Like most folks, I want to see progress. I want to know I’m getting better, that I’m fine tuning, improving, growing.

I’ve written about some personal frustration applying this to wellness. I can be streaky, a good stretch followed by overindulgence, from beastmode to Homer Simpson.

My desire to account for wellness through a more holistic lens, including both physical and cognitive health, remains.

But how does one doe this simply, without a trainor, without investing (frittering away) hours indoors at a gym?

Routine:

For me, the answer is routine. Someone more informed can give you the neuroscience rundown behind why this works for many people, but I’ll just give you the layman’s version, the version that works for me.

It centers around the concept of decision fatigue. I like to visualize one’s capacity for decisionmaking, from the mundane to the life changing, akin to a glass of water.

When we wake, that glass is full. With each decision, we sip from that glass.

Which pair of underpants should I put on?

Should I take the highway or backroads to work?

Do I go to that BBQ Mitch invited me to or keep my plans to go for a hike?

And so on…

As our day progresses, the decisions pile up, and our desire and capacity to think critically deteriorates. We look for corners to cut. Maybe, we make a suboptimal choice. Likely, that naughty little cheat cookie comes at 3PM, not 10AM.

To combat this natural fatigue, I find it helpful to eliminate decisions with automation and routine. Let me be clear, I’m not eliminating the action necessarily, instead I’m stripping out the decisionmaking process associated with that action, regardless of its magnitude or duration.

Breakfast makes a fine illustration. I eat a pretty boring breakfast. Most days, I have some kind of oatmeal, granola, fruit (maybe yogurt) medley. I go days, even weeks preparing the exact same breakfast. It takes about a minute to put together, its’s cheap and I can enjoy it while easing into my morning.

This is complete autopilot. My baseline. It comforts me to know I can go back to this at any time, witout any thought, and it will result in a satisfying, healthy meal that corresponds with my long-term wellness goals.

I can build from this place.

With little effort, I diversify by changing the specifics or occasionally swapping out an item. One week the farmer’s market has fresh blueberries, so that’ll be my fruit selection. Or maybe, I grabbed tons of bananas at the grocery store for smoothies a few days prior and I’ll go with that. Sometimes, I’ll boil eggs the previous Sunday and pop a couple of those to switch it up.

The key is that I know my baseline and that any deviations from that are minor. I’m not reinventing the wheel every morning, expending my finite reserve of sound decisionmaking capacity.

Don’t do that, do do this, you said doo-doo:

A separate mental trick I lean on to augment routine is what I’ll call “jumps and hurdles.” Again, seek your resident behaviorial psychologist for whatever the appropriate technical term is. For now, you’ll have to settle for my poor rebranding.

To trick myself into doing the “right” thing, I want to create mental jumps–things that propel me forward to something good–and hurdles–things that make it slightly harder to do something less good.

Here are a couple of examples to demonstrate. I think you’ll intuitively get what I’m driving at and probably rattle off a half dozen yourself.

Jump: Pack one’s gym bag the night before. You conserve time and energy and do not provide yourself the (trivial) reason to stay in bed.

Hurdle: Put your alarm more than 6′ away from your bed. You must physically rise to turn it off, now are you going to hit snooze? Maybe, haha! But hopefully that little effort rouses you just enough that you’ll stay up.

Jumps and hurdles shouldn’t be major things, just a lttle greasing of the wheels for good things and a slight deterrent for not-so-good things.

A relatively structured routine, combined with some mental jumps and hurdles transformed my wellness approach. I see more progress. I feel healthier, more confident and after some time at it, my loftier goals seem just a bit less distant.

TB12 Basics:

I know, I promised Tom Brady and all I’ve delivered thus far is doo-doo and talking-tos.

A bit of a frequent even, I found myself in the market for a new podcast or audiobook. I wanted to explore health and wellness. I found TB12.

Attempting to set aside my Massachusetts bias momentarily, I, JR, sound of mind and under no duress, declare this book to be nearly readable.

If you can avoid: 1) spending thousands of dollars online on the products (super subtly) pitched in the book and 2) joining your regional chapter of the Tom Brady cult, you might grab a helpful takeaway or two.

Pliabilty:

Pliability. He must use the word a thousand times. You can go to the TB12 website and buy a $35 tee-shirt with this word on it so, like, it must be important.

You’ll have to read a half dozen chapters in to find out what the heck he’s talking about when referring to pliability, but there may be something there. He argues most athletes focus (erroneously, in his mind) on strengthening and conditioning, while adding in some limited flexibility training with basic stretching or maybe even yoga. He believes this apporach can be effective to a point, but ultimately it is incomplete without pliability and will often result in injury and a shortened playing career.

To define pliability more granularly, he explains the goal is to “lengthen and soften” the muscles–an additional oft repeated phrase. This is achieved, if you’re a professional athlete, via sessions with a trained professional, in which localized deep tissue massage is combined with the subject rhythmically contracting and relaxing the muscle in question. Imagine doing say a bicep curl while someone is giving you a massage on said bicep.

If you’re not Tom Brady (I’ll wait while you assess your situation), you can achieve a simlar effect by utlitzing a studded, cylindrical and/or spherical vibrating foam roller and rolling out every muscle from head to toe. The practice inflicts “positive trauma”on the are in question, which lengthens and softens the muscles with each session. The goal is to alleviate pressure on nerves and increase oxygenated blood flow, essential in assisting your body’s natural recovery process.

The focus is preventative rather than rehabilitative treatment. Simple, intuitive, I can make sense of this.

Secondary principles:

The book goes on to discuss diet and hydration in detail. These are essential components of a holistic wellness approach for TB12, while unfortunately, areas many young athletes completely neglect due to instutional emphasis on strength and conditioning that permeates modern sport.

At a high level, he advocates a plant rich diet, that aoids or minimizes sugar, caffeine and alcohol, some simple supplementation (life B-vitamins and fatty oils, for example) and maintaining proper hydration.

Proper hydration, according to TB12, is drinking at least half of your body weight in fluid ounces per day. No totally crazy, but it’ll make for having a water bottle within reach throughout the day.

Lastly, TB12 advocates the use of resistance bands over free weights. Bands, he argues, disperse weight across more of your muscles and increase range of motion. The book gives you tons of specific band exercises, a little weird on audiobook, but helpful nonetheless!

What I’m Adopting and My Next Exercise-Related Goal:

Albeit culty and commercial, The TB12 Method did provide some actionable ideas. Here’s what I’m incorporating going forward, with an eye on my next goal: a 1/2 marathon in October.

I’ll pat myself on the back before I tear into my “pre-TB12” workout. Basically, I already covering those three boxes: strengthening, conditioning and pliability. Wawa-wee-wah!

BUT… as Brady would say, the percentage of time that one devotes to these three spheres should be tailored to your body type and sport, while evolving with age.

Hhhmmmnnnn… Again, makes sense.

Don’t try to bench press 300 lbs. if you’re 80-years-old.

Maybe don’t try to bench press 300 lbs. if you’re training for, I don’t know, say an extended distance road race?!

OK, let’s just say don’t try to bench press 300 lbs., fair?

My basic gym routine is pretty simple. I alternate between “push” and “pull” days during the week. You guessed it, Idoing pushing motion exercises one day, then pulling motion exercises the next. I lift modest amounts of weight, emphasizing reps (I shoot for 30+) over weight (I don’t care).

Generally, this routine follows some modest stretching and cardio, core exercises are interspersed. If I had to break it down, I’d say it’s 50% strengthening, 25% cardio and 25% pliability (more stretching than rolling though).

Weekends are earmarked for a long run, bike or an adventure (Bad Homer Simpson! Back away from that plate of BBQ with your sticky fingers where I can see them! I see that brisket hanging out of your pocket!)

Now, as a disciple of The Church of… I mean… after reading the book, I’m going to adjust this ratio to something like: 40% pliability, 40% cardio and 20% strengthening.

My god, man! But what about your beach muscles?! Have you completely lost your mind?

Well, luckily for me 1) I never had beach muscles and 2) bicep mass does not correlate highly with race times.

So, foam roller it is for me. I’m going to get real friendly with this thing over the next three months. I do think I’ll refrain from full acolyte status by purchasing the vibrating version on TB12’s website. I mean, it is a pretty good bargain at $160, but Ithink mine will do for the time being.

I’ll try to check in a month or so down the road for an update. I may be so pliable by then that I’ll be typing with my toes ;P

Have you made any recent adjustments to your workout routine? Have you stuck with it? What are your results?