A Friendly Nudge - Encouraging The Beast
...because we all could use a little encouragement!
If you were listing your physical characteristics for someone, would “strong” be one of the words that you’d use to describe yourself?
I’m stronger now than I was when I was 40 but I’m not sure that I’d automatically describe myself as strong. I’m getting there, but I’m sure some of my reluctance comes from foolishly comparing myself to other people and that’s definitely a fool’s errand. The only person that I should compare myself to is who I was yesterday. But that level of maturity is still a work in progress.
It turns out that how we think about our strength matters. Science writer, David Robson explores this in his book, The Expectation Effect: How Your Mindset Can Change Your World. He examines some of the work being done at Stanford University’s Mind Body Lab where subjects were led to believe that they had a gene variant that impacts their aerobic capacity. Not surprisingly this impacted that group’s exercise performance. The director of the Mind Body Lab, Dr. Alia Crum found that while positive expectations can lead to performance-enhancing chemicals being released by the brain, the opposite is also true where negative expectations prompt stress hormones that limit physical potential.
This is why more objective messaging around aging is so critical. We are constantly being bombarded with warnings about how fragile and frail we are. We need to reclaim that narrative, and help “classic adults” discover and encourage their inner beast. My goal is to help you discover the strength that you have, because once you have, that old messaging will fall on deaf ears.
Exercise will change us physically and mentally if we let it. My wife Jude has been working with our physical therapist to improve bone density and her journey has been amazing to witness. When she first started working with John she was tentative because, by her own admission, she had never actually identified herself as strong and being diagnosed with osteoporosis only amplified that.
To his credit, John reassured her that they’d take it gradually and only increase weight as she could tolerate it. She started out with light dumbbell deadlifts and doing some impact/jumping exercises, but over time she’s graduated to a hex bar deadlift and the weights on the bar are increasing. So is her confidence.
She just got back from a somewhat challenging work trip and she talked about how the increase in strength changed how traveling felt. There’s something about having a line of people behind you at the end of a long, delayed flight and that moment of truth comes when you need to grab your suitcase from the overhead and effortlessly place it in the aisle and start moving forward quickly. Judging from the smile on her face when she told me about it, it went off without a hitch.
Exercise doesn’t mean we’re never going to struggle with things, in fact if we’re doing it right, exercise gives us a chance to get really good at struggling. But exercise gives us regular reminders of our competence and our capabilities to help us put any struggles that we do encounter out in the world into a more measured perspective.
Aging means that we’re not likely to accidentally get strong. As “classic adults” we have to be a little more deliberate and intentional about building muscle and strength then we did when we were 30. But it’s a lot more doable than we realize and it feels amazing. Your inner beast is waiting for you to discover them and give them something challenging to do.
The Chili Crunch in this week’s meal certainly spoke to my inner beast.
Asian Inspired Salmon Salad
I’ve had chili crisp before but I’d never tried Momofuku’s Chili Crunch and I’m definitely a fan. If you’re not a fan of spicy, you could omit the jalapeno and dial back the Chili Crunch, although it brings a lot of flavor to the dish.
Ingredients:
1+ pounds of cooked salmon
3-4 stalks celery, sliced thin
2-3 small cucumbers or ½ of a large seedless cucumber, cubed
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
½ shallot or 3-4 green onions, sliced thin
½ jalapeno, seeds removed and sliced thin
1 red or yellow bell pepper, seeds removed, diced
1 handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted
Dressing:
2 tbsp chili crunch
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp soy or tamari sauce
2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1-2 tbsp toasted sesame oil
Mix all of the salad ingredients and toast the sesame seeds and add to the bowl. Prepare the dressing and add to the ingredients and toss to combine.
Enjoy
Now let’s provide a way to give A Friendly Nudge to your inner beast.
It’s true that exercise is supposed to be challenging but we don’t get extra points for wrecking ourselves. Especially early on while we’re building the habit and getting familiar with the movements we don’t want our enthusiasm to get ahead of our connective tissue. If you see a rep range of 8-12 and you’re feeling a little shaky on rep number 6, that’s the end of the set. As you get more comfortable and confident you’ll have a better feel for when it’s reasonable to push for the extra rep. Remember that we’re aiming for 2 reps in reserve.
You can do the exercises as a circuit, skipping any that you don’t feel ready for or you can do them individually as exercise snacks. If you’re going to do snacks, make sure you do the warm up or an easier set as a warm up set.