It is your fav nerd writing to you from sunny and amazing Nosara, Costa Rica.

We wrapped up meetings for the Special Forces Experience the other day and are on our last full day here before some go back home. Jodie and I are hanging in Liberia with fancy internet for 1.5 days of work then off to NW Costa Rica jungle to kiteboard for a bit at the Blue Dream.

I can hear you pulling away from me now thinking . . .

“I know I know, blah blah blah, you are in a nice sunny place and I am freezing my nutsack off in a cold environment. Screw you; I am unsubscribing now.”

I do have an important fitness lesson for you today, and I am not just here to piss on your leg and tell you “it is raining” or honey dick you into some new crazy action.

Today’s point is that sometimes doing fitness is easy and some days are hard.

Costa Rica is one of those locations where it is easy.

For example, today I got up, did my RPR and light movement, completed a short 1.2 mile run while dodging cars on the road frogger style, short swim with meditation in the pool staring off into the jungle followed by brewing coffee Cowboy style- dump hot water and grounds in a glass container, sit for 5 minutes, stir occasionally and then dump through a metal strainer.

With coffee in hand and a Driven Carmel Latte protein drink in the other, I sat down to write to you, my wonderful newsletter subscriber. Breakfast will be 4 local eggs from chickens that wonderful having an amazing chicken life Pura Vida style, avocado, and a bit of fresh mango. All of the food is organic since pesticides are outlawed in all of CR.

Today was easy. Super easy. Totally blessed to be here.

Not every day is going to go that way.

At home in chilly and snowy MN, it is vastly different. Crawling out to the garage to get on the Beelzebub torture device (aka Concept 2 Rower), then jumping into 37F in the freezer for cold water immersion followed by meditating outside = not always super fun.

I am sure your life has components that are hard to get nutrition and training done from getting to the gym, finding a gym to even go to or doing bodyweight training at home while the kids and the dog need breakfast too, etc.

Life can toss you a monkey wrench for sure.

It is not all doom and gloom, though.

You, as a human, have a new part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex (PFC) that allows you to think into the future (1).

Beyond just the here and now.

This is an amazing skill that can be used both pro and con.

Pro – You can think past the acute cold and chilly sensation of cold water and the acid dump into your muscles from high-intensity work on the rower, thus enabling you to accomplish both.

Con- if you spent too much time in the future it can lead to pysch issues (3) .

It is a skillset to use your PFC and temporarily override your hardwired older Lizard limbic brain. Your lizard brain does not want a piss ton of H ions burning your muscles.

Ugh.

Hard pass.

Your lizard brain does not want to feel cold since too much cold for too long = death.

All of us are wired to survive.

Use your new brain, Professor part (2) to think past the acute sensations to long-term progress. Depending on your environment, this can be both easier or harder.

The benefit is that each time you do it, you are learning a skill set that can be applied not only in the gym for great gainZ bro, but outside the gym to dominate life.

Get it!
Dr Mike

References: (Nerd Fuel)

1) E.K. Miller, J.D. Wallis. Executive Function and Higher-Order Cognition: Definition and Neural Substrates, Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, Academic Press, 2009, Pages 99-104.

2) Hat tip to Dr Simon Marshall for the Professor PFC part

3) Vannikov-Lugassi, M., & Soffer-Dudek, N. (2018). No Time Like the Present: Thinking About the Past and the Future Is Related to State Dissociation Among Individuals With High Levels of Psychopathological Symptoms. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 2465. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02465