16 Dec The Pillars to Better Health & Fitness and Becoming a Better Human
By Dr. Matt Fontaine
Director at Potomac Physical Medicine
Hit the New Year Running
With the holiday season in full swing and the New Year fast approaching, I wanted to start a discussion on the best practices for becoming a better human in the coming year. This article is the first in a short series on the Pillars to Better Health & Fitness. In this series we will cover some basic principles to improving how you move, touch on how to better fuel and refuel for optimizing your performance and recovery, discuss proper sleep and hydration.
Over the next few weeks I will share some of the expertise from leading experts in the field of Health & Fitness, movement practice, nutrition and recovery.
Commander Mark Divine, founder of SEALFIT and author of many books including Unbeatable Mind and The Way of the SEAL, talks about Self-Mastery and developing what he calls the Five Mountains. These are physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and intuitional. Coach Divine dives deep in his book, Unbeatable Mind as well as through his online training at Unbeatable Mind Academy. I highly recommend his books and online courses. The SEALs epitomize the optimal human machine, both in mind and body. They express what it means to be a maximum performing human, both from a physical capacity and ability and even more important from a mental and emotional standpoint. Developing mental toughness is key to your ability to get through the hard times and obstacles life throws at us.
Coach Chriss Smith, founder of Trident CrossFit has a favorite saying ” it’s easy to be hard, it’s hard to be smart”
Coach Smith on mental toughness…”Mental toughness is the ability to control one’s mind, the ability to control one’s actions, and to do the arduous things in life.”
Over the next coming weeks we will touch on some keys to help us in our Physical Mountain development. Stay tuned for the next few articles in this series where we will discuss best practices for becoming a better human.
A great start is our previous blog titled Mobility Practice for Becoming a Better Human
In the next article in this series I will dive deeper into some aspects of Physical Training:
What are some of the best training options to develop:
- Strength
- Stamina
- Endurance
- Work Capacity: horsepower, work over time with less energy
- Durability: How do we develop it? Utilizing a movement practice, foam rollers to improve myofascial soft tissues and connective tissue. A movement practice should incorporate mobility drills to improve extensibility of soft tissues but also shore up the core with Real Core exercises(planks, bridges and the like). Fueling and refueling are critical to exercise and sport performance. Proper hydration and sleep.