BESTOF: October
Housekeeping:
We’ll kick things off this month with what amounts to a bit of administrative housekeeping, but feels like a betrayal of my very soul…
FUN FACT:
I spent Friday evening on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Not a sentence I ever thought I’d write.
Advertising or Social Media: take your pick. That’s the rock and hard place I was presented with as the next step in this increasing-exposure project.
As much as I hate social media, my advertising efforts have come to nought in the past, so — in observance of Leftfield course-correction protocol, if nothing else — I figured maybe I should pull a different lever.
With remonstrations promising, it’s just a tool, it’s up to me how I use it — and plenty more shit I don’t believe — I went to set up my account only to discover I already had, in December 2015, and never went back. I must have been drunk.
Funnier still, I then found another Leftfield account from 2011! I’m all over the socials! One account is one more than anybody needs and so you can find me feeling sorry for myself here at the OG Leftfield account. Stop by, say hi - or whatever the hell it is we’re meant to do there.
The not-insignificant silver lining is that I’ve been able to negotiate my release from FB (or Meta or whatever) and Instagram.
Meaning they will be deleted in short order. With extreme prejudice.
Oh… which is to say my accounts will be deleted. I can’t take care of the whole thing, unfortunately. Not even one of them. I’m not that powerful.
Fear not! The much-loved Bestof’s have made the jump to Substack, just scroll on down — for those wondering what the hell I’m talking about…
The what?
A list of, and sometimes commentary on, the best content I’ve seen in the past month in each of the following areas - Mindset, Nutrition, Training, Recovery and Play, curated as follows:
Will this be useful to my clients and readers?
And that’s it.
And sometimes nothing makes the cut. The Best in Show section might also reflect the broader fitness theme but also reserves me the opportunity to throw in something from further afield — usually current events.
I read widely in areas of professional and personal interest and (obviously) from sources I trust. As such it will similarly reflect ideas you might already know from Leftfield. More so, I don’t pretend that Leftfield Training is not itself largely a curation of others' ideas, and so, in some cases, you’ll be reading straight from the source's mouth.
I’ll endeavour to keep bias to a minimum and the purpose is to further broaden your horizons not reinforce my philosophies — to offer another opinion.
Both music and reading are long-standing areas of interest if not, arguably, some expertise, so I’ll also recommend any music and books (fiction and non-fiction) that have recently floated my boat.
Both are subjective, of course, even so, you can safely go ahead and create a Leftfield playlist in anticipation of an injection of musical cool.
Given you’ll soon be holding court at parties dispensing the cutting-edge fitness knowledge gleaned from these pages, I’m not about to leave you hanging and you’ll be similarly armed with a setlist that can warp the fabric of space-time.
You’re welcome.
You send me stuff you’ve stumbled on and want to be considered for inclusion, but first, be sure the author of the piece is happy to have their lives turned upside down because I anticipate this will get out of hand pretty quickly. Imagine Oprah’s Book Club, only with a bit more clout.
Finally, if you find anything here or in future editions useful, please share it. There’s a tsunami of fitness bullshit out there and every little bit on the other side of the ledger helps.
The hope is that you will find the BESTOF’S both useful and entertaining.
Let’s get into it…
BEST IN SHOW
Central to Leftfield Training — the promise of Leftfield Youniversity — is that you are ultimately your best coach. If you learn to listen to your body.
A textbook example of simple not easy, and, after a lifetime of doing the opposite, we overlook most of the signals.
I wouldn't say we ever become immune to this — I'm certainly not — but it is in navigating that Goldilocks sweet spot between enough and too much, that we become attuned.
While we approach it slightly differently at Leftfield, the broad strokes and certainly the reasoning, are the same. But I include it here for a couple of other important points to note:
The 'letting go' of the traditional 'gym mindset'. Leftfield is primarily a process of subtraction, of unlearning. For most, were the sum total of what you’ve come to know about fitness and dietary health able to be wiped, you’d have a far better shot at achieving them.
But most importantly - and the reason it takes the podium this month:
2. From white-coated actors to cherry-picked studies, the oldest tactic in the 'wellness' space is to cuddle up close to science. But when that looks a bit of a stretch, when even dodgy Doctor Oz would be nervously looking sideways, the fallback catchcry of the whackiest of the whack is 'listen to your body'.
Because who can argue with that, right?
Not me. As I've written before - I know this phrase, and much more of the language in this domain, is contaminated when I use it - I do so, first, because it's accurate - it is what I mean. Secondly, trying to talk around it only sounds more suspect than those looking to scam you, and, finally, because if they can't pull off sounding legit, sowing confusion is a great consolation prize.
So you should be very suspicious of any such claim. But in reading the article note the complete absence of woo-woo. No magic invoked, no suspension of cause and effect.
Not a single leap of faith is necessary. Just your looking, and responding to, what IS.
“This approach is not only sustainable but also highly effective for long-term growth. It serves your own personalized way to best guide you in your training.”
https://gmb.io/listen-to-your-body/
Pick your poison. That’s what it comes down to because the idea you can somehow decide not to be into fitness is the first myth dispelled at Leftfield Training.
You needn’t tell me about how much fitness sucks the way it’s packaged and presented, I hear you. Nevertheless, you don’t get to opt out. You are subject to it- and its absence - all the same.
Choose the pain of doing something, or the pain of doing nothing, but - if the answer weren’t obvious enough - by making the more empowered choice, as detailed in the article below, you’ll take care of your psychological and emotional self as well. Funny how that works.
“Perfect solutions don’t exist, because they’re predicated on the total absence of pain’s energy, which is scientifically impossible.”
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/no-pain-free-options-choose-most-empowering/
________
More soberly, for all the wisdom above, it dovetails beautifully with Seth Godin explaining how a multi-billion dollar fitness industry only perpetuates the decay of your physical, psychological and emotional selves by forever serving up the least empowering, ‘easy’ (read fantasy) option.
“If the easy thing worked, you would have done it already.”
You have done it already.
https://seths.blog/2023/09/while-standing-on-one-foot/
The Mediterranean Diet: good for the body and brain. The study is linked but the takeaway is: don’t eat takeaways.
“Higher adherence to a MedDiet was associated with lower dementia risk, independent of genetic risk, underlining the importance of diet in dementia prevention interventions”
https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-023-02772-3
An early heads-up for a coaching program beginning Friday, Nov 17th and running through the festive season. Like all Leftfield Training - it’ll offer exercise, nutrition and recovery protocols, as they pertain to you, and is offered on the admittedly counter-intuitive basis that not only can you get your act together in all these departments during this time but that you’ll enjoy the festive season all the more for it. Unbelievable, I know, hence the name: A Xmas Miracle. More on that next week.
GMB, again, with the much-needed counter to the position in which we spend much of our day: seated, eyes down, shoulders rolled forward.
Computer posture: Build a 3-point bridge and get over it.
“...a pretty unique exercise; it’s a position that combines a lot of movement that most people just don’t do too often. And that’s why it’s so helpful!”
https://gmb.io/three-point-bridge/
_______
Touching your toes is a basic benchmark of mobility Few can do it. Here Foundation Training show you how to get there with two simple exercises, neither of which have you reaching for your toes.
“It’s not something you should have to train for. It’s something that your body should simply do without having to warmup…”
https://ftstreaming.com/programs/touch-your-toes?
_______
For both of the above, don’t forget the mobility rule of thumb: the more difficult it is for you, the more you need it.
MISCELLANEOUS
Recommendations reflect what I’ve been reading/listening to/watching/using recently but, in most instances, and especially where music is concerned, will not have been released in the past month.
MUSIC
BOOKS
TV
The Vietnam War - Ken Burns and Lynn Novick
Barely a third of the way through 18 hours of an incredible documentary.
APP
CLIP
Have a great weekend.
- OLI