Weekly Word: February 14th, 2021

Good Morning Everyone!

Valentine's Day
First off, Happy V-day to all of you out there. I hope you all have/had a great weekend with the loved ones in your life. 

So for those that don't know, I am a bit of weirdo. Some days I end up going down some rabbit holes and it happened to me again this week. The topic of research was the history of Valentines Day. After coming across stories of arrest, martyrdom, and pagan holidays, I decided that was enough research for the day. The interesting things about this holiday is that there are signs of Saint Valentines day going all the way back to 1375 by English poet Geoffrey Chaucer! Anything that can last 600+ years is good in my book!

In the spirit of of the holiday I decided to read the book The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. More on this to come in a later edition...

What I've Been Thinking About...
I was listening to The Godfather audiobook this week and as I was drowsily falling asleep one night I heard a line that stood out. It was part of a conversation between The Godfather himself, top henchmen Clemenza and Tom Hagen. The topic of discussion was the Bocchicchio clan, who play a major role in the book but rarely get a mention in the movie. This family makes their living in a very unique way and Clemenza makes a snide remark regarding how they do so. The Godfather replies that it does not matter what they do. What does matter is that they are creative enough to make a living and support their family. Who can ask for more than that? 

I think about this idea often. There are some days that I am stressing about all the things that come with running a business. The cancellations, the fluctuations in income, the weather, and so on. But then I take a deep breath, look out the back window, watch the snow fall and realize things are good! It made me realize that whatever we are doing right now is good enough! And like the great Vito Corleone said regarding the Bocchicchio clan, who needs more than that?

A Valuable Training Window
It has been written by many people much wiser than me that there is a crucial time in ones life to develop strength and/or muscle. The rate of growth that occurs during this period will most likely never happen again at such a fast rate. This training window is between the ages of 13-17 years old. I think back to my experiences of working with young athletes and watch this growth occur over the course of 3-4 years. I am talking about kids who have added 25-40 pounds of weight onto some major lifts like front squats and bench press each year. Extrapolate that over 4 years and some of these youngsters improved their strength numbers by over 100 pounds!

I also remember kids who never picked up a weight until they were junior or seniors in high school. They were still able to develop strength but they were a little behind. A senior who never weight trained would have the equivalent strength to that of a 9th or 10th grader. This senior missed out on a great opportunity to make improvements during a period of time where hormones that conduce muscle growth are raging!

Some of you may be wondering why this is important. Developing and building lean muscle is crucial in our battle with father time. Lean muscle will keep us looking young and feeling young. Lean muscle lasts. As we all know, as we age, we will slowly but surely lose muscle. Our bodyfat will increase. Our bodies will either feel like they are going to break down or they will begin to break down. The more strength and muscle we can build at a younger age the better we will be able to beat back father time. 

Fitness Tip of the Week
I had a few former athletes tell me that they wanted to "get shredded". This led me to chuckle a little bit but I decided it might be a good time to talk to these guys about long term sustainability. Yes, getting shredded would be great. It would be wonderful if two-thirds of Americans were "shredded" rather than overweight or obese but unfortunately that is not the case in our country. We spend too much time thinking about a quick way to get lean muscle without really trying to get to the root of things. If you want weight loss or fat loss to last, we need to consider a few things...

• Lets eat like grown ups. Yes, that means no more Lucky Charms! More importantly though is that I recommend consuming calories in a 10 hour eating window. 8 am to 6 pm seems reasonable to me but we all have different lives and schedules. 
• Go for daily walks or track your steps to increase activity levels.
• Strength train three days a week.
• Add intervals or HIIT training on your non-lifting days. Things like Tabata's and following a 30 second on, 30 second off interval for 30 minutes seem to work wonders. If those don't work, add some long walks into that routine.
• The final step will then be to reduce calories. Oftentimes, we skip all the other steps and start cutting way too many calories which leads down a path we don't want to be on.   

If you implement these steps and don't lose weight or  shrink your belly, it may be worth it to check in on how you are managing your sleep and stress levels. Find a routine to get to bed at a set time and aim to get 7+ hours. For stress, don't carry any burdens. Daily walks seem to help on those anxious days and remember to talk to people about what you may be going through. When you share things you come to realize that others have walked in those same exact shoes. Lastly, stay on the path and keep moving forward! 

If you want a more in depth breakdown,
Check out my latest podcast on Youtube here: Building Habits that Last. 
If you want only audio, click here to listen on Stitcher: Building Habits that Last.
Lastly, it is also available on Apple Podcasts and Google Play!
 
Quote of the Week
"Training is putting money in the bank to spend on fight night" -- Steve Baccari

I hope you all have an awesome week!
Chris Fluck