You’re flipping channels when inevitably one of those movies draws you in. You know the ones I’m talking about. They’re always on. You tell yourself you’re only going to watch for a few minutes, or to the next commercial, and end up blowing off plans to finish the whole thing. Money ball is one of those movies for me. It’s a quintessential David vs Goliath story, only in this one David (the small market Oakland A’s) win by outsmarting the mega market Goliaths (Boston and NYC). They couldn’t out-spend the bigger teams, so they found valuable players by looking at stats differently. “This is the new strategy. We are card counters at the blackjack table and we’re going to turn the odds in the casino.” It worked. They looked at their problems creatively and Baseball was changed forever. If only that worked in fitness. Wait a second… |
Change the way you look at things…
“Your Goal shouldn’t be to buy players. Your goal should be to buy wins, and in order to buy wins you need to buy runs… The Boston Red Sox see Johnny Damon and they see a star who’s worth $7.5 million a year. When I see Johnny Damon I see an imperfect understanding of where run’s come from.” – Peter Brandt (Money Ball). I love Damon as much as anyone who hung on every pitch back in ‘04, but Brandt (Jonah Hill) has a point. Why pay players tons of money when you can get more value from someone less expensive. |
Fitness Moneyball
Why exercise a certain way when you can get more value doing something else? Why eat a certain way when you’ll feel better eating another? Are you looking at fitness like a jaded old scout, or are you on the cutting edge? That in mind here are some movements happening in fitness that challenge preconceived norms and turn the odds on the casino. |
Eat differently
Two amazing nutriton books that changed the way I eat: Good energy by Casey Means, and Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspe. These books may challenge what you eat, but also how you’ll eat it. I’ve lost 11 lbs in 5 weeks following the advice in these books. All in all They completely changed my view on fruit, carbs, sugar and apple cider vinegar. |
Breathe differently
Taking a deep breath seems like such a solid, time tested piece of advice. Well, having read The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick Mceown I’d advocate the opposite. Many breathing problems stem from our being over oxygenated and CO2 is actually somethinv we want in our system. Breathing less may be the ticket to utilizing more oxygen.
See differently
Check out a book called See to Play by (The eyes of Elite Athletes). The author, Michael A Peters, underscores how important vision is for every athlete. In one of my favorite anecdotes he describes how he ranked every player on an NHL team by their scores on various vision tests, then listed them from best (at the top) to worst (bottom). He then wrote down every salary on the team from highest (top) to lowest (bottom).
The best vision scores predicted the value of the player.
You may think you’re not an athlete; or that one’s vision cannot be meaningfully improved; or that your day to day life won’t be effected by practicing vision drills; and I would say I’ve seen vision drills instantly fix years worth of neck pain, shoulder pain and balance issues.
Think differently
Feeling fatigued? Having focus issues? Swelling? The Instagram account stopchasingpain curated by Perry Nickleston has tons of ideas on how revitalizing your lymphatic system will immediately sharpen, energize, focus you, and decrease swelling. I’ve used lymphatic massage to boost energy, reduce swelling (it’s like watching water run upstream) and in one wacky case shorten a hangover (true story).
In Sum
Here’s the choice: be a tired old scout trotting out the boring fad diets, detoxes, and mind numbing cardio machines… Or become a card counter. Now. We’re turning the tables on the old guard. Our way is faster, smarter, and when people ask us how we got such great results they’ll never believe the answers.
They’ll believe the results, though.