A Slice of Humble Pie with P2
🥧 A podcast where we curiously explore nutrition, fitness, mindset, sports, wellness, & beyond. ☕️Host @parastoobadie
A Slice of Humble Pie with P2
Injury Prevention and the Mechanics of Performance
Welcome back to a Slice of Humble Pie with P2. Today's guest is Etienne Asselin, Fitness Educator and Founder of The Exercise Mechanic. This episode emphasizes the importance of recognizing sport-specific needs and the mechanics that underpin them, encouraging introspection and the acceptance of varied training methods. Injury prevention is linked to understanding how specific movements challenge the body, highlighting the need for individualized approaches in training. Both physical and psychological considerations play critical roles in ensuring athletes can perform without falling into burnout.
This episodes covers:
• Recognition that not all athletes need to master the same movements
• Importance of sport-specific skills over generic training principles
• Need for adequate joint function and mobility across various sports
• Insights on the connection between exercise mechanics and injury prevention
• Acknowledgment of the psychological factors influencing athletic performance
• The importance of periodization in combat sports and burnout prevention
• Emphasis on a holistic approach to athlete well-being and performance
To connect with Etienne:
https://www.instagram.com/easselin_official/
The Exercise Mechanic:
https://www.theexercisemechanic.com/
Website: https://parastoobadie.com/podcast/
Email: asliceofhumblepiewithp2@gmail.com
Instagram: @asliceofhumblepiewithp2
Welcome back to A Slice of Humble Pie. I'm your host, pitu. I'm a nutrition and fitness professional, a lover of pie and a curious human on planet Earth. Today's episode is exercise mechanics across different sports, featuring a podcast guest favorite, etienne Eslay, or ET as we call him for short Now.
Speaker 1:Etienne is one of my good friends and also a longtime fitness mentor. He is a fitness educator and the founder of Exercise Mechanics. He was actually my very first guest on this podcast and it's now become, I guess, somewhat of a tradition that we will have at least one episode a year where I get to learn something new and, of course, I get to share it with you, and it acts as sort of a, an update and a catch up on both of us reflecting on our growth and all of our different fitness goals, which is pretty cool. We have great conversation. He's a super rad dude and, yeah, I'm really pumped to share this with you.
Speaker 1:Now, right before we get into the chat, I just wanted to share that if you are a fitness professional that wants to learn some more highly recommend working with ET and do contact him at the exercise mechanics, which I included the details in the show notes. So let's get on with the conversation right now, and we are back with Etienne. Today we're talking about exercise mechanics across sports and his journey. What have you been up to since our last episode somewhere?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean to be honest, I can't necessarily remember what the date was of our last episode because life, you know, you and I have had many just kind of chats and conversations over the last year and a bit. Life has been a whirlwind when it comes to, I guess, like what I've been up to athletically, you know, largely focused on running in 2020. If I remember my dates correctly in you, I gave myself the objective running a marathon in 2023, which very much gave me the running bug as someone who had, like, no background in running, so hired a coach, etc. So I did that and then since then, having moved overseas, living in Geneva in Switzerland, you know like this is the Mecca of trail running, um, which, for those that don't know, trail running is kind of like shitty hiking and shitty running. I'm kidding, it's a bad joke, uh, but um, you know, I figured like when in Switzerland, do as the Swiss do and uh, so I've been doing a lot of that.
Speaker 2:May of last year, I did my first 35K I don't know if you and I talked about that. I did my first 35K trail race, which completely kicked my ass, hated it during, but then, two minutes after, I'm like that was rad. I can't wait to do that again. So then this year yeah, it's funny how that works and then this year I signed up for a 51K trail, so technically it'll be like my first, like ultra distance type of thing, and so I'm excited to check that off the list. So that's what I've got teed up this year athletically. And then of course, like you know, maintaining strength training and hypertrophy for very aesthetic reasons, and then also just like functional reasons, wanting to be strong and those types of things, not only for life but also for sport.
Speaker 1:It's been really awesome to watch this because our last episode we were really talking about your mindset when you set up that ridiculous goal a year prior that you were going to go run a marathon. So it's really cool to see that you caught the bug and you're so into this right now and just remembering that you didn't run like that wasn't anything you did. That wasn't yeah etienne didn't do the running, and then now you're talking to me about voluntarily running 51 kilometers, which is super cool yeah.
Speaker 1:so since, since that episode, I think I was in canada, where we're both, I think we were both in canada and now I'm in uh patea, thailand, while you're in geneva, switzerland. And yes, of course, the mu Muay Thai brought me here Another sport, that's the actually let's.
Speaker 1:let's transition into questions Because, as you know, you were really helpful when I was going through some of my own different training modalities and injuries whatnot over the past year. Let's let's set kind of a general question what are some of the foundational movements that all athletes should focus on, regardless of their sport?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah. So I mean this might be a little bit of a. What's the word? It's a C word, not confrontational I always forget this word but in any case this might be an answer that people don't like.
Speaker 2:Controversial. Thank you, I always forget that word Legit. You can ask my wife. I forget this word a few times a month. I don't understand. I don't understand. So this might be a controversial answer.
Speaker 2:What are the movements that essentially all athletes need to focus on, regardless of sport? I don't think there is one. I don't think you know. Generally speaking, in the fitness industry, we, we sell. You know that there are primal movements, movement movement screens, there's all of that stuff. Truly, I think that those are systems that we can use as a means of improving fitness, but I don't think that they are objectively prerequisites for anything.
Speaker 2:What you need for your sport is what you need for your sport period. That being said, if we're thinking about what makes a good athlete, there are two made. If we were to break it down into two different categories, there would be sports specific skill that you absolutely need. Example thinking of Muay Thai, which I know you know very well. You can be really strong on a leg press, you can have really strong hips, you can have, like, all of the raw components, but if you suck at the skill of, let's say, doing a kick of sorts, you're not going to be able to really express that strength very well. So skill is kind of the, the, the, the bridge between the strength that you have internally and how much you can express externally. So there's there's sports specific skill.
Speaker 2:When it comes, if we're talking about the things that I would argue perhaps all athletes need, it's a little bit different than like, let's say, movement patterns, um, or you know that type of stuff that they need to be good at, and it's more about just like basic joint function, like, can your knees do what your knees are supposed to do? Can your elbows do what elbows are supposed to do? The same thing with your shoulders, your spine, et cetera. So can your spine rotate, flex, side bend, can I do all of the combinations of those things? Can your knee flex and extend and can it rotate when it's flexed right? Like? That's what I would view as being foundational prerequisites, perhaps, to sport, as a means of like, giving you all of the raw components, making sure that those raw components are working well. And then it's about learning the skills that you need specifically within a certain sport and then developing tolerance within those specific stressors.
Speaker 2:But I think the notion that you know, let's say, like, every athlete needs to be able to squat well, hinge well. I think it's bullshit. That being said, I do think that it's useful from a training perspective, like if you're working with clients and it's like general fitness and you have this as a jumping off place. I think that's totally fine, but I don't think we can say that objectively. As an athlete, you need to be able to hinge Well. Uh, I don't. I don't think we, I don't think we can say that. And I'm sure there are out. There are outliers, I'm just not aware of them, but I'm certain of it.
Speaker 1:Hey, coming out with a big bang. I like it. I knew you were going to do that. That's why I asked that question. That's actually super interesting because I mean, I've definitely said that in the past as language I've used and I've heard other coaches across the world, you know, say things of if you were to maybe hinge more, going with the hinge example you just said, and you develop your posterior chain more and you have stronger hamstrings and you're going to prevent said whatever injury. So that's an interesting I get it. I get like you were saying about it doesn't harm you to be stronger, it doesn't harm you to be able to hinge and squat and like why not?
Speaker 1:But how do we look at it then from a lens for athletics, in terms of, I guess, maximizing training efficiently and preventing injury? How can you use exercise mechanics to prevent common injuries? In the sports that perhaps you're having, like repetitive movements and my type, there's certain motions that you use all the time, or running. It's always the same motion. So how do you complement having other types of training that maybe are beyond just the sport specific, that can perhaps prevent common injuries?
Speaker 2:Sure, you know, before we get to that, maybe let's just take a small step back, because it's kind of pull on the thread of the hinge piece, you know, and like doing progressive overload within hinge exercises.
Speaker 2:We're talking like an RDL or what have you 45 degree hip extension as a means of building up your hip extensors. I think that's totally fine. But there's a distinction there, which is is it a prerequisite for the sport? No, is it potentially useful, depending on the sport, to leverage certain exercises to build up certain regions so they can tolerate a greater amount of stressors? I think that's very logical. So you think of, like, let's say you are a, let's say you do, you, you, you do bobsled lots of extension through the hip, like there's a lot of glute, there's a lot of hamstring, there's a lot of quad, it's super explosive. You think of, like rate of force development is super high, peak amplitudes of load are super high. Yeah, that shit should be really strong. But if you compare, like, the needs of a professional bobsledder to someone who plays pool, like I don't think someone who's a professional pool player needs to have a huge RDL to prevent against hamstring tears, right, this is kind of what I'm talking about Like it's just, like it's a. It's an extreme example, but it highlights the stupidity of saying that, like everybody needs to be good at the same exercises. I don't think that that's true. I do think that, generally speaking, if we, if we huge, shout out to you and there's a huge movement actually, that you're aligned with this, this human first, athlete second model where, yeah, take care of the human. Well, like, what do humans, what are the foundational components of human beings, mechanically basic joint function? Like, do you have that? Are you eating appropriately to be able to fuel your sport? Are you sleeping right? Like, are you managing your psychological stressors? Like, foundational stuff, that stuff, I totally agree, Everybody across the board could likely benefit from that. But when it comes to the sports specific, are there sports specific movement patterns, I think, as a prerequisite? I think that's. I don't think that that's true.
Speaker 2:Now to come back to your kind of your second thing, which was how can we leverage exercise mechanics as a means of mitigating against risk of injury? Right? So I think that I think that, first off, what we should look at is we look at like, well, okay, this thing that you're doing, in which ways does it challenge the body. So, for instance and actually big shout out to Alec Blennis, actually, who mentioned this not long ago on one of his podcasts that I really liked because he, of course I'm sure you've heard of him, alec Blennis, yeah, okay. So if your audience hasn't heard of him, I recommend that they check him out.
Speaker 2:We're talking like he's a really arguably, I think, the best hybrid athlete on the planet that I've seen, really accomplished runner, incredibly strong name of physical competency. When it comes to you know his ability to perform like he's got it in spades. He, of course, being an accomplished runner, at one point I think on one of his podcasts, was talking about how, and acknowledging this truth, you've got fantastic runners in the world that would fail every single. You know, pro nation test, you know, or even like single leg stability like they. They suck at it and yet they can run a hundred meters sub 10 seconds. Or you've got people who can run a hundred mile races, who have huge bunions and have fallen arches and and they would smoke you in their in their sport.
Speaker 2:Now the conversation about whether or not that's optimal or not or not is a different conversation and is really hard to answer, and maybe we can bookmark that. But the thing that he said that I loved and is really pertinent to what we're talking about here is that the ways in which people move and the sports specific stressors that the body's under it essentially just tells you where the body's likely to break down. So if you look at, for instance, someone who, when they're running, maybe they have poor control over midfoot, so subtalar inversion, meaning that arch is really collapsing a lot, and there's a lot of they're having trouble controlling those loads They'll probably be able to do that potentially indefinitely, but at a certain point and this is a key distinction with every single human and every single joint in the body, if you load it enough, you will eventually stumble upon its capacity, its limit, at least currently, in that moment in time. Right, it's like Stu McGill with his studies looking at pig spines and you bend it and the study literally was bend it till it breaks and let's figure out where that point is. And they discovered that it's. It has a limit and it's well, no shit. You know you do that with any joint in the body. You grab an elbow, you bend it till it breaks. It'll break because that's the goal, right? And then you know you do the same thing with your knees, et cetera. It's the same same thing.
Speaker 2:So each area in the body has its limit, and when you start doing sports that have that tend to impose very specific stresses on the body, those very specific stresses, when you layer that with, like, how tolerant is this person that tells you where someone's likely to break down. And so this is where to answer your question how can we use exercise mechanics as a means of perhaps predicting where injuries may happen and thus alleviating them? Well, you can ask yourself which areas in their sport are being taxed on a repetitive basis, so which joint positions, and also what types of loads are people experiencing in those positions? And then how can we build them up in those positions? How can we foster greater strength? How can we do graded exposure by creating, you know, exercises or selecting exercises that are specific to the specific stressors of their sport, and how can we leverage those to build them up? You know, build up some of those components. That's kind of how I think about it.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That makes a lot of sense to me, and thank you for giving a shout out to the human first athlete. Second, I appreciate that you didn't just immediately jump to the exercise, but yeah, we are. You need everything right, because when you keep talking about the tolerance, well, in order to tolerate, you have to be able to have that strength holistically, to be able to tolerate so much before you snap holistically, to be able to tolerate so much before you snap. As you were talking, I was thinking of some common injuries that happen in certain sports.
Speaker 1:So, for example, in rugby, it was very common for people to blow their acls, or, like in muay thai, it's not an uncommon to hear people have some form of hip injury, perhaps from kicking high volumes. So so that's, I guess. I don't know if I have a specific question. It's just curious, because would you say then that perhaps people are not training enough to be at that strength to support this Like there? Because how is it that there's so many knee injuries like ACL injuries and rugby, and so many hip issues and in Muay Thai? Because they are a bit more specific to the sport, I guess? Is it because the athletes are missing a strength, or is it just a coincidence that it's like a common injury?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I think it's like so how come we'll take a, we'll go on a little journey. Why do human beings across the board, statistically, why do we, as human beings, statistically across the board, terror ACLs way more than our PCL? Why do you think like disproportionately, like if we were to look at the stats, I don't know, I'm guessing, like I'm guessing ACL tears out number, pcl tears probably, I don't know, eight to one, easy. Why do you? Why do you think that's the case? Or, or, if it's not that much, it's five to one.
Speaker 1:I don't know You're blowing my mind. Take me on a journey.
Speaker 2:So the reason, the reason why these types of things happen is just because of the nature of the types of stresses that are imposed of the body chronically, and I don't mean chronically in a bad way just the types of stressors that are imposed on the body repetitively are fundamentally I mean, they are stressors, right, you stress anything long enough. There's a possibility that you could get injured as bipeds who are actively resisting gravity. Which muscles around the knee resist gravity and extend, extend your knee because gravity wants to flex your knee. Which muscles extend your knee? Quads, right. Yeah, good answer. Right, your quads. And I know you don't answer, you're like. You're like, fuck, trick question, trick question. It's not a trick question your quads extend your knee.
Speaker 2:Now, did you know, did you know that if your quads left to their own accord, if your quad just contract as hard as it could on its own, it would rip your knee apart? Did you know that? And this is because when, when muscles contract, they essentially contract, they create compressive and translatory forces at joints. So if you think about like your quads essentially originate from like upper thigh, for the single joint ones, but then also anterior hip, all those muscles come together and they attach to your tibial tuberosity, right Superior tibia, at the top that bump. So if your quad contracted on its own, literally it would just approximate the front of the hip or the tibial tuberosity to the front of the hip, so your foot would be up here, facing back, and your tibial tuberosity would the front of the hip, so your foot would be up here, facing back, and your tibial tuberosity would be at your pelvis. You following me? Because muscles just pull. That's all they do.
Speaker 2:The quad left to its own accord. On its own, if you redline, it has the potential of ripping your knee apart. That's literally what it wants to do. That being said, that's not happening the vast majority of the time because there's other things that act in opposition to it. Guess what acts in opposition to it internally in the knee? It's one of the ligaments I mentioned earlier. It's your ACL specifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the ACL, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:The quads when they contract, they compress the knee and they create anterior translation. The ACL actively checks anterior translation. This is one of the reasons why if someone has an ACL tear and they regraft it, the rehabilitative process is gradual quadriceps strengthening. Because when you strengthen the quads you, by definition, if the quad, if the knee isn't ripping apart, you're loading the ACL. So knee extensor training is ACL loading Follow Right. Or if someone has a partial ACL tear, a very common predictor is you'll see quad atrophy on one leg. There's a lot of reasons why someone will have quad atrophy, but if someone has laxity at the knee and they have a grade two tear of their ACL, I haven't seen a case when they haven't had at least some form of quad atrophy because the body's avoiding knee extensor loads, because the ACL is a little bit compromised right Kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1:Of course.
Speaker 2:So so, bringing it back to this, this question that I asked you, which is why do we get way more ACL tears and PCL? It's because life as bipeds requires that we actively resist gravity and there's way more, disproportionately, quad load than hamstring load day to day, way more so, even just statistically, if we just think about, like the odds, the odds are you're going to tear an ACL before you tear your PCL. You'll tear your PCL in other contexts, like when if someone like, if you even like, for instance, people will tear their ACL or, sorry, their PCL if they land on their knee. So if someone like, if you like, for instance, people will tear their ACL or, sorry, their PCL if they land on their knee. So, if you like, if you land on your shin and the shin is maybe slightly there's like an elevation here and you land on the shin, the shin gets pushed posteriorly, the PCL checks or limits posterior translation of the tibia on the femur. So you'll get, you can tear your ACL in those types of circumstances or in acute injuries, like if you get tackled in rugby and someone tackles your leg backwards, yeah, you'll tear your PCL. You may even tear your ACL at that point because it's just so traumatic. But you get, the idea is that the tendency of injuring things is associated with the types of stressors. So rugby has, amongst other things, a lot of people blame twisting for ACL tears and as much as I think it's a part of it, I don't think it's the primary cause.
Speaker 2:The biggest predictor or the biggest thing that essentially all quad or ACL injuries have in common is really high quad amplitudes. So moments where your quads are contracting really really, really, really, really fucking hard, moments of deceleration, changing of direction and those types of things. So in sports like basketball, soccer, rugby et cetera, you tend to, you tend to see them there because there's really high quad amplitudes. Does that make sense? And so you know, what could you do to prevent against that? Well, you know a lot of strengthening of the quadriceps, a lot of getting into like positions that hopefully, if you can mimic or approximate at least in some way shape or form the demands of the sport. So that way during the sport maybe you've developed some tolerance to some of those funky positions other than like a perfect knee position on a leg press or what have you. So I think, general strengthening and then also the specifics of the sport as a means of once again building it up locally.
Speaker 2:If we're talking about Muay Thai because you had mentioned hip injuries Well, when you kick, of course as you, as I'm sure you would say, and many people would say, like, the engine of a kick isn't just the leg, it's your trunk, right, but the next piece from that is your hip joint and there's a ton of load going through the hip joint, there's a ton of load going through your hip flexors, so you're loading the shit out of your hip. Of course, there's a, there's a likelihood that hip injuries might, you know, happen for a Muay Thai athlete. In my mind, that makes that makes a lot of a lot of sense. And then the last thing that I would say is that athletes also tend to go hard. Athletes tend to be the types of people that are like eh, I'm just gonna keep pushing. So there's also psychological tendencies that athletes have that predispose them to doing too much, because the thing that led to them excelling is that they were willing to push harder than others, other than just natural talent, of course. So those would be my answers.
Speaker 1:Those answers I'm going to put a pin in the psychology piece you just said, because I'm going to come back to that. I was also thinking of, for example, jujitsu I know that jujitsu has a high, I guess, rate of injury of like the weird funky movements you were talking about, because you're sort of that's the point, you're pushed into your end range motion if you're in an arm bar or a leg bar.
Speaker 1:You're literally trying to see if it can snap. Or I'm thinking of some of my clients or colleagues that have had injuries that aren't ACL and do end up being something else, like the PCL or meniscus. It's usually been because they're in some form of rolling situation and they're on their shin. So what you were describing, that was what I was picturing as you were talking. That makes sense. Okay, so I, what you were describing, that was what I was picturing as you were talking.
Speaker 2:That makes sense, okay. So yes, I was just going to say, you know one just like. One thing that drives me nuts with regards to a lot of those things is that, unfortunately, and something that kind of muddles the waters with regards to diagnoses, is that it's it's really common that people have asymptomatic, you know, meniscal tears, that people have asymptomatic gray two tears of certain things and then they start developing pain and unfortunately we just can't infer causation between those injuries and the pain because the injury was there before. So, generally speaking, I try to I personally, I don't know, I tend to take that with a little bit of salt is that sometimes these things contribute and sometimes they're the primary thing, but, but not necessarily all the time, the unfortunate truth is that if you get scanned they're usually going to find something, because a lot of these things just kind of some people put them into the category of like age related changes.
Speaker 2:Like in the same way where your face naturally wrinkles over time, it's also normal for the quality of your intervertebral discs to change over time, the same thing with your other connective tissues, and of course that affects force tolerance. But it doesn't necessarily have a causal link with pain and unfortunately, when people get scanned, inevitably people usually find stuff and then those things are used as the reason why they hurt. But there's just too many people, when we look at the literature, who have those very same things that are asymptomatic. So we just need to be careful with inferring causation with that. That's the only thing that I would add to that.
Speaker 1:I love that you added that, and I know that you and I talk.
Speaker 1:every time we talk, we always just throw the word nuance around, because we're always like contacts contacts and it's really interesting in this industry where some practitioners and our clients and people like we're curious people that want an answer and so we look for it, some form of answer to describe why this is hurting or why this has changed and we are looking to the scans as gospel, or to give us an answer, especially if you are an athlete and your performance is very much your life. I'm glad that you brought that up because that's I think we should expand on that a little bit. Actually, when you have an injury and you're perhaps like noticing in your body that something feels off, is it the pain? When you are an athlete and you have an injury, your entire execution of your sport is the point here. How do you navigate having an injury like that where the scans are showing something and perhaps there's a disconnect between what you're feeling, what your practitioner saying, what the scans are saying? That's so much. That's so much to balance.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, and it's tough, you know. I think that, like, the first thing I would say is try to not get injured, and of course, that, like the truth is is that, like pain, pain happens in life. It's not avoidable. Like, I think, if people just like stop worrying about living a pain-free life and focus more on like doing fulfilling things, accepting that there's risks Like if you stay at home and you game all day, you're not under the same stressors that a rugby athlete or a Muay Thai athlete is under You're probably still going to hurt at some point in your life because of the specific stressors associated with being in a chair and also the weakness that is fostered by being in these support environments all the time. And you know, just like, just choose, choose the type of life you want to live, and so that's.
Speaker 2:That's, I guess, a first thing that I would say this, but the second would be that that I mentioned earlier was try to not get injured. And I think that, generally speaking, I have two thoughts here. The first is don't forget the context in which you're operating. Athletic prowess isn't something you develop overnight. Every sport, truly even marathons, is a marathon, meaning that every sport for you to get good at it.
Speaker 2:You need time and you need repeated exposure to develop the skill. You need repeated exposure to develop the skill, you need repeated exposure to develop strength, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And so the time piece and your ability to stack those wins is arguably one of the greatest predictors. If you fall prey or succumb to the really common trap of like pushing too hard because maybe you're a little bit hard headed, yeah, maybe you'll. Maybe you'll get injured, and I hope that you learn from that because really it was just that you did. You just did too much too fast in relation to your body's ability to adapt to those stressors. It really is just kind of a load management conversation. The thing that's tricky is that load management isn't predictable, and especially if you're not a pro athlete, where all the variables are, you know, being controlled, and even if you are a pro athlete, you're not controlling all the variables because they're still human. But the more that you have other shit going on, your tolerance is going to ebb and flow. This is one of the reasons why, within running, there's two major camps when it comes to exercise or prescription of training stimulus. One camp is you prescribe very specific like paces, times. I want you to run X amount of kilometers at a certain pace, and maybe that pace is, like you know, sprint for them, or it's like an RPE nine, but we're associating a pace to this level of subjective exertion. That's one camp very specific paces, things are measured. Another camp is like they just use RPE, and I'm one of those people. So this is my bias is going to probably shine through here.
Speaker 2:The reason why I use RPE almost exclusively almost is that it leaves space for the natural ebbs and flows of someone's performance on a daily, day-to-day basis. So maybe I'm giving them, maybe they have a, they have a warm-up, and I want them to do six repeats of two kilometers at rpe seven and then, and with, like I don't know, a two minute easy jog in between and you go right, let's say that's the workout for the day. I know that maybe on a good day, an RPE seven for this person is maybe, you know, like a four 40 pace or something, or a five 20 pace, whatever, pick your number. But maybe that person is having a shit week, maybe they have financial stress, maybe they're in conflict with their partner, maybe their dad is sick who knows right? Maybe they just didn't do their groceries and they're just not as well-fueled that week. If you ask them to do that same pace that you think they could do at RPE7, which, let's say, for the sake of this, is 440, and you impose that on that day, that now is very likely to not be an RPE 7. Relatively, it's likely closer, maybe, to an RPE 8, 8.5, maybe even 9.
Speaker 2:Now, is that good or bad? Of course we don't know. But within the context of the longevity within a sport, sustainability is king in many ways. You of course need enough stimulus to adapt, but it happens on the backbone of sustainability and adherence and consistency. So for that reason I choose RPE over set things, because it leaves space for a little bit of of the ebbs and flows. My answer may change if we're, if I was working with a pro athlete where everything was controlled. But those aren't my people. You know, my people are like your normal day-to-day folks who just want to do rad shit by their standards, right? While also concurrently having a family and, you know, running a business or working in the government or something along those lines, right? So I don't know if that answered your question, but those are. Those are some of my thoughts.
Speaker 1:It absolutely did, and I mean my experience to having worked with some pro athletes sort of echoes what you just said is that, hence the human first athlete. Second is that, even in control, there's certain things we can control, especially like, as you're describing, the RPE, the rate of perceived exertion. That if we have the visual of the stress bucket right, if what's in that stress bucket, and then basically a tipping point, so if you're having slept well, if you're not managing your stress, if there's something that's you know going on in your personal life, whatever, it's of course going to change, hence the perceived exertion. Your, your starting point is different. That day already your baseline shifted.
Speaker 1:And so whether you're talking about running, that's as true for weightlifting, if you're, if you're saying, hey, I need you to lift this particular weight, that can shift again from your starting point. And also the physiology for talking about, uh, women going through their cycle. You're going to be in a different spot if you're about to be on your period versus halfway through. That in itself, your baseline is always different day to day. That's not controlled for anybody, even if you can control the variables you're even the people who can control everything you still can't because there's stuff. That's like you can't control everything.
Speaker 2:On that note, you know, like when I was in Ottawa training for the marathon I remember one week this was right before I hurt my foot and this is actually like the story of how it it happened I was feeling amazing, like absolutely amazing. Training was going well, I was flying on this one workout, absolutely flying, and I was like what the fuck I'm setting like coach is telling me to do? You know, whatever repeats let's say, let's go for, just for the sake of the example, at rp7, and I'm like way faster than I normally am. This is odd, that's amazing. Got home and my foot feels weird going, I take my shoe off and I realized that my my shoe and I know like it felt weird earlier on in the run. I just kind of kept persisting throughout my, but my shoe broke midway, midway through the run. Um, you know, the relevance of this is that it's not that this isn't like a barefoot versus not conversation, but just objectively speaking, if you start wearing shoes, it alters the stressors on your feet versus if you're barefoot and it's just about whether and progressively building up capacity. I was wearing a shoe that I had built up capacity with. The shoe broke mid run. It led to very different patterns of stress on on my foot which then led to almost predictably or not necessarily predictably but there's a there's a higher likelihood of my body getting injured because I was moving at a very high rate, I was pushing hard and it was a novel stimuli, it was a novel stressor my body was completely unprepared for right. And so there are also things, to your point, where it's like, yeah, I mean, could I have anticipated and mitigated against my shoe breaking? I mean, maybe if I like examined my shoe before each run, you know that might not be a bad practice, but you know, sometimes you miss things or perhaps sometimes just shit happens, right and um. So yeah, I think that not all injuries are necessarily evidence of neglect.
Speaker 2:Also, sometimes it's just the nature of life and it just kind of comes with the territory. It's like, how would I say, even in relationships, if you choose to go into a relationship with the best intentions, there's still the possibility of heartbreak. Still, even if on paper you're ultra compatible and everything's going really great and you're honest with each other, there's still the possibility of heartbreak. But by choosing to be in a relationship that's you you choose to accept that risk. Same thing, like, if you drive your car, you you know you're as vigilant as possible, you do your due diligence, you check the wheel nuts on your car every time to make sure the rims don't fall off.
Speaker 2:You still might, might, get T-boned by some dick at some point Right, and so it's like there's a, there's a risk that comes with driving your car Right, and so I think it's just about. You know, very often in the training industry when people get injured, we're like, ah, and it's like if they had done all of these things differently, you know they would have predictably not had this outcome. And we just can't always say that, can't always say that. It's usually just a little bit more complex or nuanced than sometimes we're led to believe.
Speaker 1:There's already such, especially if we're talking about athletes. There's a pressure right. I feel like most of us get into sport, whatever sport of choice, maybe for passion, for competition, for that pursuit of mastery or changing ourselves or whatever you want to call it, whatever drives you. But there's also this sense of responsibility. I know most people work really hard at what they're trying to do and they take it really personally. It's like no, you couldn't control all of it and I feel it's dangerous, as you know me with my overthinking anxiety. It's like there's only that in itself has created a stress. Sometimes it's not helpful for my head to spin so much and I have to kind of breathe and just accept what might come, because you can do the best you can and be prepared and then just accept that the rest just is.
Speaker 1:It's a lobby and if you are putting yourself in, especially in a game environment that you can't control, like you were saying, with your shoe, but in competition, maybe there's someone, maybe they tackled you weird, maybe a running trail has something you weren't anticipating. You can't predict everything and you can't also take it personally, because stuff sometimes happens and I'm glad that you brought that up, because I do actually have noticed that narrative, that there's this like well, you sucked, you didn't do this properly, that's why you're injured, that happening a lot, and it's like, well, you're already not feeling maybe the best If you have an injury. You're probably frustrated because you can't execute your sport to the capacity that you want and you're sitting on the sidelines already a little bit anxious. And this is just feeding the not so healthy parts of your brain because then now you feel like you failed yourself.
Speaker 2:I think you know, I think both things are potentially true. It's like in life, like I think we also there's a little bit of a psychological tendency to view two things that seem like they're in conflict, and we we tend to view them as being mutually exclusive. I think it's a valid question to ask ourselves, like is there anything that I missed? So that way we can potentially refine and do things better. And there's a type of therapy that I find really fascinating, called DBT dialectical behavioral therapy and it talks about how things that seem like they're in conflict with each other can coexist.
Speaker 2:To come back to your example of like hey, you got injured, You're an idiot, you should have done differently. I don't think that the right thing to do is to just cut ourselves some slack and to not learn from it. I think that we should try to learn from it because there are controllables there. So, yeah, what were the things within your control? Were there any? Examine it? Can you make any different decisions? If not, like if it's outside of your control, then all of the stuff that's outside of your control you need to let go.
Speaker 2:So I think both are true.
Speaker 2:Like be diligent in your assessment while also concurrently not suffering and beating yourself up over things that were never within your control in the first place.
Speaker 2:It's like, you know, like people whose whose mood is so swayed by the weather and they're like, they're bummed out that it's raining and it's like you can't control that, Like, like adding further suffering to the fact that it's raining is outside of your control.
Speaker 2:I think you should just accept the fact that it's raining and put on some fucking rain boots. You know, in contrast to like hoping, looking at the sky and being like change please, Like it's not within your control. You have, you have no say, and so let it go. What you do control are the quality of your rain boots, you know, the quality of your rain jacket and maybe the activities that you choose to do on those days, Right? So I think there's some interesting, there's some interesting things there, but yeah, I think that, like, generally, generally speaking, like there are certain things that are outside of your control and there are things that are within your control, and you know, as an athlete, whether it be professional or recreational, like your job is to just try to control the controllables, optimize what you can and let go of the rest.
Speaker 1:Again, very good point and you saw me like smirking as you were talking. I feel like a pep talk is appropriate. Are you about?
Speaker 2:to give me a pep talk.
Speaker 1:Et, because let's call myself out my Achilles injuries were very much my. It was a consequence of my choices. It wasn't like a one-time thing that I tripped over something that appeared out of nowhere. It was hey, I'm not recovering, I'm not sleeping well, I'm not cooking my own food. I'm very, very stressed. I'm going through an actual burnout. I'm not. I'm very, you know, emotional and I'm still adding to my stress bucket by doing Muay Thai, which is a highly stressful, explosive sport. And then I'm adding to my stress bucket by doing Muay Thai, which is a highly stressful, explosive sport, and then I'm shocked that my Achilles are, you know, an overuse injury or have Achilles tendonitis. So in this context, I did it, I did it to myself.
Speaker 1:A slice of humble pie. But yeah, a hundred percent it goes hand in hand. I think what I was saying earlier is that A hundred percent it goes hand in hand. I think what I was saying earlier is that more of the example of in rugby or running, you can't, you can't control that your shoe snapped or if someone tackles you. Funny, that's kind of what I meant. So I love that you're saying that it's both of them. It's the, it's the controlling the controllables and releasing the rest. What can you?
Speaker 2:learn from the situation.
Speaker 1:If you can learn something, great. If you can't, and there's nothing you can shift or nothing you can read or no action you can take, then it just is like raining we can't prevent the rain, but you can get better rain boots, like you said. So absolutely 100%. Very well said, very well said, and also, uh, yeah, this is a good pep talk. At the same time, I'm like are you using me as an example? Cause you.
Speaker 2:I wasn't but uh, but the fact that you felt targeted is quite revealing.
Speaker 1:Oh, calls me out even more. We've been. We spent the past few minutes talking about the stress bucket and the controllable. So, building on that, how do we encourage these athletes that are very much pushing themselves through challenges to slow down, to maybe shift priorities, maybe scale back training intensity or adjust RPs? What would be your advice to that humility?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I think first off, it's just like just don't lose sight of what you're at or what you're aiming towards. So I mean, I'll use myself as an example, if I can, to perhaps make this concrete. Like within within a year, it's not uncommon for people to have like an a race, a b race and like a c race, so multiple different events. The a race is, of course, the most important. The B and the C are less important. Nice to haves, you know, sometimes they're a part of the plan and sometimes, like in terms of training, sometimes they're just fun. The B's and the C's are not the goal. The goal is the A right. And so if you're aiming for your A event or your A race and you're pushing too hard on your B's and C's, or as you're training for your B's and C's, and you potentially injure yourself and you compromise your A, like you've lost sight of what matters the most to you. So I think the first thing is just like don't lose sight of what matters, like, what's your goal? Are you looking to train indefinitely for a really long period of time, or are you looking to peak for a certain event? And I think that that is going to influence the strategy. You know, because, because, also, like, leading up to like, let's say, you're a event, it's not uncommon for people to be in functional overreaching right and they're pushing, and they're pushing and they are absolutely redlining with stressors because they know that in four days their taper starts or their deload starts and then they're going to have this huge super compensation leading to hopefully, knock on wood peak performance on the day of the event. Right, but what determines whether or not you will allow perhaps for that, or if you would dial it back earlier and coast more, is what's your goal and what are you aiming towards? That's, honestly, I think, the foundation of it. It provides the context for all of those decisions.
Speaker 2:And then also, and then the other piece is if you don't like it, grow up. You know a little bit of tough love, but fucking grow up. If there's something that you like and you're having a little bit of a moment because you don't like it, because you want to keep pushing, yeah, I think there's a little bit of maturing to do as an athlete. Don't lose sight of what you want. Dial back here so you can go hard here. You said that that's what you wanted over there. So like this strategically is the thing that makes sense, and sometimes people just need to kind of learn how to deal with that, because athletes or athletic folks who like performing at a high level all the time sometimes get addicted to those feelings all the time and they don't like taking breaks. And I get that. I totally understand, I've been there myself and it's also potentially counterproductive, right. So it just depends on just depends on your goal. I think it all starts there.
Speaker 1:Great, good advice and I love that you were talking about the specific races.
Speaker 1:So whether, if we kind of go back to the beginning of the call, when we were talking about the different sports so many of them, I think, have that built in you were saying where you can set certain goals and have a specific race you're training for and then you have a rest or recovery, like you have a season, an on-season, a pre-season, an off-season.
Speaker 1:Whether it's running like you know you're doing marathon training you obviously are not doing all of the mileage and peaking simultaneously all year long specific structure you're working towards in order to accomplish so, whether it's running, whether it's all field sports there's fields, there's basketball, hockey everything has a season, the one sport and I wanted to get your take on this. I think it was an episode I had with bar, who's a nutritionist from Australia and he is a black belt in jujitsu, and in that episode we were talking about how, in combat sports that doesn't necessarily have a built-in structure, like there isn't an off-season and on-season, it just is, and so there is some. Again, this is a general statement that a lot of fighters feel like they should always be ready for a fight, and he was suggesting that we should sort of build in the seasons like pick, pick them. You can't be fighting every week at that high competition. What would be the mindset that you would suggest for athletes in this context, for mindset for preseason, off season, off season?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, I mean, I think like it's almost the same answer of what I said earlier. I think it's just it's like what is your goal? Is your goal if we're using jujitsu? Is your goal to just roll daily because you like the sport and you want to just roll daily all the time? You like the exertion, you like, you know, you love the discipline of jujitsu or BJJ Amazing, go for it, no problem.
Speaker 2:If, at any point, however, you choose to compete, it would probably then be wise, leading up to it, to not go into the event with a lot of fatigue, because fatigue is going to mask performance, right. So like, if you're really really really strong and you're really skilled, but you're also really really really fatigued, like your training, performance isn't as good. So if you want to, if you want to compete and be competitive probably shouldn't be dragging with you a whole bunch of fatigue going into this thing as much as possible. So then there you have a taper, and so now we're already just in doing that. We're starting to structure a program in a manner where you have a quote, unquote, maybe not an off season, but we're starting to become a little bit more intentional and you can pull on that thread a lot where you'd be just years where you know I, what was that guy? I sharpened the ax or I sharpened the sword and I just I just train, train, train. Maybe I do a recreational comp here or there to not lose my edge, so to speak, when I'm in the ring or when I'm on the mat with somebody. But like, I'm not going to go super hard necessarily in those, in those, uh, during those competitions, because I don't want to get injured, because I'm aiming for something in 2027. I think it all just flows outwards from goals, you know. So if someone has a goal, it is in their interest to be intentional in terms of how they're structuring their training.
Speaker 2:Just because things have been done a certain way for an extended period of time doesn't mean that that's the right thing to do and it doesn't mean that things can't be improved upon. There's a quote that one of my first mentors told me from Edward de Bono, which is that it is historical continuity that maintains the greatest assumptions, not the repeated assessment of its validity. So it's a little bit of a word salad, but it essentially means historical continuity is the thing that lead, that can lead people astray, because it just, you know, the herd follows the herd and potentially the blind follow the blind. You just keep doing things that people have been doing for years. But if you examine it, it might not actually still hold up as being best practice. And I think that going hard all year and not giving yourself tapers and stuff like that is likely not the best approach If you're looking to optimize your performance for for a fight, for a show, for anything, any type of peaking event in a sport. And there's, there's, there are, you know, like, as people say, success leaves clues.
Speaker 2:If you look at pro level athletes, I'm certain, I'm absolutely certain, that there's some form.
Speaker 2:Even though sometimes their training looks absolutely ridiculous, I'm certain that there's some form of tapering and intentionality behind what they're doing, even like NBA players, like off season training really hard during the season when they're accumulating a lot of fatigue. Guess what they pull back on? They pull back on their training because they don't want, because they don't want to accumulate a lot of fatigue. So maybe their training looks a lot like heavy triples, heavy fives at RPE, seven or eight, so high intensity, but not accumulating a lot of fatigue as a means of, like, maintaining maximal strength. But you know, but they're dialing back the total volume as a means of like maintaining maximal strength. But they're dialing back the total volume as a means of like not fatiguing the athlete to a greater degree and it being a net detriment to their training performance. For me, it just it seems self-evident that, having slight undulations to training volume that are done somewhat intentionally or intentionally and that reflect the goals, I can't see why that wouldn't apply in the fighting world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I love that Great. Another thing to validate that I appreciate your thoughts on that. I guess simpler terminology for exactly what you just said goes back to that. Hey, we're human, we do things in seasons.
Speaker 2:Hey, we're human.
Speaker 1:We do things in seasons. You can't be on all the time, you can't be operating at 100. Scale it back so you can have that slingshot effect when necessary and you can plan for it Totally. Something's got to give, and if you're constantly doing it back to the force and the tolerance from the beginning of the episode, at some point it's going to snap, because even the strongest, there's only so much you can do until it breaks, and either you choose, you choose one to pull back or you double down on it until it decides to literally snap on you. Um, whether that's your goal or your bone? Hopefully not. Hopefully it's not your. Whether that's your goal or your bone? Hopefully not, hopefully it's not your elbow.
Speaker 1:That's disgusting, no great. And let's wrap up with how you're applying that for yourself, because you started talking to us about the strength training and hypertrophy for aesthetics, but you're also talking about the 51k trail running coming up. So I'm just curious how what your training looks like in making sure that the two of those are a priority Like. How are you, how are you navigating that with everything we've talked about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's tough. I'm still kind of trying to figure that out. I currently I'm very deconditioned in relation to where I have been. It's been a challenging year, as you know. You and I have chatted about that stuff off off camera, off camera on many, many occasions, and so my training has really taken a hit.
Speaker 2:So I'm in the process of building up again and doing general strength training with some kind of specific additions, while also as a means of supporting the demands of lots of elevation gain specifically, while also concurrently kind of like starting to build the aerobic engine again. Excuse me. So what does this look like Right now? It looks like on average, my target is to run various intensities and durations three times a week at this point and kind of building up to that over the past month. So I'm back up to three times a week and then my strength training target is two times a week minimum. And then the third is kind of bonus, where if I don't feel like I'm dragging a whole bunch of fatigue at that point and I feel like I can without it compromising the following week, then I can go in and do a little bit of extra stuff.
Speaker 2:But my, my, like my a day and my B day for strength training is where, like the majority of the meat and potatoes are, both days are total body splits. I have some lower body stuff. I have some upper body stuff because right now my body, my minimum effective dose to progress is actually quite low, which is great because of because of how deconditioned I am at this point. So fortunately it doesn't, it's not taking me a ton to progress, so I don't need to redline it and be super sore. So so I've got two total body days, my A day and my B day, and I'm just gradually aiming to progressively increase volume, sets, reps, loads, et cetera.
Speaker 2:Once again, depending on how I'm feeling, not like feeling like emotions, but how am I feeling? How did I respond? How did I respond from that past session? Was I really fatigued from it? Was I really sore from it? How was my training last week? And all that stuff together helps inform the modifications that you might make to your training now in this week, you know, keeping in mind that still the priority is trying to accumulate mileage or for you know Canadian folks, kilometers for, actually for the majority of the world, kilometers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Americans, but I'm just so used to saying mileage. I don't know why, but you know, goal is to accumulate time on my feet and to build capacity within the tissues that are loaded with running. That's not your biceps, right? That's not your deltoids, it's not your abdominals, it's like achilles, soleusus, gastroc, quads, quad tendon, ankle stuff, midfoot, those are the big ones. So I'm looking to build capacity within those regions, within running specifically, and also building the aerobic engine. And then, like I mentioned, when it comes to my strength training, I also add in some calf raise or heel raise exercises. I've got some some work specifically. That's looking to like bias, post-tib, anterior tib, like tibialis posterior and tibialis anterior, those types of things as a means of just like trying to build up capacity within the areas that are going to get the shit kicked out of them in July. And so that's that's how I'm approaching it right now.
Speaker 2:It's also the one, the other challenges we were talking about human first, athlete second earlier. This is the busiest I've ever been in my life and my career as well. So finding ways to balance, trying to get in that kind of training volume with my workload right now is really difficult and I am not perfect at all really difficult, and I am not perfect at all Like, right now I'm hitting. I'm hitting 50 to 60% of my targets on average, and it's like changing week by week, and so I'm still learning to try to figure out, like, what is this going to? What does this need to look like? Right now, I'm still kind of stumbling through that at this point. But you know, one of the big things to consider is just like, how do you make decisions with regards to this stuff?
Speaker 2:Training performance is a really big one, and if training performance progressively over time is increasing, that's a really good sign, right? Whereas if you feel like you're getting worse over time, you're super tired, et cetera, like that's an indicator that you need to change your inputs. So it's one of the metrics that I track on a. Once again, I aim to do this on a weekly basis. I'm sure I've stumbled over the past little while, but the goal is to track training performance regularly. Look at the weights I'm lifting Are those trending in a good direction? How are things going with my running? Is that going in a good direction? How am I recovering? How am I sleeping Right? Gathering that data as a means of informing, like. Do I need to change? Do I need to change my inputs? But it's not perfect by any stretch. Right now it's the most complex my training's ever been. There's so many different things competing for time and attention right now. So it's been tough, but that's at least what it looks like right now.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate well, not surprising, but I appreciate your humility on it and just the rawness and the reality. It's like you're doing all of these things and you're the expert on certain topics, but you're still constantly a student for life and the feedback loop you were talking about. It's like you're checking in all the time because or else you end up with some of the themes we talked about that you get is too far, you haven't checked in, you're pushing something too far without having any of that data gathered, like you were mentioning, and then you look back you're like, oh crap, I should have made this decision many weeks ago. Oops, so it's great that you're doing that check in and thank you for sharing your humility on how you're managing this because I know I'm I'm excited with all the goals you've ever set.
Speaker 1:I've seen you, I've seen you check them off and demolish them, so I know with this one coming up and all the other ones on your plate. You will also check off. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I appreciate the vote of confidence.
Speaker 1:That'll be really fun. I'll just have a, like an epic sign, just like me, one of the people screaming Fuck man.
Speaker 2:Well, we've talked about you making your way down to Switzerland at some point, and I think at one point we had even thrown out the idea of it maybe being in July, uh, on a race weekend, which would be really funny. You, just, you would see me just like in the pit of hurt, you know, depending on where you're at on the, on the course, of course, but uh, I mean, if you're at the beginning or the end, usually people are fine. It's, it's like a third halfway, two thirds like oh, it's rough, it's pretty rough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you don't see the face that people are making, when you're constantly arguing with yourself like why did I do this? What is wrong with me? What idiot made this choice? And you're like I did, I did, I chose this A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:I chose this thing. Well, you know it's funny. That's actually the thing that I think, for me, is the most helpful with running is that in many ways, I don't I don't love it. In many ways, I still don't, like, sometimes I do, the vast majority of the time I don't, I don't love it. In many ways I still don't, like, sometimes I do, the vast majority of the time I don't. And what it reveals, though, through that kind of as you're wrestling with that, you're wrestling with your own mind and like.
Speaker 2:That's the part that, for me, is, I think the most helpful with running is that I get to kind of, um, I get to wrestle with myself, I get to beat the shit out of myself a little bit. It sounds really weird psychologically, but like in, in, in some ways I find it. It makes me better. It gives me the opportunity to like process stuff, call me out on my bullshit, um, well, you know. And also, concurrently, like, you get to like build fitness and you get to like see really, really cool things using nothing but your legs.
Speaker 2:That's pretty rad as well, and there's been interesting transfers, but truly on a day-to-day basis, the greatest gift that running gives me is that I it's like jujitsu, me and my inner, my inner bitch just, and I get to like wrestle with it and and usually I win. But they show up again the next day and and it's, it's a completely different opponent and you wrestle, you wrestle, you wrestle, and I think that that's at least for me, that's the thing, that's the um, I think the the best, the greatest returns from running have been that, I would say, or one of the greatest returns. So it's kind of interesting. You brought that up earlier.
Speaker 1:And I relate also. I mean I would say any if it's running, whatever sport, whatever sports is your vice Cause. Ultimately, like from the very first episode you and I talked about on this podcast, was about just the beauty of what the body can do. And it's really cool because when you start somewhere and then you're pushing, and then it's through training and you see your capacity and intolerance and you continue and then you see you're capable of something else that you didn't think you were capable of.
Speaker 1:Something like hey setting up for a marathon and a year later running it in in Italy or you know, now the goal gets bigger and every time that line moves with you because you're more capable than you thought you were. And then now the goal has gotten, you know, we move that goal, we move that goalpost, and I completely relate and, uh, that's how we've managed to make. You know, I feel I actually really look forward to our episodes, because it's like a little recap of all of our fitness goals and where we're going.
Speaker 1:Sure yeah, because just seeing where we've gone personal our own fitness goals, our own business goals and like the journey we've been on and also with our clients and the impact that we have made in our little corner of this industry has been just wonderful. It just warms my heart and I'm really really grateful because this wouldn't have even started without you pushing that button to challenge my capacity. You were my first, you were my very first guest, because you know this was something that was important to me.
Speaker 1:So all of that, to say we're doing it, we're doing it. And to everyone listening. You are also capable of doing it day by day. Start somewhere and you will just astound yourself to see what you're capable of doing.
Speaker 2:So ET thank you so much for your time and for your energy.
Speaker 1:Is there anything you want to leave our listeners with One more golden nugget?
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, just to kind of piggyback on what you were saying. I agree, I think that the things that you accept about yourself as being true, like the limits that you accept about yourself that seem solid, are usually smoke and mirrors Doesn't mean that you need to challenge all of them, but I think that you will. It's possible that you may stumble upon at some point some kind of belief that you hold about yourself and and personally you know that might be holding you back. That's getting in the way of you doing something that might be interesting and fulfilling, and I and I absolutely encourage you to challenge it, commit to the process and to realize, like P2 said, that you're so much more adaptable and capable that you are. To bring it back to one of the things that we talked about earlier, this idea of like dialectical behavioral therapy and how two things can be true at once, even though they seem like they're opposites. It can be true that you currently suck at something at this point in time. Maybe you're atrocious at it and maybe you're the worst in the world. Even that is very possible. And it is also possible and I would say, arguably, objectively true that you are adaptable and you have the ability to learn when you apply yourself. Both are true. And so, yes, you suck and you can learn. Yes, you suck and you can get better. And it just seems to be, I think, like it is our nature. Our nature is that we are fundamentally adaptable, not that we are inherently rigid as we dare to kind of push up against those things, not knowing what you'll find.
Speaker 2:Generally speaking, it tends to be really fruitful for people, because then they realize, holy fuck, I am more capable than I previously thought and what else can I do? And this is one of the reasons why I love exercise so much. And what we do as trainers is because I'm sure you've seen this so many times throughout your career where clients come in and they have these huge aha moments with something as simple as a deadlift or a pushup, and and they start to believe in themselves because, like they've, they've learned that they are stronger, more resilient than they previously thought. Or they've learned through the training journey that that, even though they may suck at something in a very real sense right now, that if they, when they apply themselves, that they can get better, and so for a lot of people that can be very liberating. So to P2's point. You know, if you have that itch like lean in because you don't know what you'll find, Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Thank you, et, for your time, for your wisdom, and I'll see you in Switzerland.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, I'll see you soon, and if I don't, hopefully I'll talk to you again prior to the next time that we see each other.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not show up on the race day. I won't say anything.
Speaker 2:I'm just going to be there at the sign, that'd be funny.
