Since we are still in January and (hopefully) feeling extra motivated for the year ahead, let's talk about body optimization. I'm not referring to extremes like winning a physique competition or the CrossFit Games. I'm talking about the more realistic, ordinary, but no less significant everyday goal of feeling good in your body with enough confidence, energy, and physical capacity to engage in the world full-out...and make life enjoyable while you're at it. In other words, you feel healthy and fit enough to bring your best self to whatever it is you do.
So, how do you accomplish this? There's an overwhelming amount of information on social media & the internet about exercise & fitness. It can feel impossible to sort through it all and keep up with every recommendation and trend. Luckily, you don't have to. Let's simplify things, shall we?
In order to optimize your body, your fitness must include these 2 components:
1) Create Stress
This is the constructive phase where you build your body better by putting it up against certain kinds of stress. That stress creates positive adaptive changes for your muscles, bones, joints, cardiovascular system, and hormonal/emotional tone. If done properly, this phase of creating stress on your body provides improvements in power, strength, stamina, resiliency, coordination, and an overall capability for performing whatever tasks you have to perform in life.
What does this look like? For this phase, I use my 30-minute Bulletproof Ballerina workouts, where the effort is highly concentrated and focused on getting a certain result with the stress from heavy weights. If the effort is intense enough, once or twice per week followed up with active recovery (as discussed below) gets great results.
Quality of work over quantity is key here. Keep these workouts short, focused, and intense so as to get positive results from the stress without overtaxing your body with unnecessary stress that just wears you down. (*We don't get unlimited mileage in our bodies unfortunately...so this helps preserve your body for the long-run.)
2) Decrease Stress
This phase involves unwinding the damage of the day -- relieving the negative stress and tension that builds up throughout the day both emotionally and physically. This includes using tools like:
- breathwork and meditation to relieve emotional stress and anxiety
- stretching, mobility work, foam rolling, massage, and hot/cold therapy to decrease the negative stress on your body from the natural compression and wear & tear on your muscles and joints caused by daily activities.
Whether you are sitting hunched over at a desk all day with poor posture, lugging a backpack around that compresses your spine, pounding the pavement logging in all those steps (yes, even walking has a negative stress impact on your body!), or stressed out of your mind running from one appointment to the next trying to hustle for your living, it all takes a toll on your body. You need to be able to assess what you need at the end of the day to unwind all that damage.
This is where listening and tuning into your body is key. There are no rules here and no need to get obsessive about a routine. Just take time (even if it's 5 minutes!) daily to feel where you are stuck, stressed, locked up, & compressed, and then take some actions to decrease that negative tension. Not only will this help you perform better on a physical level (whether in ballet, at your job, or in your sport/hobbies), but it is vital to longevity, hormonal health, and your overall enjoyment of life.
You need both of these components to truly optimize your body. And you must be intentional with each component and know what you are trying to accomplish. In your race to get ahead, it's tempting to just do things without an awareness of "why" you are doing them simply because you saw something on YouTube or Instagram. But the intent behind your fitness is just as important as what you do.
So again, your fitness going into 2025 should include these 2 components if you want your body to look & feel at its best:
1) Create stress that is positive to build you up.
2) Decrease stress that is negative to unwind the tension that wears you down.
This way of taking care of your body impacts everything -- from your body's ability to lose fat, perform at its peak, and your general enjoyment and happiness in life. This is what it means to be built not born -- making the best of every day to become a better version of yourself...one baby step at a time.
If you'd like to work with me privately to see what this feels like in real life, shoot me an email! I work with clients in Midtown NYC as well as via zoom.
Happy 2025...wishing you a fulfilling year of exploration, risks, mistakes, and lessons learned!
PC: Isaac @crunchwrap.awr