Morale Monday Edition #9 ✌️

“Your subconscious mind recognizes and acts upon only thoughts which have been well-mixed with emotion or feeling.” -Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich

Happy Monday everyone! Another week is here and it may just be the best week of your life so far!

This Past Week

It has been more of the same in the Lee household; we are working through our daily/weekly routines as we get closer and closer to having the twins come! Even though it seems like every day could be the same thing over and over, I try to find things each day that I am grateful for that make the mundane seem more like the special stuff life has to offer.

Training

Training this past week has gotten better as I keep slowly building and feeling more like myself. It was also nice to have 80 degree weather to warm up the body, get some sun on the skin, and feel better during moving.

I have been doing somewhat lighter weights to get back into it, but I will lay it out for you a little more detailed. I have been doing 5 sets of 5 reps of my main movements and ramping the weight up each set. So, I will start super light for the first set and build up to a target weight on the last set. On the last set, I have been doing as many reps as I can with 1-2 Reps in Reserve to get close to failure but not actually failing. It has worked decently well so far and my body is responding positively as a way of getting back into it. Even though the weights are mostly light, it goes to show that volume is a huge contributor to soreness, as some of those days I have been incredibly sore.

So, if you need to ease your way back into a movement because you are hurt or if you haven’t done it in awhile, this could be a good protocol to follow (If you don’t want the excessive soreness, you don’t have to do the max reps on the last set).

Mindset

One thing I am battling with when it comes to mindset is the continuum between trying too hard and forcing things to happen, and then the opposite of being completely relaxed and carefree and thinking everything will be done for me.

What have I come to when it applies to this? Right now, I go to the practice of doing things that may require energy but not a lot of effort. What do I mean by this? Well, when I train or create a post I am excited about or even write this newsletter, it requires my energy and some time, but the perceived effort is less than something I really don’t want to do. And when I do these acts, I finish the tasks in the best feeling I can so that the product is something I can be proud of. Once it is finished and off into the world, I take it off my mind, and that is when I let God or the universe or whatever you believe work His ways and do the behind the scenes action for me.

I am always in the process of bettering myself and pursuing a mindset and personal philosophy that works for me. Right now, that topic is something I have really been paying attention to, and have a seen crazy results? No, but I have noticed that I’m just in a better mood if I take this approach. I’m not overly stressed about things I have to do or have done, and can be more grateful and have my mind at whatever the present offers. Give it a shot and let me know how it works for you.

Pop Culture

I had preordered the book Built To Move by Kelly & Juliet Starrett awhile back and have had it for a couple weeks now. I have been able to read a bit and dive into the intro of the book. If you don’t know who these two are, they own a business called The Ready State and are big into mobility and prepping the body for whatever life has to throw at it.

The book is basically a collection of 10 “Vital Signs” as they call it to have an evaluation tool of different measures that are essential in life. Each vital sign has a test or measure that they have found to be a pretty good tell of where you could be lacking in taking care of your body. They have physical mobility tests for squatting and hip extension (for almost everyone who has to sit all day during work), and things such as basic measures for nutrition and sleep.

I am excited to go through and use the book to see where I could be neglecting some training or recovery modality to help better my performance, as you all know is very important to me!

Here and Now

For today’s present moment practice, I want you to take a moment and think of something that you are grateful for that is out of the ordinary for you. So, if you are always thinking of how you’re grateful for your family, house, where you live, weather, etc. Find something else. It’ll take a little bit of effort, but doing it for something that is out of your normal gratitude practice may elicit a stronger feeling because you had to try a little bit harder to think of something you may have otherwise not thought.

Once you have found that grateful item, sit and enjoy the feeling of being happy you have that for a moment and let it brighten your day!

Future

As I go through this week, I am looking forward to more training and my body feeling better and better. It is always motivating to do things I enjoy and feel good during them.

I am also looking forward to my dad coming down for a day or two this week. I haven’t seen him for awhile and am looking forward to finally getting to see him and spend some time with him.

As always, I appreciate you reading and following along! Let me know if anything resonates with you or if there is something you want to see more of! I will do my best to keep bringing practical tools to use during your day!

All Love,

Nick