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Hey Quaranturnt Crew, Remember how my sister’s birthday was at the end of March? Well, we’ve been doing this thing long enough that we’ve hit another sister’s birthday. This is Lisa. She has always been an incredible teacher to me in how to be good to others. She has always pushed me to spread more sunshine than rain clouds. She has always inspired me to push through the hard shit life loves to throw at you. She has always been a combination of silly and grounded as she paved the way for me to turn into the person I want to be. And she has always been one of my best friends.  She taught me to swim competitively (which created the core of the person I am today). She taught me to surf. She taught me to care for my body. She taught me to care for myself. She taught me to care for others. Happy birthday Lisa. I hope it’s a great time with your baby daughter Lily, awesome doctor husband Sean, perfect dog Molly*, and absurdly clumsy cat Peekaboo. I love you. Now, to my last sister Becca, I love you as well but I’m sorry, I’m really not planning on doing the same for you. For context, Becca’s birthday is in October… IG Post  *BTW this is Molly :) 
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Hey Quaranturnt Crew, A couple days ago I threw some foundational principles at you. First came the SAID Principle followed by the concept of Progressive Overload. Today I want to give a very tangible example of how that plays out to be useful: Building up to distance running without falling victim to shin splints. If you’ve ever gotten into running, you probably loved/liked/tolerated it until you got injured - very often running results in some form of shin splints or hip pain. Well, the best understanding we have on the cause of shin splints is that they result from some combination of muscular overuse and impact-related bone stress. How do you treat the issue of muscular overuse? My answer won’t surprise you. You build up to it. Increase your running distances little by little* and eventually your muscles build the endurance to handle a run. How do you treat the issue of impact-related bone stress? The answer is the same. Running is a demand you impose upon your body. You will safely adapt to those challenges specifically if you build to the activity with progressive overload. This means you increase the mileage slowly, just barely pushing outside the bounds of your current capabilities. And your body will actually increase the strength of your muscles and your bones. Everything in your body adapts. You just have to give it the proper stimulus and timescale. That is the power and meaning of the SAID Principle + Progressive Overload. Learn more about bone stress in this podcast. Here is the IG Post.   * Note: When I say “increase running distances” this doesn’t just refer to the distances you run within a single running session. It is important to keep in mind how far you are running over the course of each week. Not the topic of today, but this is obvious if you think about how well you would fair if I asked you to do a single 7mi run today versus daily 7mi runs for the next week.
Hey Quaranturnt Crew, I hope you had a great Cinco De Cuatro. I’ll keep this one short and sweet. First, do you have any movements you really want to do but can’t figure out a way to do it in your apartment? Do you have any muscles that are bothering you or you particularly want to strengthen? I’d love to make more content that is targeted towards your interests. I am here to help, and I’d rather help you with questions you actually have rather than simply saying things I want to ramble about! Hit me with requests and I’ll answer your deepest darkest questions. And before I go, I’ll leave you with another 🌞Good Thing 🌞. This one comes from one of the most dedicated members of this Quaranturnt crew, his name is Oliver. He is going to go full Herc on us here. Seriously this kid’s drive dwarfs that of anyone else I know. He is a recently-finished freshman in college and has set a goal to hit a one armed pullup - something I’ve never even come close to. I can’t wait to see this kid in 5 years. Well, on top of becoming an athletic monster, he also is a great designer (previously did contracted work for Google!), and that’s what his Good Thing is about:  Here is the IG Post. The Dessert is fun today :)  Overview This post is intended to provide a guide to onboarding in our remote situation. Ultimately, the majority of remotely onboarding just the same as in person onboarding, so great books like First 90 Days are still incredible resources, but right now onboarding must also be much more intentional as there isn’t a flow of traffic to hop into that will carry you up to speed even if you do nothing. If you do nothing these days, you’ll sit at home alone and do nothing. And you likely didn’t join this team to do nothing. To onboard, you need to understand what the team is doing (projects), how those get done (the team), and how you contribute to that (your role). In the process, you are also building your key relationships. So, at a high level, that’s what it means to onboard. The Onboarding Process How you actually accomplish this task can be done in a few different ways, which likely depends on your role. You can focus on
For me as a PM, it’s made the most sense to spend some time in each approach. Communication The first step for communication is setting expectations and requesting support. This is incredibly important so others around you know how to help. If you don’t tell people what you need, they’re especially unlikely to see it by happenstance these days. So step 1, know yourself well. Step 2, tell your manager and teammates what you are confused by, what you’re strong and weak in, and what you will and won’t be able to do by when. Your team wants you to succeed as much as you want to succeed, so be clear with what you need and the whole team will benefit. Another key component of ingraining yourself in the team is constant communication. So keeping a direct line of contact for your teammates to understand your needs and current domain understanding is important. This can be done through
The Mental Aspect While I’m tired of hearing the phrase “These are uncertain times”, we are in a….a phase of uncertainty. This can be a constant stressor on anyone as we don’t know what anything will look like in a month, not to mention the added stress of family commitments, health, economic challenges etc. This is all to day, everyone is more stressed than usual, even latently in ways they may not notice. So give yourself a break. There aren’t playbooks for this, so we’re all figuring this out as we go along. Give yourself a break when you’re getting yourself worked up. Remember your best is good enough. So it’s just about diligence and consistent effort from there. Quick Tips
Structured Understanding of your Team, Projects, & Role The following matrices are valuable to fill out to solidify your understanding of the team. This is always true, but for some reason, the team and project structures are that much more ambiguous when you are remote. Building alignment on the content of these tables is your first major contribution. After articulating the problem you're well set up to define the solution. Team Definition  Project Definition A list of all projects going on that you are related to. Lower fidelity info is needed for projects which are less relevant to you.  Role Definition  Other Resources
Example Domain-Oriented Onboarding Template
Hey Quaranturnt Crew, First off, I want to plug one of my friend’s endeavors. My friend Cason Crane is an incredible man. He goes on 70mi runs for a casual race. He has climbed every mountain you know and more. And now, he’s creating a nutrition business. He has a lot to experiment with, to learn, and to build along the way. That journey will be documented for us all to follow along here. I’m excited to see where this incredible man goes with it! For the rambles, I want to discuss another incredible, yet very simple principle: Progressive Overload. This simply means pushing yourself just a bit past what you’ve done before, recovering, and then repeating. What’s that mean? Here’s an example. Your body is able to do a comfortable 15 pushups, so force yourself to do an uncomfy 16. It’ll be hard, but you get it done. Then you give yourself some food, some sleep, some water, a little sunshine, and BOOM. You are stronger. Now how do you get to 20 pushups? You repeat this process until you get there. This is incredibly important because this principle applies to pushups, squats, running, handstand holds, stretching, freestyle rap, mathematics. Everything. Keep this in mind, because this is the fundamental lever you pull in order to grow. In anything. You start small with no confidence, and grow step by step until eventually you get to top of the mountain. Just like Cason. 😉 Here is the IG Post - with some good options for how to get in some pullups even when you don’t have a pullup bar.   Hey Quaranturnt Crew, Today I just want to share a simple principle of fitness. One of my favorite things about fitness is when you can find a principle that transcends. Some principles are so fundamental they aren’t just applicable to one sport or one part of the body or even limited to fitness alone. Some things are just true. Unifying principles, if you will. Today, I want to talk about the SAID principle. This stands for Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demand. That means your body will adapt to exactly what you tell it to do. You won’t get a lot stronger in your legs if all you do is pushups. You won’t be able to run a good marathon if all you do is sprint a mile every day. You won’t be able to play drums well if you’ve only ever strummed a guitar. Further, you won’t likely be able to throw a ball that fast if all you do it slow bench presses. You will only be able to control a deep stretch if you push yourself to have control when in that deep stretch. Your body responds to the actual stimulus you give it, and it will adapt, if you do it right (more on this tomorrow). This may sound very very simple, and it is, but it’s nuanced. It’s deeply applicable. And it’s easy to forget that if you want to do X, you need to breakdown what X requires and impose demands on yourself such that you adapt specifically in order to achieve X. Read more about the SAID principle here. Think about how it impacts you in any aspect of your life. Love to hear what you think. Here’s the IG Post.   Hey Quaranturnt Crew, Of all the rambles I’ve written for you here, I think this one is the most important to me. It’s not about strength or good position or cardiovascular health or nutrition. It’s about philosophy. The words I have here are from my role model, Ben Bergeron. He’s an idol to me because he dives deeper than the muscle - down to the character. How he approaches the world is so aligned with my intentions. I strive to be a deeply disciplined person with drive and fortitude, which ultimately is what makes fitness so pivotal to me. I like looking good, but in truth, I’m here for the core of the discipline, the heart of the art: character. How you do one thing is how you do everything, and how I do fitness is how I strive to do everything. In order to build my body’s strength, I have to build my mind. This past week, I heard this on his podcast: For people who are trying to crush life and thrive, the reason we train and think and put ourselves through self-analysis is so that when things like this [pandemic] happen, we’re ready. The training we do in the gym - all the mindset stuff we do in there - is exactly in preparation for things like this. We don’t train in the gym to get good at the gym. We don’t do this meditative self-analysis and mental toughness thing for the sake of being the toughest dude on the field. We do it so it will prep us for these moments. For the call at 2am. No one saw this coming, but we’re ready for the unknown and unknowable. The gym just puts a microscope on what our lives are going to be like. The stoic philosophy is all about preparing for this moment.
Ben blurs the lines between Tom Brady, Atticus Finch, Coach K, and Marcus Aurelius. If anyone wants to talk more about Ben Bergeron, his podcast Chasing Excellence, or philosophies, I'm always down :) Now, here's your workout with the IG Post.  Hey Quaranturnt Crew, One of you reached out the other day and asked about what to do about “weak knees”. Common problem. Everyone who runs has experienced knee pain at some point. Everyone who has dabbled in lunges and squats has felt the wobbles in there. But if you don’t know what is going on with your body, it’s pretty hard to fix this issue. Besides, what muscle is the knee anyway? If you’ve asked that question, you’ve probably rubbed your knee looking for muscles to massage. If you haven’t asked it before, you’re probably touching your knee now. Well, stop touching yourself and look no further. Your knee doesn’t have muscles in it. The muscles enabling the knee are basically all the muscles of the leg, but especially the quads and glute medius. So if you have weak knees, what do you do from here? Ok here’s the deal. “Weak knees” really means you lack strength, stability, and good positioning. You go through your movements and you end up collapsing in on your knee in a way that stretches the tendons and ligaments. You don’t use sufficient strength to control the movement, so your non-muscle soft tissue ends up bearing the load. This is not a good thing. The solution is basically the same as what we talked about yesterday. You need to build strength and control in your legs through slow, stable movements with great positioning. Another great argument for tempo work! The slow tempo is really hard on your muscles, but you keep the weight low so there’s no high load on your soft tissue. This lets you recover safely while building up strength to keep your body feeling good going forward. This is a great argument for one more thing too…. Yoga! It’s all about great control through great positioning. Which brings me to today’s workout. Link Here.   Alright Quaranturnt Crew, Last day on back pain (unless anyone has any burning questions you want me to address!). I learned A LOT about backs a few years ago when I herniated a disc and couldn’t find anyone educated enough to help me fix it properly. I followed advice to a T and that got me in a worse position than when I first got the injury - seriously, my friends at my first job only knew me as the guy who stood or laid down 100% of the time. Zero sitting. It’s a cool reputation for sure. The first step to recovery is always just to rest until you’re out of triage - exactly what the triage/distress state is depends on the injury, but for most soft tissue things (read: non-bone) won’t last more than a few days. From there, everything got better when I focused on 1) maintaining healthy movement and 2) improving stability. Healthy movement means sitting would have been ok, as long as I kept changing positions frequently. The same goes for you, sitting isn’t evil… sitting 10 hours a day is. And btw, standing isn’t the solution either if you’re doing it 10 hours a day. “Your best position is your next position” is what my favorite PT once told me. So keep moving, go for walks, light runs even if you’re not in much pain. Workout for sure, just don’t go crazy until you have some good stability and control built up. Improving stability = strength + good positions. For backs, that means a lot of core work. “But it hurts when I do situps!” Ya well, read day 14 and don’t do situps if your back hurts. Do internally static core work and keep good position by lightly squeezing your glutes, tightening your abs just a tiny bit, and rotate your hips by pushing your…pelvic region up and forward. This will straighten your spine and relieve the pressure you’ve built up in there. Finally, when we do hamstring work Saturday, be sure to keep this posterior pelvic tilt. Over time, you will build a subconscious habit in standing safely. You’ll build kinesthetic sense in understanding of your body’s position. And you’ll regain control over your body. Today’s IG post was particularly fun to make.   Quaranturnt Crew, First off quickly, I’m sorry basically every one of you is getting a Gmail warning saying that I am spam… I promise I’m not spam. I hope I’m not spam… Please keep marking me as not spam! Ok back to back pain. So your spine is a chain standing on top of itself with muscle and lungs as rubber bands and balloon holding it together. If that sounds dubiously supported to you, you’re pretty much right, but know that this does actually work pretty well unless we screw it up. How do we screw it up? With persistently holding bad positions. Most people who are standing for a while end up falling into anterior pelvic tilt, aka a forward rotation of the hips. I’ve mentioned this before, but here’s a picture to remind you.  See how the hips are tipped forward? Due to how the spine connect to the hips, this leads to the spine being pulled forward too. But you’re not leaning forward, so your spine then has a harsh bend in it at the lower back...yes, right where it’s hurting these days hasn’t it? This leads to people saying things like -> “today was so bad I couldn't even sit in a chair and spent all day on the floor working in a childs pose 😞”. This hip/spine dysfunction is why you enjoy child’s pose and bending forward a lot to get out of this pain. You’re simply rotating your hips back to correct for the spine smashing you’re typically doing. But it only helps short term because you go right back to that spine-smashing position a minute later. How do you fix this properly? Tune in tomorrow to find out! Here’s the IG post.   |
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