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The blog is updated Monday-Friday. Tune in for posts and discussion about health, fitness, nutrition, training experiments and reflection. We share articles, videos and more. We post the link to our Instagram story every day, make sure to follow along there to never miss a post.
Friday Thoughts 52
Welcome to Friday Thoughts, enjoy!
Weekend Test:
Today is day 4 of the Habit Challenge and your first big test awaits, the weekend. If you got into a good rhythm Tuesday through Friday this week, keep it going this weekend despite your schedule being different.
Monica:
How about Courtney Cox busting out this chin up at 60?
Mobility:
Creatine:
You know I’m aboard the Creatine Train but, Jordan, as he typically does, makes some fair and thoughtful points here. You get a marginal benefit from creatine - when you’re consistent. If you’re not consistent training, eating or sleeping, there are probably bigger fish to fry than worrying about supplements,
Breath Work:
NC State football team has a breath work coach, players are feeling physical and mental benefits from learning different breathing techniques. In San Rafael a couple weeks ago Kelly Starrett mentioned that this is common place. He teaches breath work to every sports team and military group he sees. Some of you have been getting a taste of this with the Big Breath Drill.
Protein Diet Coke:
I’m here for this and will report back.
Just an easy run:
Thanks for reading, see you next week!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Paradox of Small IMprovements
If you haven’t read Atomic Habits by James Clear, you’re really missing out.
I saw this quote on my feed yesterday, it’s timely with our October Habit Challenge underway.
Small changes = big improvements
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Underway
The Daily Habit Challenge is underway!
Here are a few things for you to keep in mind.
Day two, the habit should feel easy. The newness will provide motivation on these first days. This motivation will dwindle in the coming days!
If your habit is already too hard to get done, it’s too ambitious for a daily effort. The key here is to realize how small efforts add up over time.
Starting on the beginning of the month means nothing. If you didn’t start yesterday, no one cares. Get going today and don’t get hung up about it.
Have a system to track your habit. Old fashioned calendar with a big X through each day, a habit tracking app or a recurring reminder through your iPhone’s built in Reminders app are all options. The satisfaction of checking it off keeps you engaged in the process.
I asked Coach T to list the top 3 reasons people won’t stick with their habit, here they are.
You get “bored” halfway through so you stop.
You’re unwilling to start up again after stopping or missing a day or two.
You don’t have clear enough guidelines, or made too big of a habit, so you never really start.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
September by the Numbers
Each month I reflect back and look at some of the data I collect around my health and wellness. This practice helps me make adjustments, spot trends and hopefully inspires some of you to do the same. September will be an interesting one to look back on. I Travelled to Utah and California, and don’t often get on airplanes and change time zones. My focus on sleep and steps for the past year let me get some good quality rest regardless, we’ll see what the numbers say though.
Steps: 335,380 total for a daily average of 11,179.
Not too much of a surprise here. I got over 50,000 steps in during the Wasatch Front, where I ran 45 miles. After that though, I shut it down for a couple of weeks to let my body recover. When I was in Long Beach, I got 20k steps in each day, which was impressive considering I traveled both of those days. It also gave me pause to think about how my college roommate and I were walking around crushing steps instead of beers like we would have been 15 years ago. My lowest step day was 4 days after Wasatch, 3,333 steps. All in all, despite it being over 100,000 steps less than in August, it’s nothing too surprising. October’s step numbers will climb and I prepare for my next race.
Sleep: Average Duration - 7 hours 54 minutes
What! I can’t believe it. So close to an 8 hour average I’ve been chasing for a year. Truly surprised, with all the travel it didn’t seem like this would be this high. In California, I got tons of sleep though, upwards of 9 hours each night. Utah, I skipped a night of shut eye all together while running, and I thought that would affect the average. I got more than 8 hours 13 nights out of the month. Once I was home more consistently on the later half of the month, the travel was catching up to me and I was sleeping in much later that I typically do, this also helped my average climb this month.
Workouts: 24
In a surprising turn of events, only 10 of these were running workouts. I spent a lot of time this past month in the gym and moving around. When I’m running a lot, the gym is an opportunity to tune up my body, and make sure everything is working like it should. When I finish a workout, I want to feel refreshed, and I want my body to feel prepared for the next effort. I did a lot of kettlebell workouts, pull ups, and power cleans. I even got a heavy deadlift session in.
Some other running stats for the month:
Total runs: 10
Miles: 80
Hours: 21
Gain: 14.717 ft
In other running news, I’ve cracked 500 miles on the year, not a lot by any means, but it’s my first time doing so since 2020, and I’m happy about it.
Thanks for reading, remember, if you’re wearing a fitness tracking watch, you have all of this information available as well. Be sure to pause a look at it to make some adjustments for the coming month.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
October Habit Challenge Starts Tomorrow
October Habit Challenge starts on October 1st, tomorrow. It’s easy to play, choose a simple habit you’ll add to your life, every day for the month of October. We want to explore how small efforts can add up over time. We have an obsession with hard challenges and tough goals, but often times, the small, simple habits that we can stick with for the duration are more impactful than big, shiny and impressive goals. Be specific and realistic when choosing your daily habit. Here are some examples for you to steal.
Walk 7000 steps per day
One 30 minute walk every day
10 minutes of mobility before bed
10 minutes of mobility first thing in the morning
Breath work 1-2x per day (box breathing is a good place to start)
Track your macros
Track your protein
Eat protein at every meal
Drink 2 liters of water
Read for 10 minutes
Read 10 pages of a book
Drink water before your coffee in the morning
Do 30 push ups
Do 50 bodyweight squats
Hang out in a squat for 5 minutes throughout the day
Follow along with a meditation app
Do 20 pull ups
3 minutes of handstand practice
Sit on the floor for 20 minutes every day
Run 1 mile
Go to bed at the same time every night
Do 50 kettlebell swings throughout the day
Roll your feet for 2 minutes each
Feet on the wall breathing - 5 minutes
3 rounds of the big breath drill once a day
Book openers, deep lunge stretch and downward dogs
5 minute daily yoga flow
Hopefully something on that list will click for you and provide inspiration, good luck everyone!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 51
Greetings! Here we are with another edition of Friday Thoughts, where I share random ideas and my favorite posts from the internet I saw over the week. Enjoy!
Habit Challenge:
Our October Habit Challenge kicks off Tuesday October 1. Cancel all your plan this weekend and instead, spend them brainstorming the perfect habit for the month. Remember, your habit needs to be measurable and repeatable, and not so ambitious that you’ll fizzle out after 10 days.
Hip Mobility:
These two mobilizations from Kelly are some of my favorites, and worth saving on Instagram for reference if you want to do a mobility/stretching habit for the month. At GAIN, we call the first one the hip reset, because that what it feels like when you’re done - someone just came over and hit the reset button on your hip.
Compare and Contrast:
For your next assignment, please compare and contrast the following two videos and report back to me with a 5 paragraph essay on Monday.
Perfect Push Ups:
The push up is probably the most recognizable, most classic evercise there is. It’s probably one of the most butchered movements too. The fact is, it’s hard to properly do push ups, and many people prioritize more reps versus better technique. I’m not sure what the whole story with this guy doing 1 million push ups, but I’ve got to say, I love this technique. Arms are tight to the body, eyes on the floor, meaning no funky neck movement, hips and lower back are locked in a solid position, chest hits the floor. These are great reps.
Speaking of Push Ups:
Whoa:
This is some serious intensity! I’m not sure the context for the clip, but my guess is a nordic skier working on power output, and 980 watts on a SkiErg is no joke!
Zone 2 wattage:
While we’re talking about endurance sports and watts, check out this clip of the Peter Attia Podcast with a professional cyclist and 2020 winner of the Tour de France. He mentions his easy pace watts at 320-340 watts, next time you’re on the Concept 2 bike, try to touch 300 watts and hold on for as long as you can and you’ll have a new appreciation for this post.
No Goals:
I loved this post, and this mindset, from author Ryan Holiday. We’re always trying to chase the next goal, but sometimes we just need to slow down and focus on our process.
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Habit Building: Do The Math
Let’s say your habit for the month of October is to do the deep lunge hip stretch for 2 minutes per leg each day.
Four minutes per day sounds unremarkable. Perhaps it’s so unremarkable you’ve already written it off as too easy for your habit challenge. But, let’s say you listen to my advice, and take on the challenge of 2 minutes per leg per day.
The first week, you do exactly the minimum amount.
7 days x 4 minutes each day = 28 minutes of stretching in one week!
But here’s where it gets interesting.
The next day, day 8, you feel great. And your body is actually feeling better after the stretching session, so you start to look forward to it. On day 8-10 you end up stretching for 4 minutes per leg. Doubling your original habit time. Days 11, 12 and 13 are back to normal, just 2 minutes per leg. But on day 14, you have some extra time and end up doing 5 minutes per leg!
7 days x (8+8+8+4+4+4+10) = 46 minutes of stretching!
On week 3 your body starts to crave it. You aim to do 5 minutes every single day. Expect that you miss two days this week, you had some travel and it just didn’t workout. But instead of quitting, you get back on the wagon because you’ve done the math, and realized, even though you missed a couple days, you’re crushing because you beat last week’s total stretching duration, without even trying!
5 days x (10+10+10+10+10+0+0) = 50 minutes of stretching!
Do the math on your habit. Build it out and see how it looks in two weeks, four weeks, or a couple months down the line. Expect mishaps, they happen. It’s important to get back to it the next day. Lowering the bar, and starting with a small habit, pays in the long run. It creates momentum and before you know it, your 4 minute stretching session is a 10 minute stretching session. Let’s get to work!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
October Habit Challenge
On October 1st, we’re kicking off another edition of our Daily Habit Challenge. The goal is to kickstart improvement in some part of your life through small, daily efforts that compound over the month. At the end of the month, you will have tested your resilience, built discipline and have a new habit that adds value to your life.
Your habit should be specific, measurable and repeatable. It’s important not to be vague. Habits like, “eat healthier,” “walk more,” and “stretch,” aren’t precise. Better options would be; eat veggies with every breakfast, walk 8000 steps every day, and do these two stretches for 5 minutes every night before bed.
Other good examples for you to pull inspiration from are, daily breath work or meditation, reps of a certain exercise like kettlebell swings, push ups or pull ups, foam rolling or soft tissue work with a mobility ball, hitting a daily protein goal or reading 10 pages from a book.
To get involved, you’ll need to sign up on the sheet near the coaches’ desk. Write your name, your habit and we will either approve it, or help you rework it to make it a better aligned with what we’re trying to accomplish.
The most ambitious doesn’t win any thing here. Instead, we want to teach the value of successful small habits over time. Make your goal seem easy, not daunting, and not only will you develop a new habit, but you’ll develop a method to add in positive habits into your life through small, daily doses. Get involved!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
My Foot Journey
originally posted 9/24/2020, this is the most read blog on the site, so I repost it each year, enjoy!
I recently listened to a wonderful podcast all about the evolution and subsequent devolution of our feet. In the episode, Dr. Peter Attia interviews Dr. Irene Davis, a researcher and expert in all things feet and running mechanics. I’m also on my third (or fourth) reading of Sapiens, which I can’t recommend enough. It’s a deep dive into the origin of humans. All of this of course, coincided with the birth of my son. This got me thinking about his development, and specifically, what kinds of footwear we’ll put him in as he’s growing up. Shoes have barely been around for most of human history when you stop and realize that we’ve been walking around on two feet for almost two million years.
The podcast recommends minimalist footwear, more time barefoot, and staying away from maximally cushioned running shoes. Today, however, I want to share with you my foot journey and how I curated my healthy, resilient feet and why I’m not always so fast to recommend a minimalist shoe for everyone.
It all started in 2010.
I was in college and I was spending the summer interning and training hard for the upcoming hockey season at a strength and conditioning gym.
One day, someone brought us in a copy of Born to Run. If you’re not familiar, McDougall’s book is a wonderful exploration of running mechanics and history of human beings using running to survive. Dr. Irene Davis makes an appearance in this book as well.
I was anti-running at the time. I was bad at it, it always hurt and I found it incredibly boring. I did however appreciate the ancestral perspective of the book. How humans needed to run in order to track down game to eat. Something Yuval Noah Harari talks about in Sapiens as well. Back then of course, there were no Nikes, no Hokas, no shoes at all. Just bare feet on earth. That made sense to me. I found it fascinating at how adaptable we were.
Throughout the book McDougall makes reference to a Vibram Five Finger shoe.
Training barefoot was not a new idea to us at the gym. For years we had been doing our deadlifts in socks and squatting exclusively in Converse Chuck Taylor’s. We didn’t do it for health reasons though. We did it for performance. We knew that if our heel was on the ground, instead of raised up by a sneaker, we would transfer force better, and therefore lift more weight.
Now, let me back up just a bit.
While we were spending time training in the gym barefoot, my feet certainly were not in good condition. I had spent most of the past 18 or so years jamming my feet into hockey skates. My little toe had disappeared under my foot, and my three other toes had wedged themselves together. Like most other hockey players, I had developed bone spurs on my heels, aptly named Bauer bumps after a brand of skates.
As I read McDougall’s case against modern footwear, I couldn’t help but feel singled out. His argument made sense to me. I needed to get myself a pair of these five finger shoes.
If you’re not familiar, the Vibram Five Finger shoes are exactly what they sound like. A glove for your feet, if you will. Comprised mostly of neoprene, each toe has its own individual sleeve, forcing them to spread out. On the bottom is only a thin slice of rubber there to protect you from hot surfaces, but if you stepped on a small jagged rock, you would really feel it.
After I found a pair, I did something unintentionally intelligent. I only wore them while coaching, probably just a few hours a day. My toes hurt and my arches were sore but I was committed to doing the natural human thing. I only wore them while coaching because they’re silly looking and smell bad.
After a while I started deadlifting in them and then before I knew it I was doing all my training in them.
Fast forward to that winter and I couldn’t stand putting them on they smelled so bad. It was just my luck that New Balance came out with the first shoe in their minimus line at the time. A new concept, this shoe was designed for strength and conditioning, had a wide toe box to let your toes spread, had no arch support, and had only a few millimeters difference between the heel and the toe of the shoe, something known as drop, which I had learned about in Born to Run.
Since these looked like normal shoes, I wore them much more often than the five fingers. To my luck, my feet were ready to spend more time in this style of shoe since I had spent the summer building my tolerance.
Over the years, my toes continued to spread out, my bone spurs have mostly disappeared and I try to exclusively wear minimalist shoes, which were barely a thing back when my journey started.
Nowadays, footwear is swinging the other way.
It’s common to see maximally cushioned, high arch, high heeled shoes, and I think we’re missing the boat. Born to Run is to blame for this too. See, after the book, thousands of other people were inspired like me and went out to get themselves some five finger shoes. Runners everywhere ditched their traditional shoes and went right back to training with a less protective, much less forgiving shoe and all of a sudden, minimalist shoes had a bad reputation because many of these people got injured.
As the shoe’s popularity was grew, Vibram did something stupid. They said their shoes will prevent injuries. They didn’t recommended starting slow, building your tolerance and not trying to do too much too soon. Remember when I said I did something unintentionally intelligent? That was starting slow, only wearing the shoes for 12-15 hours a week at first. I didn’t do any running in them and also worked on stretching, rolling and improving mobility in my feet and ankles.
This led to a somewhat-famous lawsuit, which in my opinion, is why maximalist shoes have now become so popular.
People wanted to throw these Five Finger shoes on and expected their running technique to transform into a fluid natural stride like the Tarahumara Indians in Born to Run. It’s not that simple though. Just like it took my feet years and years to start looking more like hockey skates than feet, it takes years of dedication to bring them back to a more natural state.
The reason I’m not too fast to recommend a minimalist style shoe nowadays is because I worry people will expect too much from them too soon. An ideal way to dip your toes in the water is to wear them just at the gym. They’re better to train in. Period. You’ll be more stable, have better balance and wearing them for 3-4 hours a week will slowly let you build up a tolerance to more barefoot time. If you’re a runner, it may take even longer since you’re not going to want to start over. I think running in a shoe you’re comfortable in while spending some time with shoes off when not running is a good start.
When you’re home, I recommend making sure you get some time with nothing on your feet and you’ve probably seen a lot of people walking around the gym in just their socks, another great way to strengthen your feet.
The key point is that your feet were designed to be barefoot. Humans walked around with nothing down there for far longer than Nikes have been around. We’re really good at adapting, which is why it might take you a full year or two until you start feeling more comfortable in a more barefoot style shoe. Expecting too much from your feet is what gets people into trouble and, as I mentioned above, led to the pendulum swing of ultra cushioned shoes that do the exact opposite of what we need.
Today, I still spend as much time in a minimalist shoe as possible. In the podcast, Dr. Irene Davis defines a minimalist shoe and something you can fold up and put in your pocket and has zero difference between the height of the heel and the height of the toe. I realize there’s utility in other shoes and don’t spend all my time in a zero drop shoes. My trail/mountain running shoes have a bit of a lift (4mm) and I even have a cushy pair for days on the trail when I’m feeling beat up. I also wear high heeled olympic lifting shoes when practicing my cleans and snatches.
In summary, your feet are important and jamming them into dress shoes, high heels and traditional sneakers will slowly deform your feet and transform them into something different. Remember, don’t drop your current footwear and go total minimalist yet. Start slow, a few hours a week is enough to build your strength and tolerance. If you play the long game with this I promise it’ll be worth it.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Big Breath DRill
Breathing is important. Getting people to focus on breathing is hard though, because it feels boring and uncomfortable because your brain is going one million miles per hour and taking a chance to chill out is hard. I’ve found that because of that, the most simple breathing drills are best. I’ll lay one out below that you should try this week.
The goal of taking some breaths are:
Improve breathing mechanics - by focusing on breathing for a few minutes, hopefully afterwards, you can breathe better and access better positions. Think of it as a mobility drill for your whole body.
Wind up or down, change your state. Depending on the sequence, a few minutes of breathing can make you feel chill or fired up. The one below is more about feeling awake.
Improve posture; when you get better breaths, you’re less willing to sacrifice them to poor positions. When you know what a good breath feels like, you’ll recognize a short, shallow breath too.
Thinking about your diaphragm, or expanding your ribs and into your lower back complicates things. And while I want your breathing mechanics to improve, I’m not sure me cueing ‘use your diaphragm’ is going to actually help accomplish that. The best way to get a better breath is to get some reps in trying to fill up as big as you can.
Initially, you might be all in your chest and shoulders, but as the reps (breaths) accumulate, you can get more air in and will get more expansion throughout the whole trunk. After a long breath hold, you’ll get even more air in, and with it, better mechanics.
Here’s the drill:
Lay down on your back, feet on the wall.
For 90-120 seconds, take big, deep, expanding breaths with a sharp, quick exhale.
Exhale all of your last breath and hold.
Repeat when you’re ready to take your next breath.
*repeat 2-3 rounds
The longer you try to hold that exhale, the better your next round will be. Give it a shot!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 50
Welcome to this week’s edition of Friday Thoughts, where I share half formed blog ideas or my favorite posts I saw on Instagram throughout the week. It feels good to be home after spending the past two Fridays away. Enjoy!
Sleep or Rest:
The fitness industry has a problem with making people feel like the need to do more, and more, and more, to keep up, and that results in feeling overwhelmed and quitting or not starting all together. Juliette has been making some great posts lately about bringing reasonableness into the fitness space, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. The same can be said about getting enough sleep or rest.
Ninja Kid:
Incredible!
Peanut Butter Mixer:
This is a nifty tool, but I’ve got a hot tip for you. Store your peanut butter jar upside down in your pantry and when you go to use it all the oil and peanut butter will be mixed together, no extra gadget purchase required!
Processed Foods:
Speaking of reasonableness in the fitness industry, Jordan is leading the charge and is great at debunking some of these beliefs many people have around food and diets.
October Habit Challenge:
Consider this your early warning for our annual October Daily Habit Challenge.
That’s all for the week, until next time!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Ankle Mobility, Bone SPurs, Hockey Skates, Sliding surfaces, ball whacking and KStarR
I posted a couple clips from The Ready State seminar on my Instagram the other day, but wanted to share the whole video too. Kelly breaks down my stiff ankle and goes through his thought process of addressing something like this.
A bit of a back story, that bone spur used to be much bigger, and there was another one on my left heel too that’s no longer there.
In the hockey world we called them Bauer Bumps, named after a brand of skates, and many hockey players develop them from stuffing their feet into skates combined with the motion of skating for years and years.
Here’s part two. Here he addressed the sliding surfaces of my skin with his “ball whacking,” technique. The difference of my range of motion was significant!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Progress Without Pain
It’s a misnomer that every gym session needs to be hard. People are hard on themselves in the gym when they skip a set, modify a workout or bail on their conditioning.
Some people even stay away from the gym all together because they believe every session needs to be excruciatingly hard.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the gym, and seen a lot of people succeed, and a lot of people fail at building a fitness habit.
You’ll need to push it and have some hard workouts, but more important than that, you need to keep working out.
The training plan that leaves you completely gassed is not the best for your sustainability in the gym. It’s a balancing act; train hard enough but not so hard that you quit.
Here’s a quote from Mel Siff, author of numerous strength training books, the most famous being Supertraining.
“To me, the sign of a really excellent routine is one which places great demands on the athlete, yet produces progressive long-term improvement without soreness, injury or the athlete ever feeling thoroughly depleted. Any fool can create a program that is so demanding that it would virtually kill the toughest marine or hardiest of elite athletes, but not any fool can create a tough program that produces progress without unnecessary pain.” - Mel Siff
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
The Eights
This past weekend I went to a seminar with Kelly and Juliette Starrett of The Ready State, and the authors of the excellent book Built to Move. In their quest to get more people moving and taking care of their bodies, they have this idea of The Eights. It’s full of reasonable numbers to hit each day to give people a tool to take care of their health . Instead of adding yet another thing to do, this list can work for however you like to eat or set up your day, so long as you strive for these numbers.
Here they are:
8000 steps per day - in their book, they cite that most of the benefits from extra walking show up around 7500 steps per day. Remember, 10,000 as the gold standard is just made up because it’s a nice round number!
800g of fruits and vegetables. This comes from the 800g Challenge, and is a nice way without any restrictions or special diet rules to get more micronutrients.
8 Hours of rest. Ideally this is 8 hours of sleep, but in an effort to be approachable for everyone, they’re changing their language to 8 hours of rest, cause if you can’t sleep, resting is the next best thing. They say aim for 8 hours in bed at a minimum, and if you want to get 8 full hours of sleep, you best spend 9 hours in bed.
.8g of protein per pound of bodyweight. Protein is important to build and maintain your muscle mass, which is incredibly important as we age! Once again, they’re not saying this number is the end all be all for each and every one of us, but we should be striving to get more protein each day.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Travel Pro
I’m about to get on my fifth flight in 11 days, because of that, consider me a travel influencer.
Here’s how to crush at the airport.
No roller bags! I’ll get a lot of feedback on this one but, seriously, you can’t convince me anyone looks cool wheeling luggage around. Yeah, sure it’s easy and you don’t have to pick up your bag, but come on. You can’t move fast through a crowd and they occupy a hand leaving you limited. Backpacks are superior. They leave your hands free, and bonus, you can just ruck around the airport while waiting for your flight rather than adding more sitting to an already heavy sitting day. I realize there’s a time and place where they’re necessary, but if I were Supreme Ruler of the Universe, we would all carry our bags like it’s 1972; when the roller suitcase was invented.
Walk! Get those steps in people. I love doing laps in the terminal while listening to a book and lugging my backpack around. I always opt for stairs when possible and laugh at everyone standing still on the escalator. After running 50ish miles last week in the mountains of Utah, I really kickstarted my recovery by getting laps in before the flight. This highly contributed to my lack of soreness.
Beware of easy options. Junk food, alcohol and caffeine are everywhere in the airport. Tread carefully, and mostly, if you travel a lot, don’t make it a habit out of these things. For full disclosure, sometimes you’re sad your red eye gets delayed into the wee hours of the morning and a Guinness may make you feel better, and more bold for your Monday morning blog post.
Books on your phone. I love reading, and have found that when traveling your phone is the best way to read. You can increase the size of the font, it’s easy to hold, you never lose your place and it saves room in your backpack since you’re not messing with wheeled luggage.
Electrolytes. We all know planes are dry. Preflight, load up on electrolytes. This will help keep you hydrated, and if you’re better hydrated and actually absorbing water, you won’t have to get up a pee every 40 minutes like when you’ve sucked down too much water you’re not absorbing.
There you have it, my influencer travel tips. Next plan, not get on a plane for a very long time.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Friday Thoughts 49
Greetings from California! It’s rare that I travel at all, so getting to the airport and on a plane two weeks in a row is completely foreign to me. I’m here in LA visiting a college friend for the day, then shipping up to San Rafael to attend a weekend-long workshop at The Ready State. I got to meet Kelly last year, and his talk was superb. I can’t wait to spend the whole weekend soaking in all the Starrett’s knowledge.
Bday:
Elliot turns 4 this weekend, big birthday shoutout to him. Once I’m home we’ll be playing with the lego firetruck set he’s been asking for all summer, I can’t wait to give it to him!
Team Cupcake:
There’s still time to get involved on Kendra’s Team Cupcake for the Seacoast Cancer 5k. Take a walk or run around Pease for a great cause.
Warm Ups:
I fell into the trap of over-warming up sometime in my lifting career. I was doing all the foam rolling, activation, movement prep and the like, and what happened was I was more likely to nap than train. I’ve learned to spread this stuff out throughout the day, so when it comes time to lift, I can get right into the meat and potatoes.
Tracking Calories:
Dr. Rhonda Patrick makes a great case here for tracking calories - even just for a few days. Many of us are underestimating how many we consume. Combine that with over estimating how much we move and our estimates could be wildly inaccurate. It works the other way too, especially if you’re someone who takes their training seriously; you could be over estimating your calories and leaving yourself underfed.
Hammies:
This is a nice glimpse into the hamstrings on a cadaver. In college, I was lucky enough to go to a school where undergrads had full access to the medical school’s cadaver lab, and it really helped my understanding on muscles and their function. That area near the top, where they’re all coming together is a great place to target with a foam roller or mobility ball. I hope this video can illiustrate to you that thinking about individual muscles isn’t very much help when we’re trying to strengthen, or improve mobility. Instead, we need to think of the whole system and how it all works together.
Lol
I love skateboarding and so appreciate the confidence it takes to bomb down a hill like this.
In case you didn’t know, there’s probably a world record for everything, including most bites taken from apples while juggling.
Thanks for reading, you see next week!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Team Cupcake: Seacoast Cancer 5k
The Seacoast Cancer 5k is coming up on Sunday September 15th.
Just like last year, GAIN Member, Kendra’s Team Cupcake is getting involved.
Sign up using the link below if you want to run, walk or just to support Kendra and the local fight against cancer.
Seacoast Cancer 5k Sign Up (make sure to join Team Cupcake during registration!)
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
Foot Care
This isn’t your typical reminder to roll your feet, stretch your toes and keep working those ankle mobility drills. Instead, this is about how to not get blisters while running or hiking.
Blisters are something that seem to plague trail runners and hikers alike.
I’m fortunate that I never seem to suffer or develop blisters, regardless of the conditions.
I can get wet feet, sweaty feet, muddy feet, dusty and sandy conditions, you name it, my feet are resistant to those nasty problem-causers.
It wasn’t always the case, however.
On my 30th birthday, I celebrated by running 30 miles. I donned a new pair of Salomon shoes, they were red like most of my running shoes.
Anyway, a couple miles in, I already felt a blister forming on the inside of my big toe. I did what I thought best, and ignored it all day. Several hours later, when I finished my run, I had the biggest, nastiest, blister on my toe and the inside of my foot. The reason I got that blister, in my opinion, is that the shoes were too narrow. The narrow shoes created friction and my toe rubbed for 6 or 7 hours straight as I ran.
My first tip to prevent blisters, and perhaps the most important factor in my experience - don’t jam your feet into narrow shoes! Let those toes breathe!
Next, you have to wear merino wool socks. Absolutely no chance of any other material going on my foot. Wool is a miracle fabric. They’re not just for cold weather like I always thought either. I wear wool socks year round, 100 degrees or 5 degrees, it’s the best performing fabric for your feet. I can’t stress that enough. Wool will wick moisture away from your foot actively, and drys incredibly fast if your feet do get wet. It has the ability to absorb and release the moisture and if your shoes are breathable, your feet will be dry in no time.
I know a lot of people who change shoes, socks, never get their feet wet, use kt tape, bandages and body lubricant to stave off blisters, yet they can still suffer from them.
For me, good old fashioned wool socks and properly fitting, foot shaped toe-box shoes are the secret to happy feet for long days on the trails.
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
is One Hour In the gym enough?
This clip was thought provoking and I decided it needed its own blog rather than being lumped into the Friday Thoughts post.
The takeaway: exercise does not replace all day movement - we can’t cram all of our daily movement needs into a 60-minute session in the gym.
We need to be moving frequently, and building that into our lives. My hope is that through going to a gym, and spending a dedicated hour working on your health and fitness will then inspire you to make choices that support a more movement rich lifestyle. Taking more walks, parking farther away, sitting on the floor, night time foam rolling and stretching sessions, standing desks, playing games, sports and the like.
Use the gym as a reason to move more - not as a justification to be lazy.
As for the part about gym memberships doubling… Obviously, what hasn’t since the year 2000?
Justin Miner
@justinminergain
16 weeks
There are 16 weeks left in 2024.
Two workouts per week for the rest of the year would be 32 workouts.
Three a week would be 48 sessions.
Eight thousand steps a day for the rest of the year would accumulate nearly a million steps!
Motivation is high in September when the air starts getting cold and fall is in the air. Remember, when setting goals, keep them realistic and don’t undervalue the power of compounding through consistency.
Finish the year strong!
Justin Miner
@justinminergain