By Dayne Hutchinson
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Introduction .........................................................3 Mindset ................................................................5 Nutrition ..............................................................7 Strength and Movement ......................................9 Act .......................................................................11
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Introduction I grew up playing a lot of sports competitively, basketball, football, cricket, swimming, mixed martial arts, you name it, I did it. I loved it. I was competitive, and I did well most of the time. During my childhood and teen years, these activities were the most important things to me, that gave me the most joy. I was quite a chubby kid, but still did well at most sports that I tried. Moving seemed to make me happy. As I got older I started to spend less time playing team sports and spending more time with my friends in the gym. The first place we worked out in was an old church on my friends property that he converted into a gym. We would regularly go to church. In the gym I went through the normal bodybuilding phase that most teen boys go though - using bro knowledge, and the classic bicep and tricep, chest and back splits. By this time I was studying philosophy at university, and being the classical philosophy student, I need to know why I was spending all this time in the gym. Just to look good? To get shredded? This wasn’t enough. I need an answer big enough that I wouldn’t become disinterested. So I started looking for more. The aesthetic appeal of bodybuilding just wasn’t enough. But most bodybuilders you would see at the gym didn’t even look that good anyway. Most were incredibly disproportioned, had rounded shoulders, and could barely walk properly let alone move well. After a few years of searching and experimenting I realised that I wanted a holistic system of health and fitness that developed strength, speed, power, aesthetics, flexibility, and I also wanted to feel good and energetic. Some practices I tried would try would fill some of these categories, but not all. Some made me strong, but I would be chronically tight and unable to relax. But I wanted to look good, I wanted to feel good, I wanted energy, I wanted to be strong and capable, and I wanted to be able to participate in life to the fullest extent. I was !3
sick of feeling ugly, slow, tired, and incapable. I wanted a system of health where I could possess high levels of all these traits, more or less, simultaneously. So I started my own research. This research also led me to the fact that it was not just me that needed this, the whole world need to find their health. That most of disease and sickness are now caused by controllable lifestyle factors. Despite lowering levels of infectious disease in Western countries to negligible amounts, the prevalence of deaths related to chronic disease is at its highest ever rate. The World Health Organisation has projected that, by 2020, chronic diseases will account for almost three-quarters of all deaths worldwide. The science shows that this current burden of chronic disease reflects the cumulative effects of unhealthy lifestyles and the resulting risk factors over the life span of people. Some of these influences are present before the child is born. We have control over these lifestyle choices. This means we have control over our health. This book briefly describes the systems that I have found to work for my own health. I have taken aspects from many different disciplines and knowledge bases in an attempt to create a holistic system of health and fitness. Now I know that performance, health, and aesthetics all go hand in hand. The book can be broken down into three interdependent parts; mindset, nutrition, and strength and movement. 
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Mindset “Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.” - Mahatma Gandhi Adaption takes time. After reading this book, you may think that this seems simple. Too simple. It is. Each part, each action is simple, but it is the execution and habituation of the ideas that is the challenge. Therefore mindset is the key. Mindset is the cornerstone of success in any endeavour. Its importance can not be under estimated. It is fine if you possess this knowledge. But what use is it if you don’t fucking put it to work. It is all well and good to hoard information endlessly, but to some extent it is absolutely useless. This knowledge must be embodied, it must applied. Nutrition and fitness can only change if your mind changes. If your mind changes, your habits will change. It is important to remember that our body and ego want us to stay the same, in homeostasis, and they do all they can do to stop you from changing. They want you to continue with your normal damaging habits, as this is most efficient. We want good nutrition and fitness to become a habit. What we are us the result of a lifetime of adaptions to our thoughts behaviours, and actions. You will adapt to stimuli that you are exposed to everyday. Once you adapt and make something a habit, it becomes strange and almost distressful not to do it. It becomes like not eating dinner, or not brushing your teeth before you go to bed. This is what we want to aim for. But habits can be extremely difficult to create. This is where you need to discover your ‘why’. The big, deep down, emotional, embarrassing reason as to why you want to embark !5
on this change. It may be that you want to be an example to your friends and community, or that you want to finally be proud of your body, or you don’t want to put your loved ones through the ordeal of you getting extremely ill. It doesn’t matter, as long as it is yours, and is true and honest, it will be effective. You must make the decision. Once you have this ‘why’, write it down. Read it often. Reenforce this message. This will become your motivation and energy. If you find the correct ‘why’, you will seem to have limitless energy and enthusiasm. It is a powerful tool. There are many good habit apps that you can download on your phone that help you form your habits by tracking your successes and failures. I highly recommend the use of these. If you are able to habitualise the following nutritional and fitness systems, you are more than halfway there, the hardest part is done. Before we move on, I want to introduce you to a concept. Rapid change and adaption can be extremely tiring and stressful on the body and mind, and lead to behaviours that prevent habits from being unsuccessfully formed.For example, if you go too hard in the gym, you are going to be so sore and tired for the next few days that it is going to be extremely difficult to find the motivation to get back to the gym. It is almost impossible to form a habit if this is occurring. This is not ideal. But the concept that I want to introduces is Kaizen. It is the idea that improvement should be slow and continuous. Long term these improvements compound creating devastating results. Keep this in mind when embarking on your journey. We need to stop searching for more information and, instead, start to embodying the knowledge already have. I guarantee if you follow these guidelines you will achieve extremely impressive improvements in your health.
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Nutrition Nutrition is perhaps the most simple aspect of health, but hard to implement for some reason. The basics here are that you should: - Just eat real food; food that had eyes, or grew from the ground. - Base most of your food around vegetables, medium to small servings of good quality meats. - Then fill the rest with good fats like butter, olive oil, coconut oil etc. - Eat when hungry. Eat until satisfied, and not full. One must then realise that metabolism has genetic roots. One sort of food that is good for one person, may not be good for others. An example of this is that northern Europeans have developed a mutation that allows many of us to digest milk as adults. This is not a global constant. If you apply this concept to macronutrient distribution, the closer to the equator your genes come from, the more carbohydrates you should consume in general. As you move closer to the equator, there are greater amounts of carbohydrate sources. If you move towards the pole, there are almost no carbohydrate sources during half of the year. Look at inuits. They can eat tremendously high amounts of animal fat in their diet, and still boast good health. So it is important that you aware of your genetic roots in relation to diet. But, as I will say multiple times in this book, try it out. Record your sleep quality, your energy levels, performance levels, body composition changes, skin quality, etc, and see which combination of nutrients works best for you. Drink high quality, clean, mineralised water. Should have for your body weight in kg x 0.033 = litres of water to be consumed throughout the day. According to the WHO, water low in minerals can cause gastrointestinal problems, bone density issues, joint conditions,
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and cardiovascular disease. Also, even small amounts of dehydration can cause disproportionate decreases in mental and physical performance.
One of the biggest take aways from nutrition is to feel how food affects you, if you feel shit, don’t eat it. These tests can be done on foods that people commonly have sensitivities to, for example, grains, and dairy. Take them away, then slowly reintroduce them one by one, and see how you react. Avoid religious use of coffee as it can cause adrenal damage and unnecessarily raise cortisol levels, leading to inflammation. Inflammation is a major cause of many chronic diseases. It should be used as a tool, to focus, and get tasks done, etc, not to have energy to function normally. Start to recognise the importance of our gut micro biome in not only bodily health but mental health. The research showing the positive benefits is huge and easily found. It improves immune health, improves mood and mental health, boosts energy levels, regulates hormone levels, supports a healthy weight, improves oral health, and contributes to a longer life. A good balance can be attained by eating fermented foods, like kim chi, saur kraut, beet kvass, yoghurt, etc. It can also be attained by staying away from anti-bacterial products which kill both good and bad bacteria. Eat grass fed and organic organic food. To become certified as organic, produce requires that certain farming practices are adhered too. This means good soil metabolism, which means good nutrient profiles. Meaning we get more nutrients from our produce. No pesticides, herbicides, or rodenticides are used, meaning that we are avoiding the ingestion of these stressors into the body. Mammals store toxins in their fat, so can lead to unnecessary fat gain. Also, toxins in the body can raise levels of cortisol and other inflammatory agents in the body. We know that chronic inflammation seems to be one of the causes of many modern diseases.
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Strength and Movement The basic of fitness training is strength training. All tissue with blood flow will adapt to incremental stresses put on it. Tissues injure when the force applied to them is higher than it can resist. This means the stronger a tissue is the more likely that the tissue is healthy and injury free. The core concept behind strength training is slowly increasing the volume of ones training over time. Volume is weight times reps time sets. So of I did 10 x 10 squats at 100kgs, I would have completed 10,000kg of volume. Volume can be increased by changing reps, sets, weight, tempo, and rest periods. It is important to increase slowly, as this will keep the mind fresh, meaning that it will be easier to stick to your program, ensuring long term success. If you try and go to hard, too fast, you will burn yourself out mentally, as you will be ‘too tired’, or ‘too sore’ to return to the gym the next day. This ensures the sturdiness of your mindset. But remember, even an increase of one percent per week in your volume or strength, leads to massive gains over a year. And considering we should be weight training for our lifetime, it ensures even bigger gains over larger periods of time. I think the foundations of strength should be based off of basic patterns of human movement. Pushing, pulling, squatting, twisting, hinging, running, lunging. Although, these are a starting point. I strongly believe that developing a good base in this will send you a long way towards good movement and strength. By choosing a core exercise to develop in each of the categories with create an impressive foundation, and lead to large changes in body composition. An ideal combination of exercises to build this foundation is
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dip, pull up, back squat, cable wood chop, deadlift, running, and weighted lunging. If you can get strong at these, you are well on your way. I then supplement my training with bodybuilding style training. Bodybuilding styled training is good for tendon health and increasing blood flow. This should resemble classic bodybuilding moves like bicep curls, and tricep curls, etc. These high rep, low intensity exercises allow greater blood flow to the target areas. Greater blood flow means a greater amount of nutrients, and thus faster recovery. It also gives more stimulus to connective tissue which requires many more repetitions in order to adapt. Many athletes try and progress too quickly, and as a result get connective tissue injuries which can last months and years. It is important to allow this tissue time to catch up to muscles, which adapt much quicker. Finally, we need to train for mobility. As a result of our modern lifestyles most people have almost none. If you do not use a range of motion you will lose it. It is then important to accumulate volume moving in and out of your end ranges. Usually restriction is cause by your brain not letting you into that range as a protection mechanism, meaning that you are are not strong enough to safely be in this range. By getting stronger in these ranges your brain will progressively let you go further and further. My favourite mobility moves are, Jefferson curls and wushu bounces for the hamstrings, horse stance, Cossack squats, and straddle good mornings for the adductors (think side splits), back bridges for the thoracic spine, and shoulder mobility, lunge knee taps and diagonal stretch for the psoas and quads, and hanging for the back, chest and shoulders. A
basic program should be mostly based around these three pillars, strength,
accessories, and mobility. If you can nail these, your ARE going to have a well balanced, strong, adaptable, beautiful body, that moves with ease.
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Act It is now time to stop accumulating information, and get out and apply the information that you know. Act now. Discover your ‘why’. Make a decision. This is a lifestyle change, not a one time only event.