Here's your February edition of Kinsei-Do Fitness Nuggets, our monthly newsletter that serves you little bites of health & performance wisdom!
Enjoy!
Nugget of the Week
The secret weapon to longevity
Not everybody may have the desire to live well into their 80s or 90s - I sure do! - but I can't imagine anybody would not want to be healthy and well until kicking the bucket. And thus we keep looking for the secret weapon, the magic pill or whatever, that will keep us healthy into old age.
Well, guess what, this secret weapon already exists, and it's so simple that it's dismissed or ignored by many, especially in the "modern" world:
It's called walking.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers observed a representative sample of American adults over 40, and found that those who took an average of 8000 steps a day had a 51% lower risk of all cause mortality compared to those who only got 4000 steps a day!
Hiking that number up even further to 12000 steps further decreased the mortality risk, but not in a proportionate amount. And as someone who usually gets 7000 to 8000 steps a day quite easily, and 10000 steps with a bit more deliberate effort, I can tell you that getting those additional 4000 steps a day regularly and consistently will - if you work a typical desk job - be quite challenging!
The good news however is that the pace of these steps doesn't seem to matter very much, so you don't need to be jogging or going on strenuous hikes if that's not your cup of tea. What counts is that you move it, move it!
And if that's not enough reason for you, or you're wondering when you should squeeze a 20-30 minute walk per day into your busy schedule, how about right after lunch?
Not only will doing so help you to get to your 8000 steps, but there's also a host of other benefits:
Burn off some of the calories you just consumed
Improve and speed up your digestion
Help you manage your blood sugar levels and insulin response
Prevent or drastically reduce the impact of the post-lunch energy dip
Happy walking, my friends!
Ever felt like you're just living your life day to day, fighting fires at work left and right while perhaps wondering why you're doing these things in the first place? Maybe you're a star performer, hitting all the goals and metrics your corporate structure expects you to, yet you somehow feel there's a lot of untapped potential in you that you aren't quite able to live up to?
There's more to living a healthy and fulfilled life than training and nutrition - though these are obviously extremely important - and if you're interested in unlocking your full potential while living a 'life that looks like you', we should have a chat!
Technically not new since I already mentioned this in January's edition, but Kinsei-Do is tweeting again! Follow kinsei_do on Twitter for regularly delivered mini nuggets of health and performance tips and tricks!
Two new episodes of the Kinsei-Do Corner podcast have also been released since the last newsletter went out, and you can check them out here on Spotify.
If you're doing the CrossFit Open later this month (more on what that is below), you will also not want to miss the next three episodes of the Kinsei-Do Corner Podcast!
Every Friday after the official Open workout is released (25th Feb, 4th Mar and 11th Mar), I will sit down with some incredible coaches and highly experienced athletes - all of whom have been on the show already in the past - and dissect the workout so that you have the strategies, tactics and wisdom of these highly accomplished minds at your disposal when you attack the workout on the weekend!
So head over to Spotify or Apple Podcasts and subscribe to 'Kinsei-Do Corner' now!
Train the brain
If you've read the past newsletters or followed me on the socials, you know I absolutely love podcasts.
Podcasts are great for long (or short) commutes - a daily "feature" of life in Jakarta - or just to pop in some company when I go for my morning or afternoon walks (8000 steps a day, remember?), but sometimes jumping from one podcast to another, or an episode ending when you're on the highway and can't start a new one, can be annoying.
The solution? Audiobooks!
Here are some of my favorites over the last couple of years:
Total Recall (Arnold Schwarzenegger's autobiography): regardless of what you think of him as a bodybuilder, or as an actor, or as a politician...the mere fact that he rose to the top of these three very different domains should tell you that there's something to be learnt from this man!
Open (Andre Agassi's biography): the story of a man who rose to the top of the game in spite of the fact that...he hated playing tennis! If you find yourself chasing goals and dreams that you don't even really know why, I'm sure you'll find this book fascinating as well.
What's Jo doing?
It's that time of the year again, the CrossFit Open is back! For three weeks from February 24th, the Open is the annual community fitness event, and I've taken part in it every year since 2019.
In my first year, I went at every workout like a fish out of water, not understanding anything about pacing or strategic planning. I finished 32149th in the world.
Less than a year later (the Open 2020 was exceptionally, and in hindsight thankfully, held in October 2019 instead of February as usual), I came in 21123rd, and last year 15866th.
So, while none of these placings are anything to write home about, there's been a marked improvement year over year, and I'm super excited to see what the Open 2022 will bring, and where I'll land.
Who else is doing the Open? Send me a message and let's set up a custom leaderboard for a bit of friendly competition and banter!
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