away from a change that had already happened. A change that has made me better.

It is difficult in the heat of the moment to embrace the new game plan and not revert to the comfort of old patterns. I’ve done a great job making this change in the gym, but have yet to see that transition fully materialize in competition.

Adaptable and stubborn. Embracing change, and simultaneously rejecting it. Hiding from it. Eyes closed curled up under the blanket.

As the saying goes, the only constant, is change. We are incredibly adaptable creatures, and there is serenity to be found in embracing that change.

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

Exposure

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.

El Duderino and Speedy playing in the water

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.

Zwift, peleton, treadmill, and some mobility work from a birthday week spent mostly on the road

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

Thanks for joining me for another edition of the serenity through sweat blog. My wife and I are wrapping up our first weekend with El Duderino out of town and just Speedy in the house. I’m struck by the difference two years has made in our parenting and our personalities.

As a new father, even with a significant break from work, I struggled to find a rhythm. I was unsure of myself and the needs of my wife and new baby. I was behind the curve when it came to meeting those needs much less anticipating and proactively fulfilling them.

Two years later, with El Duderino visiting his grandparents for the weekend, was the first time for me to really compare apples to apples as it were. How would my wife and I handle our now 4 month old having already been through it once?

The difference was staggering. We were both amazed at the efficiency at which we could care for Speedy and complete tasks around the house. We were both able to anticipate each other’s as well as Speedy’s needs, and then fulfill them quickly, efficiently, and with a a general sense of normalcy.

Things that would have left us frustrated and exhausted two years ago, seemed like commonplace daily routine, and even a reprieve, when compared to the demands of two children. The repetitive tasks that are required to care for a child led to a change in both my wife and I. The difference is the beauty of human adaptation.

As is often the case taxonomy is important and adaptation (in a biological sense) is an organisms ability to change to become better suited to it’s environment.

My wife and I are not the same people we were two and a half years ago when El Duderino was born. In addition to a familiarity and gained confidence as parents, we adapted to be better suited to our new lives as parents.

Raising children clearly involves a lot repetitive tasks. With repetition comes habit formation, and with habit formation comes adaptation. A good training plan will force you to do the same thing. Your body will adapt to the stresses (running, biking, lifting heavy things, grappling) you put it through if it senses that they are an environmental factor, and not just a singular event. Repetitive stresses will lead to adaptation, and a better suited person for the whatever challenge lies ahead.

We are starting to see this now with COVID as well. There have been repetitive stresses on businesses, services, and events. Some of those organizations have maintained their routine in a “tough it out” approach, and some have adapted. Like a fun uncle who watches the kids now and again, they can get the job done when they need to, but their efficiency and effectiveness will be lacking. The parents who change to better fit their new roles, will ultimately do a better job and be more efficient and effective. It doesn’t take long to see which organizations are adapting, and which are struggling to tough it out.

This run was a special treat. Some early morning miles over the causeway in my old stomping grounds. A lot of sweat, tears, and memories in the pavement here.

Humans have adapted to survive and thrive in every environment they have come across. It requires some trial and error, some repetitive stress, and a whole lot of serenity, but the results are pretty incredible.

When you can’t change your situation, you change yourself. That’s what adaptation is. It’s just a fun coincidence that parenting, fitness, getting through COVID, and finding serenity all require adaptation too.

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

Fostering Comfort

Thanks for joining me for the second of a three part post. The previous post (Finding Calm in the Chaos) talks about the mental space required to push through when we start feeling overwhelmed, this post will talk a little about how we can build that skill.

There is a line in the first chapter of the first book of game of thrones where Ned Stark lays down some serious wisdom to his young son Bran. Bran is about to watch his first execution “bran thought about it, ‘Can a man still be brave if he is afraid?’. ‘That is the only time he can be brave’ his father told him.”

The lesson here is something that transcends literature and the father son dynamic. The true accomplishment worthy of recognition, is the overcoming of the obstacle, being brave when you are afraid. Being brave absent of fear is uneducated bravado, but overcoming fear in spite of the knowledge and understanding of it, is worthy of praise. The same can be said for fostering comfort in uncomfortable situations. It is only an accomplishment to cultivate a sense of comfort in an otherwise uncomfortable situation.

One of the things that I appreciate having wrestled and grappled for the majority of my life is the plethora of opportunity to foster comfort in uncomfortable situations. Not that this is a skill that is easy to develop, but grappling, especially during formative years provides plenty of opportunity to develop the skill.

It is also a skill that largely defines the arena of triathlon. The argument can be made that a grappler can find success because of his/her ability to be more comfortable than the opponent, or because of technical advantage. In triathlon, most competitors are on the same technical playing field when it comes to running, cycling, and swimming, or at least close enough to not make a huge difference, especially in the long courses. So often times the difference comes down to who can be the most comfortable when pushing into that uncomfortable zone.

Being comfortable in uncomfortable positions can be bit of an ambiguous idea, so I’ll define what it means to me. The ability to maintain composure, deescalate breathing and heart rate, and think tactically while under some form of duress, are critical skills in both sport and life. This is also a skill that can only be improved within itself.

For example if you want to run faster you obviously have to run, but you might also stretch, lift, or do plyometrics. The skill of running faster can be improved outside of running, by different forms of cross training. There is no cross training for being uncomfortable. Learning how to be comfortable, can only happen by repeatedly being exposed to uncomfortable situations.

Being comfortable in uncomfortable situations is a skill that builds on itself, meaning, the better you get at it, the more you can do it. The greater ability you have to remain calm under pressure, the longer you can stay under pressure and still perform. Similar to swimming, the better you are at it, the faster you can go with less effort. This is also a skill that can translate to your personal and professional life as well.

Maybe it is a group project at work with some interpersonal friction that is causing an uncomfortable situation. Or it could be a tricky parenting decision, but either way, maintaining composure and thinking tactically (finding comfort) is the key to navigating these uncomfortable situations.

Next time you find yourself in an uncomfortable situation, try to dig in and embrace it. Maintain to your composure and appreciate the opportunity to grow the skill of fostering comfort. Once you’ve got that down you can start to manufacture your own discomfort to improve your adaptation response (similar to what we talked about in smooth seas). Being comfortable in uncomfortable situations can help us all on the journey towards Serenity.

Thanks for joining me and stay sweaty my friends.