I’d been biohacking my heart for a few weeks…
- I loved the fact my Heart Rate was that of an Olympic athlete
- I hated the fact my Heart Rate Variability was in the lowest 2% of the population
(Plus I now knew exactly what time of day to work out to get the most bang for my buck..I mean that’s awesome)
This was back when I was approaching the BIG 4. 0. and I’d just decided to take my life by the balls and not go gentle into that good night…
But I still found myself dangerously close to the “letting it all go and just accepting I was getting old” stage…
So I finally asked my trainer…
“Hey um, Carlos…listen, I’ve been thinking about doing an Ironman…what do you think?”
First he laughed (not ideal) and then he said…
“Oh, you were serious!?”
And then I started crying…
The End.
…
…
…
Well not quite…
Finally after a lot of convincing (and even more eye rolling) he actually believed I was serious.
He told me, “Look if you’re serious about this we have a lot of work to do and we need to start tracking certain things.”
Why? So we know what’s working and what’s not, allowing us to make the absolute best use of our time and not waste it doing things which don’t work.”
He gave me a list of things to track.
This was the game changer in my training, suddenly I knew exactly what I had to be doing, for how long and could measure the exact effects on my fitness.
I’m sure you can see how this works, “what gets measured gets managed.”
So what are some easy things which you can track right now, to start improving your performance?
Well the easy one is HRV, this is basically the time in between beats of our hearts and it can tell us an AWFUL lot about the general state of our biology. I’m not going to go deep into it here as it gets pretty complex but if you want to know more just get in touch and I’ll be happy to answer your questions.
It’s super simple, go and grab a decent heart mate monitor (Polar do a great one) download an app like Elite HRV and follow the instructions in the app to get tracking. For those of you able to splash a bit more cash I can highly recommend the Oura ring for this, as it does it all for you all the time, without you having to think about it.
Number 2 on my list would be sleep. Now this is more difficult to do, (the aforementioned Oura ring will do this for you as well) but I would start by tracking your bedtime and your rough time to fall asleep.
You should be aiming to hit the sack within 15m of a set time every night and aiming to fall asleep after around 10-15 mins. Of course no one does this every night but the closer you can get the better off you’re going to feel in general.
Again, sleep is way more nuanced than this but think of it as a great starting point.
The 3rd and slightly more “ukkky” thing to track is your poo!
There are some great apps for this and our poo can tell us a great deal about our general state of health. Poo should be solid and easily passed and smell earthy not rancid. If you’re clearing a room when you fart and your poo smells awful, you definitely have digestive issues which need clearing up.
Finally for today I would track your libido.
Are you up for it most of the time? Gentlemen are you getting regular morning wood? If the answer to either of these is no, then I’d politely suggest you might want to address this. Libido is a key marker for health (and also a hell of a lot of fun) so low libido can be a sure sign things are misfiring.
And let’s face it, life’s too short to not have loads of great sex!
If you want my help running you through all the things you should be measuring (and how to improve them) to ensure you can keep on performing like you’re 20 years younger?
Just give me a shout on Whatsapp by clicking the icon below:
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Sam.
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