Is Your Teeter Totter Broken?

What to Look For?

• How a teeter totter and your results are largely interrelated
• What sorts of things help and hurt your ability to achieve results
• How you can tip your teeter totter in your favor

You May Be Thinking…

“What is a teeter totter” to which I will say you might know it as a seesaw.  You also might be thinking, “what does a teeter totter have to do with me, my hard work, and achieving my desired results?”

Now we’re talking!

If you look at a teeter totter, you’ll notice the fulcrum [or pivot point] is in the very middle of the beam of some kind.  All things being equal [forces that is], it will balance with both sides of the beam equidistant from the ground.

Imagine on one side of this teeter totter is your stress:  work stress, family stress, emotional stress, environmental stress, workout stress, nutritional stress, and so on.

On the other side?  This is your recovery and regeneration side.  This is the side you can utilize to counteract all the stressors you’ve got going on.

What Does a Teeter Totter Have To Do With My Results?

This is a great question!

If all things were equal, your stressors balanced with your recovery and regeneration, you would likely be experiencing favorable changes in your body as a result of your hard work:  your exercise and nutritional focuses.

Most likely, as is true of nearly all westernized society, your teeter totter is NOT balanced.  It is likely your stressors are burying one side of your teeter totter into the ground while your recovery and regeneration is hopeless high up with its feet dangling off the sides.

This is a major problem.

Without proper recovery, you will not experience the benefits of your hard work.  Your belly fat will still be your belly fat;  your workouts won’t really feel any better;  your muscles will change [maybe] a little but you’ll be yearning for more.

Don’t mistake what I am saying to you:  I am NOT saying you need to stop exercising and focusing on your nutrition just because those are two things which land on your stressors side.

NO!

I am saying, the right nutrition and the right exercise can help to ease the load.  There are other strategies you can employ to help your recovery and regeneration side plant itself firmly into the ground and outweigh your stressors.

How Can I Help Tilt Things In My Direction?

For the sake of this blog, we are only going to focus on your controllable stressors.  Why?  Those are the only ones worth focusing on since things which are uncontrollable are just that, uncontrollable.

Your first and simplest, though not always easy, task for you to work on is your sleep.  How can you improve this?

• Make your room pitch black:
  • Blackout curtains, phone is face down, little red dot on your TV is covered, alarm clock is face down.
  • Melatonin does not like light.  Any light.
• Turn the temperature down:
  • A great range for this is somewhere in the mid-60 degree range.
  • Your body needs to cool to help initiate sleep and a lower temperature helps to facilitate this process.
• Ambient noise can be helpful:
  • A fan running or an ambient noise machine of some kind are great tools.
  • A TV with the sound low IS NOT.  This violates keeping your room pitch black among other things.
• Alcohol:
  • If you drink before bed because it helps you “wind down,” you may need a new bedtime routine.  This is a sleep disruptor as your body is working to metabolize your alcohol.  You are not technically sleeping in this case.
• Bedtime routine:
  • Your circadian rhythm looks for consistency.  You need to give it consistency so you have the best opportunity to rest and recover.
  • Read before bed?  Go to sleep at the same time every night regardless of week or weekend?  Make a routine and stick with it.
• Sleep in the buff:
  • You read this right.
  • Sleeping naked helps with your circulation and your metabolism, it helps to lower your skin temperature (which, as we said above is important for going to and staying asleep), and will help to improve your growth hormone and melatonin production.
  • I understand this is not an option for everyone.  Do the best you can.

Your next action item?  Your workouts [also known as training].

• Intensity and volume are NOT the same thing:
  • Commonly, as you start to experience the onset of results from training and exercise, you want it to continue and you want it to move faster.
  • As a result, you add more working out and you get more aggressive with your calorie restriction.  This will work for a minute but will ultimately lead to slowing, stopping, and eventually the reversing of your progress.
  • Consult a professional trainer, coach, or registered dietitian for more guidance.  We are more than happy to help.  Click HERE to setup a time to chat with us!
  • You want the right volume and the right intensity.
• For your exercise and your nutrition, this is far as we will go for today:
  • Guidance in this area is vital as there are many ways to do things right.  There are also many ways to do things wrong.  We [as professional trainers] want you to be the most effective and most efficient with your time!

Keep Things Simple

There are people in the world who can make massive changes to their daily life [and daily habits] and can sustain them.

I am not this person.

You are likely not this person, either.

Focusing on something small and controllable, the process, is the most important.

So ask yourself:  will I lower the temperature in my house first [while we sleep] and build that habit;  will I put up some blackout curtains;  will I shut off all my devices more than 30 minutes before I go to bed?

Master one thing and move onto the next and, most importantly, enjoy the fruits of your hard work!

Have more questions?  Setup a conversation with us HERE.  It’s our passion to help create and sustain a healthy, happy, and hardworking Omaha!