We're coming out of lockdown soon so getting back into the swing of things is the "order of the day".

Keeping and reaffirming high-quality behaviours will be key in this new era, as key as it's ever been in the past. A few thoughts and some nice little coaching points and gems in here. One I've been reminded of recently. Reply, reply, reply - with quality techniques to disrupt your opponent's flow..

Some new stuff and fantastic offers also at the end of the newsletter this week. Have a nice green tea and enjoy. X

• Maintaining attention to detail
• Lombardi time
• Sticking to rules and standards
• Don’t let yourself or the team down
• New metal scoops for sale
• Special offers

Back in the day, this was about maintaining world-class behaviours for International teams competing at international events. I’m never sure we got to World Class, but we sure tried.

In any case, it was enough to win the 2003 Rugby World Cup and narrowly miss winning again in 2007.

Aiming to perform and deliver at the top of your game requires attention to detail. This is easier and more natural to some people than others.

Over the years during those campaigns, attention to the small details was referred to as the ‘small percenters’. Later, in the British Cycling Team, this was termed marginal gains, meaning everything you can think about which might help performance a little bit… take a look at it and then do it.

It could be something such as the right pillow or bed cover… or like the right nutrition and supplementation. One of the ‘small percenters’ for England Rugby was in training vision and periphery vision (Bruce Lee was onto this in his basic training manual), which is essential for any competitive sport and you can train to improve on it.

In football, we talk about creating 24-hour professionals.

I think if you believe you are there, then you are probably in that place where you are so satisfied with your behaviour that there is no need to change and you are ‘dead in the water’. I would be the last person to consider my behaviours’ world-class, there’s always room for improvement and new things to be learned.

All we can all do is strive towards progression, not perfection, and seek out every small improvement as individuals to become better-supporting influencers on the people we are lucky enough to help out.

In the context of supplementation, striving for progression includes the highest quality pharma-grade ingredients you can get, ISO-approved manufacturing, using screened ingredients and then double screening them.

You could check your behaviour by the phrase ‘be a pro’.

This means in any situation, ask yourself ‘how would a pro deal with this?’ Relationships, customer service, follow up reports, training sessions, meal prep etc. Am I approaching my diet, preparation and supplementation like a pro?

Is everything you do, even the small things, the best it can be?

So, go ahead, be a pro today. Do something small a little bit better.

One of the great pioneers of this approach in elite sports was Vince Lombardi. Keeping Lombardi time, is a great idea, being 10 minutes early for all meetings, and something I try to maintain to this day.

But sometimes, even with this intention, things don’t work out as we planned. I’ve mentioned before when things slip and mistakes are made and it’s normally because I’ve forgotten one of my P’s, preparation, precision, punctuality or politeness.

Whatever the reason, this is when we need to accept what has happened and find the notes that we made when we started out on this journey.

Affirmations, inspiration, energy and written statements of intent...

Removing aspects that can hinder hardiness. If you are struggling with sleep, low drive or mood state, low testosterone, slow recovery, injury, fatigue or depression, fixing these will enable you to stick to your goals and be more successful.

Affirmations are phrases or statements of intent that you can repeat to help you stick to your journey. An affirmation can become a written statement of intent too. These are really powerful as they set up an unconscious process that can then lead to better decision-making across many areas of your life.

Remember at the beginning of this chapter how we discussed the real-life impact written statements of intent had in the Harvard study? Write out your statement of intent now if you haven’t already done so.

If we start to apply these phrases and statements of intent coming out of lockdown, we can go back through a process of goal setting to narrow down our main focus. It could be that during lockdown as our circumstances changed so drastically, only to be held unnaturally suspended,  many of us began to feel overwhelmed by what was expected of us or what we were unable to do. Now is the time to consider your goals and apply our statements of intent.

Create daily affirmations, monthly targets and goals as well as long-term life goals which might stretch forwards, 5, 10, 15 years and beyond. Repeat the goal-setting process as many times as you need to.

Lean people don’t skip workouts. Or lean people workout even when they don’t want to is likely true, but turning this into an affirmation would be “I never skip workouts” or “I workout even when I (and everyone else) don’t want to”.

“Lean mean fighting machine, make the cover of a magazine”….. to be fair I’m still working on this one. Progress not perfection.

A fighter might have something they adhere to like “each time my opponent attacks, I reply with an equally veracious and disruptive technique” “I never fail to reply”.

affirmation

/afəˈmeɪʃ(ə)n/

noun

plural noun: affirmations

1. the action or process of affirming something.

"he nodded in affirmation"

synonyms:

assertion, declaration, statement, proclamation, pronouncement, attestation, assurance; More

2. emotional support or encouragement.

"the lack of one or both parents' affirmation leaves some children emotionally crippled"

Without affirmation, we can become lost.

A great headmaster at my primary school called Peter Hastings, who was also a war veteran, once told a story which stuck with me. He had a student who was talented but needed to read more books to progress. He told the student “expose yourself to more books son” but the boy failed to progress despite getting all the extra books out the library. When visiting his home, the Headmaster found all the books were laid open in his bedroom. The student declared “I did what you told me to do sir…”

This story means it is not enough just to be there and do as you’re told, you have to involve yourself in the process.

So, if you are feeling left out, ask questions. Immerse yourself, get into the books, practise with intent, don’t just turn up and go through the motions. Involve yourself……

Positive people help and inspire whilst on the flip side negative people can deplete, acting in some cases like ‘psychic vampires’. As a practitioner, it is useful to have excellent positive energy as you have to give this out in consultations, replenishing your own energy is another story. I rely on adaptogens, b-vitamins and aminos without which my energy is noticeably lower. These can support and propel the right mindset… of course the mind and intent are the engine you require.

Einstein, an icon of finding new theories and goals to work towards, gives us some great quotes through the process.

“Stay away from negative people. They have a problem for every solution”

We all know these people, sometimes we have them in the workplace, as clients or at home but on any goal setting journey we have to be able to inspire, motivate and create good energy in ourselves and/or the people around us. Our ability to maintain this energy and drive is essential to the process.

Another great Einstein quote is

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler”

For me, this means being able to answer things on the back of a postcard. If you can’t explain something in simple terms it’s normally because you don’t understand it fully, and being able to understand is essential for setting attainable goals.

Maintaining motivation in the face of adversity may be your problem, or it could be maintaining endurance in the face of fatigue. Indeed, endurance in a fatigued state is the corner stone of maximal sporting and life performance. Fatigue resistance or hardiness and resilience all require a well-functioning adrenal system.

Keeping this positive nature and approach requires an abundance rather than a scarcity mindset. This can be hard to maintain sometimes as, if not supported by the environment that surrounds you, the abundant mindset needs replenishment from somewhere. This can be from the ability to self-regulate and self-replenish energy stores. Sound nutrition is essential to allow this to happen.

Fatigue can occur in many forms. When training, you can run out of muscle energy, run out of oxygen in sufficient amounts or you can accumulate too much lactate to even move sometimes. You can even run out of central drive motivation where the signals from the brain to the muscles become depleted. Strategies to deal with all of the above can focus on having the right intent, the right team, the right affirmations, rituals and support system both nutritional, emotional and spiritual.

I have mentioned earlier about trying to be open and enthusiastic, about being first to say hello and beginning the day with kindness to yourself and others…. You can spread wonderful energy through being positive and enthusiastic….you can be a leader on the pitch and drive your soldiers to dig deeper.

It’s harder to do any of the above whilst in a state of fatigue.

Fatigue can take hold due to everyday life events, it doesn’t matter whether those events are big or small, the accumulation can contribute to your stress cup getting full.

Not in any order of priority, the followings are some important areas which we can often take for granted but nonetheless, need attention to help to prevent fatigue and keep the replenishing, growth and abundant mindset focussed with energy-giving intent…

• Sleep
• Roof overhead
• Balancing training with recovery
• Good nutrition
• Sense of purpose
• Financial stability and job security
• Relationships, closeness and sex
• Family
• Kid support
• Cooking
• Holidays
• Friends
• Complements, verbalising the good things you think such as about appearance or mood
• Nice things and nice times
• Consuming enough antioxidant-rich foods

Nutritional support for your physical performance can be varied according to need such as

• Brain CNS
• Muscles lactate buffering
• B-vitamins for nervous system and energy production
• Inflammation regulators
• Injury and recovery enhancers

Making the choices and planning to make your body look different is in many ways the easy bit, sticking to them is the challenge. Creating a framework is important to help you to do this and self-regulate, so goal setting and daily affirmations will reaffirm your personal value structure and help you with some intrinsic motivation techniques to keep you on track.

As a personal value structure the motivation will be something uniquely valuable to you.

We all know the person who thrives off a pep talk. Off they go full of motivation, only to run out of steam shortly afterwards. You can keep pep talking them up, but ultimately if they are not sufficiently motivated in themselves, this person will be a constantly struggling to absorb the process and begin to function on their own.

Recognise what is your intrinsic motivation and the extrinsic motivators that influence you. Intrinsically motivated exercise programmes result in much greater levels of body composition change, whilst analysing and understanding your external motivators can give you the competitive edge you need to beat your opponent.

Final thoughts

The glue that holds the body together is collagen. The structures in the body are made up of amino acids and minerals. The bone needs minerals for hardness and collagen for flexibility.

The glue that keeps you psychologically bouncing back and motivated to continue are your personal values and determination to adhere to them.

Understanding yourself…. Your opponent….

The sword of “no sword” Master Tessu said some words to this effect, if you don’t understand yourself, it’s going to be difficult to win. If you understand yourself but don’t understand your opponent, you may win you may lose.

Understand yourself and understand your opponent then victory is almost certain. He also spoke really well about projecting your energy into your opponent this encourages a flow state where you can read and anticipate their next move, easier in one on one battles. An area Arnold Oborotov excelled in when he took apart the current World Champion last year who was 26kg heavier.

Looking at elite sports, team sports you can see why this works. Analysis of opponent’s traits, strengths and weaknesses is a core element of training preparation, performance and winning.

Taking care of your own stuff first is the base where from you can build into next levels of elite performance.