Don't Talk About it

Be about it

[latius-humerum]

Training Tuesday #1: The importance of identifying and refining your primary training goals

When planning a new training block for yourself, or someone else for that matter, probably the first thing to consider is what your training goals are. The goals of your training and the relative importance of each one will inform how you structure your training from month to week to day. Training goals can start off general, but the more specific you can get them in the end the more you will be able to draw from them during planning. For the purpose of this post, I will be using the process I recently undertook when planning my own training as an example.

So let’s look at what general training goals can look like. In my case I wrote a list of general training goals that started like this:

Reduce body fat %

Improve mobility and joint health

Increase Strength

Muscle Hypertrophy

These goals were the most general I could come up with that still gave me some useful framework. I also arranged them in order of importance to me. This ordering is quite crucial, as even before we apply any more specificity to the goals we can draw these conclusions. I am willing to sacrifice some strength, hypertrophy and mobility to reduce my body fat (to a certain extent). I am also willing to sacrifice some strength and muscle gains to improve my joint health and mobility. These are important distinctions to make, as they will impact how you set up training and your expectations of your performance in that training. Already I know that I am willing to sustain some poorer workouts due to dieting. I am also willing to do mobility work before my workouts to improve form on exercises even if it means slightly worse strength on the lifts. Fat loss being a primary goal is also telling that I will most likely be doing some cardio work. So, now we have that in mind, lets look at how I specified my goals further:

Reduce body fat %

Don’t drop more than 0.5-1kg (1-2 pounds) of weight a week

Improve mobility and joint health

Focus on hips

Focus on shoulders

Increase strength

Focus on bodyweight strength

Focus on compound lifts

Muscle Hypertrophy

Focus on medial and posterior deltoids

Focus on Legs

Focus on core

Here is the first round of refining finished. Immediately we can see I wanted to diet slowly so as to put as little detriment on my goals of strength and hypertrophy. I know some red flags will be going off here, as many people will know it is very difficult, or impossible depending on the scientific literature you cite, to gain muscle and strength while losing fat. However, in my case it was possible as I was coming back from a period of injury and detraining, so I could expect some gains while cutting. Next we can see the most important part of my mobility was freeing up my hips, mainly to allow me to squat with proper form. Second were my shoulders to make sure I maintained my health while coming back to bench. For my strength, I was content in building back a base of power to bodyweight first and foremost, but also starting to grove back in the big important lifts like bench press, squat, overhead press and the deadlift. Lastly I deemed my underdeveloped medial and posterior deltoids were of the greatest concern for hypertrophy followed by my legs and core. As you can probably see, my hypertrophy goals reflect my strength goals (better core and legs the most important for compound lifts). While my strength goals feed into my mobility goals, better bodyweight strength and compound lifts come from good form (i.e. mobility).

So what can these more specific goals add to our already forming idea of what my training will look like? Well we know i’ll probably do some cardio for fat loss, but now we know I want to minimise impact on other goals of training, we can see it will be low impact. We can tell that proper form will be very important to my training, as will the big compound barbell movements. Finally there will be plenty of bodyweight conditioning work and hypertrophy exercises focused on the shoulder complex, legs and core.  Let’s move onto the final step of refining my training goals:

Reduce body fat %

Don’t drop more than 0.5-1kg (1-2 pounds) of weight a week

Use minimal cardio (use higher volume but lower impact weight sessions to expend more calories)

Improve mobility and joint health

Focus on hips

Foam roll to break up tight tissue

Long warm up

Focus on shoulders

Foam roll to break up tight tissue

Long warm up

Increase strength

Focus on bodyweight strength

Pull ups

Push ups

Plank

Focus on compound lifts

Squat

Bench

OHP

Dead Lift

Muscle Hypertrophy

Focus on medial and posterior deltoids

Higher volume

Focus on Legs

Hamstrings predominantly

Focus on core

Some weighted training

So here is what my final list looked like. As you can see by refining my training goals I was able to get a much greater level of control in my planning. Not only this, but I was also able to realise what things I was willing to sacrifice for others. This final set of specific training goals led me to the training format below.

  Monday

AM: Slow walk + Bodyweight (short)

 MID: Gym: Legs

PM: Bodyweight (short)

Tuesday

AM: Slow walk + Bodyweight (short)

MID: Gym: Back + Biceps

PM: Bodyweight (short)

Wednesday

AM: Slow walk + Bodyweight (short)

MID: Gym: Chest + Shoulders

PM: Bodyweight (short)

Thursday

AM: Slow walk + Bodyweight (short)

MID: Gym: Legs

PM: Bodyweight (short)

Friday

AM: Slow walk + Bodyweight (short)

MID: Gym: Back + Biceps

PM: Bodyweight (short)

Saturday

AM: Slow walk + Bodyweight (short)

MID: Gym: Shoulders + Chest

PM: Bodyweight (short)

Sunday

Rest 

I want to emphasise, I was not pushing balls out in these training sessions. I was keeping in control and not going to failure on more than a few sets. This was because I was dieting (reduced recovery), training with a high volume and frequency in order to expend calories and get back into the neural patterning of exercises. I won’t go into detail of my specific sessions as I am mindful of this posts length.  I think my point about why and how to use training goals to inform planning has been illustrated already and I also want to save those details for other posts about training topics.

I hope this will be resourceful in your next planning session when you are trying to hammer out a new schedule for yourself.

Stay focused, train hard but always plan smart.

-          D.G

[latius-humerum]

Motivation Monday #1: A champion acts in the now!

As much as planning, goal setting and long term vision are important to a life of success, none of them are as important as your ability to live and act predominantly in the moment. When it comes down to it, life is simply an endless stretch of concurrent moments and it is your small decisions on how to spend those moments that will end up shaping your future. It is my opinion that the sense of narrative we all have about our lives to this point is simply a product of our mind’s attempt to make coherence and sense of the world. Despite this, most people fall into the trap of trying to plan or envision their future by the same narrative structure. I believe this fails to grasp the importance of acting within the moment and making small but important decisions.

I want to offer you a new way of thinking that has helped me greatly in the last few months. Often times, when I used to set out on a new epic undertaking, I would after a few weeks of great motivation, fall into a slump due to the enormousness of the task I had set. I would quickly talk myself out of hard tasks by thinking, “even if I do this, which will be hard, I will still have to do it for the next 10 years to achieve something”. This constant looking towards the distant future was killing my motivation to act in the now and do what I needed to do. It is easy to be discouraged by a big goal, but instead of setting smaller ones I want to offer you a new way to think day to day, moment to moment.

It all boils down to one simple question you have to ask yourself over and over and over each day.

“What can I do right now, that will make me a little better than I was yesterday?”

Could you eat a little healthier? Could you do a few more reps in the gym? What about a few more minutes on your run? Note how none of these have anything to do with being perfect, or reaching an end goal. You don’t have to hit a PR every day, or eat better than your best day previously to reach your goals. What you do have to do is make the conscious effort to act in the now and focus on doing small things that will make you just a tiny bit better every day.

My favourite quote which reflects this sentiment is from Will Smith. He says, "you don't set out to build a wall. You don't say 'I'm going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that's ever been built.' You don't start there. You say, 'I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. You do that every single day. And soon you have a wall."

Build upon each small victory and gain momentum. Always be asking “what can I do now to be a tiny bit better?” If you ingrain this mantra you will slowly turn into a person who is always growing, sometimes it will be fast and sometimes it will be slow. But ultimately it is not the speed that is most important but the general trajectory of our actions.

Be consistent, be observant and be a little better each and every day!

[latius-humerum]

Social Sunday #1: A comprehensive guide to communication theory and listening

Listening is a skill of vital importance, we use it every day and it is essential not only for acquiring information but also for building and maintain healthy relationships. Whether at work, home or school listening is a gateway to greater success. Despite this, most of the information on the web about listening is either superficial or impractical. This post will operate as a comprehensive overview of listening; its importance, its neglect, its theoretical basis and most importantly how we can be better at it! This post will be quite long, but it will be divided by sub-headings. If you are short on time or simply want to read specific parts then feel free to scroll and navigate by those.

...

The importance of listening and its neglect in modern life:

As with all things we publish on our blog, we aim to give not just our own opinions or feelings, but also a synthesis of the academic discourse surrounding that topic. In this case I will be justifying the importance of listening from empirical research done in the Social Sciences, most notably communication theory.

“Listening is the quintessential positive interpersonal communication behaviour” and is vitally important in relationships from early childhood all the way through adult life (Bodie, 2009; Myers, 2000; Notarius & Herrick, 1988). Good Listening listening is an important aspect of parenting (Duancan, Coatsworth & Greenberg, 2009), marital relationships (Pasupathi, Crstensen, Levenson & Gottman, 1999), salesperson performance (Castleberry & Shepherd, 1993), customer satisfaction (de Ruyter & Wetzels, 2000), and healthcare provision (Watanuki, Tracy & Lindquist, 2006); the list is endless, as is the empirical research to back such claims as evidenced in the brackets. Furthermore, good listeners are more liked, rated as more attractive (argyle & Cook, 1976), and gamer more trust (Mechanic & Meyer, 2000) than those less proficient. They have higher academic motivation and achievement (Imhof, 2001; Schrodt, Wheeless & Ptacek, 2000), better socio-emotional development (Jalongo, 2010), and higher likelihood of upward mobility in the workplace (Sypher, Bostrum &Seibert, 1989). Basically, listening is essential for success – it’s just that simple.

Despite such overwhelming evidence in its favour, listening has always been neglected in academia and more broadly, in life. This is a phenomenon which has only worsened in modern times. Writing, speaking and reading have always trumped listening in the educational arena (Jalongo, 2010). These other skills are the informative and expressive skills, but more than this, they are far more tangible. It is easy to define criteria for a good writer, a good speaker and a good reader. Being a good listener on the other hand is more complex to judge and also much harder to teach. Subsequently, listening is a selfless skill, it demands you give up attention and place it on someone else. It means you give up your time to offer solace or solution for a problem or feeling not your own. Some find this natural, but many (like me) do not. Finally, listening is being neglected and we are becoming worse at it due to social media and the technological revolution. The actual amount of verbal communication we have face to face is declining in time spent, and in quality due to the constant distractions of phones and other devices. All of these factors have combined to make the modern man or women a poor listener with fewer avenues for improvement.

Never fear, this is where we at Recta Via come in. Throughout the rest of this post I will lay the ground work for identifying what theory underlies communication between people, thus, how we can become better listeners and reap all the rewards that come with doing so.

Basic communication theory:

When people communicate it is through a process of expressing wants, thoughts and feelings by speaking and through listening and understanding what others express to us. The motive to communicate is the fulfilment of perceived needs and in deciding to communicate the person selects a code which they communicate. The code is used in the belief it will effectively express and deliver what they have to say. This code is both verbal and non-verbal and when the other person receives it they go through a process of trying to interpret this code to achieve an understanding of the message. Thus, effective communication exists when the receiver interprets and understands the message in the same way that the sender intended it.

From this basic theory we can already see that real life communication can diverge from this greatly. There are a large list of factors that can limit communication which originate at both the speaker and the listener; language, lack of clarity by the speaker, distractions, opposing personal viewpoints or beliefs and the speaker not clearly knowing what they actually want to express are all examples of these difficulties. By simply thinking of difficulties either party could have, and then actively limiting the ones we have control over is one simple way to improve communication, which we will come back to later. However, we are focussing on listening and what we can do individually to better interpret and understand the coded messages we receive. More than this we are seeking to make our understanding known to those who speak to us.

Listening models:

To improve as listeners the first thing we must do is better understand ourselves, specifically to be more aware of our state as listeners. This will come through a knowledge of the three basic listening models; competitive, passive and active listening.

Competitive listening exists when our state is focussed on our own view point. We listen for openings to take the floor or to rebut and attack the person we listen to. This can either be argumentative or if you simply are a naturally conversationally dominant. This is obviously a negative model as you will either actively ignore the other person due to be on the opposing side of an argument, or you will not give them full attention as you plot your points and ideas in your head for when it is your turn.

Passive listening exists when we are genuinely interested in hearing the other person, but we assume we heard and understand them correctly. This is by far the most common form of listening, it is a neutral state, where we want to connect but are simply not doing enough as a listener to create a connection beyond simple understanding.

Active listening exists when we are genuinely interested but are also active in checking our understanding is correct. More than this we also restate, paraphrase or reflect the speaker’s ideas back to them to communicate this understanding and verify it. This verification and subsequent communication is what distinguishes this model. It is also what establishes it as the best listening approach. A small note must be made, which is this form of listening fails if we spend too much mental capacity trying to reflect ideas back and therefore don’t fully engage with those same ideas. Just like all things, you will improve with conscious practice of this skill.

Levels of communication:

Now that we have covered the basic theory with a focus on our own state as listeners we can move toward better understanding others when they speak. The first thing to recognise is that conversation between people comes in recognisable levels. The levels are as follows;

Clichés

Facts

Thoughts and beliefs

Feeling sand emotions

As a listener we must work to recognise these levels and respond appropriately. If we do not meet the speaker on the level they feel most relevant we will not understand them fully, and risk upsetting them. For example, if your wife or girlfriend comes to you with hurt feelings and you try to only focus on the facts of the situation she will most likely become more upset. Likewise, if a man asks you the time on the street and you begin to ask him about how he is feelings today he will most likely be frustrated and uncomfortable. Here we can see how not operating on the same level as your counterpart will cause awkward or hurtful social situations. As a listener it is your job to decode what message is coming from and then choose the level that is most relevant. It must be noted that understanding and being on the same level are not the same as agreeing with them. It is perfectly fine as a listener to have an opposing view, it simply means you must use empathy to try and see things from their perspective and then off your view in a way that will not be offensive or aggressive. Communication becomes more complex as levels are moved through in different parts of a conversation. Often people lay down facts first before expressing thoughts and then explaining how this made them feel. Being able to follow these changes up and down the levels will make you a far better listener, and simply being aware that they exist is the first step. The next step is conscious practice practice.

Goals of the speaker:

We have already discussed that we communicate to fulfil a need, now we can look at this in more detail. As speakers we have several motives or goals, the vast array of these can be condensed into three distinct categories.

Emotional goals: when we want to express a feeling in order to gain some emotional relief, we want to feel better or at least feel understood.

Practical goals: when we want help solving a problem, we want a solution that can be put into action.

Relational goals: when we want to change the way someone acts around us, be that the listener or someone they know well enough to help us achieve this.

Identifying which of these goals the speaker is trying to achieve will make it far easier to help them, which in turn will help strengthen your relationships. So how can we recognise each one? Well first the setting of the conversation and who it is with is the first indicator. If it is with a work colleague not during a break it is most likely going to be practical, just as if it is with an upset family member it is most likely going to be emotional. The language they use and the level on which they communicate is also another great indicator. However, as with all things the theory will be far simpler than its application, each conversation may move through several goals and levels simultaneously. Practice, practice and more practice is the key.

Recommendations:

Here is a list of simple and more practical tips that can help you become a better listener, these are all based on the theory we have covered in the rest of this post.

When listening be sure you are in the active model, unless it is a formal debate or argument when you can assume the competitive model (see relevant section for more information).

You can reflect more than just the words you hear, you may also reflect;

Thoughts and beliefs

Feelings

Wants or motivations

Hopes and expectations

Do not answer questions immediately, they may be rhetorical or being used to express something rather than actually seeking an answer.

Know when to stop reflecting and start contributing to the discussion. Don’t hide behind the active listening model to avoid voicing your own opinions, be honest.

If you feel you do not understand the person, do not stay quiet, ask them or paraphrase the understanding you have and see if they correct you.

Eye contact and body language are extremely important! Remember the ‘coded message’ can be non-verbal so make sure to pay attention to both yours and the speakers non-verbal queues.

Do not be judgemental; try to empathise with their position even if you do not explicitly agree. This is one of the hardest things to master, as is sensing when it is time to speak up and offer a different view.

Limit all barriers to communication that you can control:

Remove distractions

Remove noise interference

Be fully present

The focus must be on the person speaking, not on your own thoughts

Do not interrupt the speaker, wait for natural gaps in the conversation to reflect

Ask questions that prompt a deeper response

How do you feel about that?

What would you like to have happened?

Why does it bother you so much?

Etc...

Avoid these (condescending) phrases:

Are you sure?

It’s not that bad

Sleep on it

Do your best

It’s OK it’ll get better

Conclusion:

Listening is a crucially important skill that we as a society have become worse at. There is a lack of academic and empirical based articles on how to improve at this skill. This post aims to operate as a comprehensive guide to understanding communication better and more specifically, being a better listener. I hope that through reading this you feel as though you have some new tools with which to improve your work and home life, but this is not a magic wand. You must consciously practice these skills in order to improve and reap the rewards of being a great communicator.

[latius-humerum]

Blog Schedule

Alright, here is my rather ambitious posting schedule for this blog. I will be posting daily, each day covering a certain topic area. As you can imagine the posts will have to vary in length depending on  how much time I have as well as the size of the topic I'm covering. Hopefully you will be able to find some information that can help you in your life, because that's what I'm all about, getting better!

Motivation Monday:

Motivational quotes, pictures or stories

Longer write ups on planning, goal setting, defining purpose etc.

Training Tuesday:

Updates on my training

Longer write ups on periodisation, training styles, training adaption etc.

Basically anything related to physical training

Weight Wednesday:

Just a cheesy name for posts about nutrition

Thinking Thursday:

Write ups about psychology, neuroscience, behaviour and self-analysis techniques we can all apply to our own lives

Brain hacks and quick techniques

Philosophy Friday:

Write ups about philosophy and greater perceptive thinking in general

Maybe occasional spirituality ideas

Self-Saturday:

Updates about me, my progress and life

Posts about music I have found, books I have read or art I have seen

Social Sunday:

Posts about social skills and ideas based from a combination of personal experience, anecdotes from other successful people and academics

Other:

I will probably also do posts to do with nutritional science but I haven't quite figured out what day would work best

Well there is the plan, hopefully If I manage my time well I will be able to get at the very minimum a small post done each day. I already have quite a few written up that I can put in if I am short on time so fingers crossed!

- D.G

[latius-humerum]

Self-Saturday #1: Introduction

What is up world, my name is Darcy, I'm a 21 year old university student living in Sydney Australia. I'm about 5'11 but I tell everyone I'm 6'0 and no-one has called me out yet, so that's going well! I'm obsessed with learning and self-improvement so I thought I'd make a blog to track my journey and maybe offer some useful insights to others along the way.

In high school I played just about every sport known to man, but excelled at water-polo and focused mainly on that in my final two years. Since then I have transitioned to mainly weight-lifting but will be taking up water-polo again at the start of next year. In terms of academics I am partial to humanities subjects, however my reading habits are eclectic to say the least. I am really interested in psychology, neuroscience, behavioral studies, nutritional sciences, economics and business. I only play one instrument right now, the guitar, but I used to also be quite a decent clarinet player as well.

I don't really know what else to tell you, so I'm just going to leave a list of other info here that might let you get to know me a little better.

Favourite piece of non-fiction: The Brain That Changes Itself - Norman Doidge

Favourite piece of fiction: Almost impossible but I'll just put down Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami

Favourite music: Again pretty hard but here are a few artists - Flume, Chet Faker, Golden Features, Baauer, Sun Kil Moon...

Favourite foods: Japanese and Mexican cuisine probably

Other hobbies: Longboarding and Surfing

Alright, that's enough for now. I might just end with a picture of myself so you have better idea of my current condition.

Cheers,

- D.G

[latius-humerum]

What you give you give, what you do not give is lost forever, this day will never come again.

Anonymous

[latius-humerum]

What is the greatest virtue for guaranteeing success?

I have subconsciously asked myself this question over and over again since starting down the road of self-improvement. However, until recently, I had been unable to really find an answer which I wholeheartedly believed was better than the other contenders. For a time I thought that strength could be the answer -the ability to do more, lift more, learn more. But I realised quite quickly that strength was gained over time, and not really necessary at the beginning. Also strength without precision is wildly inefficient and spinning your wheels is a sure way to burn out.

Okay, so it isn’t strength, what about intelligence? If you were so smart you could design the best possible schedule, the best plan towards success, wouldn’t that be the greatest virtue? I don’t think so. What is a perfect plan without the passion to execute it, what is a perfect fitness program without the adaption made building up to it? What is knowledge without drive and experience to back it up? The answer is ‘not very much’.

If it’s not strength or intelligence, could it be resilience? The ability to keep going when things are hard is surely a great asset to anyone trying to be better. However, here we have the problem that someone who is ultra-resilient actually becomes less aware of pain and suffering. Often this can lead to over-reaching, injury or simply stubbornness as much as it can lead to success.

I hear you saying “well then what the hell is it?” Unfortunately my answer is a bit of a cop-out, it is not one virtue, but I also believe it is none of the above mentioned ones either. I believe the greatest virtue combination for a life of success is Adherence and Observance.

When it comes down to it, success is manifested differently for each person. However, one thing it will always be is the achievement of a goal or aim (or some other positive outcome). The key thing to note here is that for it to be success, the person who is gaining it must have had that outcome in mind. Success is planned. It may not come when you expect, it may come in another form, but when success comes it is always the end result of a person or group of people working towards something.

Success is not discovered, it is certainly not given, success is created.

A person who inherits a fortune from their family is not successful, they are rich.

A person who wins the lottery (literally or genetically) is not successful, they are lucky.

Success is the outcome of planned work, nothing else.

This distinction is important because it directly relates to why I feel Adherence and Observance are the two greatest attributes of a successful person.

People who aim for success have a plan. It is not always the right plan to start, it is not always written down or scripted in every step but a plan is always there. Because of this, Adherence is the major factor that will separate who makes it and who doesn't. Everyone playing the game has a plan for how they are going to achieve their goals; the difference between getting there or not is being able to adhere to that plan. In my opinion almost everyone is intelligent enough, and will build enough strength over time to get where they want to. But they simply don’t stick with it. They do not stay the motherfucking course.

“But, but, you can’t just stick to the same plan forever! The world isn't constant and you need to adapt to be successful”, I here you coo.

Well I agree, which is why I have added the second (not quite as important) virtue of Observance. While I believe we need to change our plans far less often than most believe, sometimes it is absolutely necessary. In this case, it is about being astute enough to differentiate minor plateaus that need to be worked through, and major blocks that we must navigate around.This is where being observant comes in. By monitoring the feedback we are receiving in key areas we can assess what changes we need to make to our plan and then continue with adherence. By making these (normally small) adjustments and ultimately staying to course, there is only one final factor standing between us and a life of success – time.

So what should you take away from this?

Decide what you want (aka what success means to you)

Clarify your plan

Adhere to your plan until you reach your success

Adapt your plan from feedback (only when it is absolutely necessary)

Stay the motherfucking course

I will have a post coming with more practical and specific tools to help with each step, but you dont really need it. All you need to do is stop talking about, stop thinking about it, stop fearing it or putting it off.

Just be about it. Every. Single. Day.

- D.G

[latius-humerum]

Strong minds suffer without complaining; weak minds complain without suffering.

Charles E. Cowman