Morale Monday Edition #13 👍🏻

“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” - Carl Sagan

Happy Monday everyone!! I hope you are ready for something great in this newsletter… enter into the spirit of it and you will surely reap some benefit. With that, let’s get to it!

This Past Week

The biggest thing of this past week to happen is just gearing up for the babies to come. We are AT MOST 7 days away from having 2 new additions. So, what am I doing? Trying to soak in the moments before much less sleep and the last few days of being a family of 3, because the days of being a family of 3 are gone!

Training

As I set up my summer training for myself and other athletes, the one aspect I want to use is more track/speed work for the field athletes that don’t really get exposed to a lot of high speeds and speed endurance. Why you ask? One major component is the nervous system development. Sprinting is a highly stressful activity on the nervous system, and the more you stress it, the more capable it becomes.

As I am reading and developing my programs, I came back to Charlie Francis and how he sets up his training in regards to sprinting. One major aspect he took into consideration is the training intensity in terms of running velocity and the recovery times and adaptations for each category.

The 3 categories are High, Medium, and Low intensity which are described as 95-100% of best time, 76-94% of best time, and 75% or lower of best time respectively.

High Intensity has the high CNS demand, enhances muscle fiber recruitment, needs complete recovery between reps, and requires 48 hours of recovery in between sessions.

Medium Intensity is too slow to be specific to the training objective of increasing speed and the demand is too high to allow for recovery within 24 hours… So, Francis did not use the medium intensity runs.

Low intensity is used for the reasons of active recovery, speed enhancement through the effect of increased capillary density, enhances the ability to maintain warm-up for prolonged intervals during speed training, the increased density of capillaries allows for greater amounts of nutrient transfer and waste removal from blood flow.

As I develop programs for others, I will use this as a guide to develop a solid speed program using correct rest intervals between sessions.

Mindset

If you take a look at the quote above to start the newsletter, you may wonder what I mean by that quote as it pertains to mindset.

You may be chasing your goal and writing out your self-image and doing everything that you think is correct to realize change in your life and accomplish your goal. But to you, you see no change, feel the same, and are maybe even discouraged as you have seen no signs in the physical to back up the fact that you are putting in the work.

Well, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because you can’t see results or benefit yet does not mean that it won’t happen. There are so many things you can’t see behind the scenes that may be working for you for your goal to be realized. In fact, the only thing that can actually guarantee you won’t get your goal is you and your decision to give up.

So, as I am continually trying to grow, learn, provide value, and develop myself to reach my goals, I often remind myself that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Everything is working out for me in perfect timing as I pursue my goals, and I will not give up.

I want you to use this quote whenever you feel discouraged or down. Your results may be closer than you think, even if you can’t see them.

Pop Culture

What is a show that I actually like to watch as a father that my kid likes to watch? Bluey. It is a kids cartoon about a family of dogs that live in Australia. I understand this is probably weird that I don’t mind watching a kids cartoon, but if you watch it you may like it too. There are some pretty good lessons in the episodes for kids, but they also put some reminders for adults as well.

I am not saying if you don’t have kids to go watch it haha. However, if you find yourself in a situation with a small child that wants to watch TV, Bluey is a solid go to.

Here and Now

I have a different request for you today. If you are sitting and have been for awhile or catch yourself later today having sat for a long time and need that energy boost, get up and MOVE. Do some jumping jacks or body weight squats. Get the body moving and the blood flowing. Instead of relying on the caffeine next to you to give you energy, get up and create your own. If you want to change your brain state, you need to change your energy. The best way is to move and use your body!

So get up and do something! Enjoy that you can move and use your body!

Future

As I said, one week from today is the latest the new kiddos will come. So, I am just awaiting their arrival to this world. I am eager to see if we have boys, girls, or one of each. Either way, I hope they are healthy and we will love the hell out of them!

Knowing they could come Monday, I wanted to forewarn that next week’s newsletter may be a shortened version. I will get something out though because I have made the committed decision to send out a newsletter every week!

I truly hope that all of you have a great day/week! You were meant to do great things, and if you let that spirit take over you, your days will continue to get better.

Share this with someone who needs to hear it. Make their day and see how friggin’ good it feels.

All Love,

Nick