Conditioning

Last week I was writing about living life through it. I wanted to write it out for myself, and it spinned out to this week’s blog on conditioning.

Here’s how I gain traction and set the foundation:

1. Mobility

2. Strengthen

3. Endurance

4. Recovery

5. Variability

First, I want to share why I am deeply committed to conditioning in all aspects of my life.

In 2013, I was moving into my first Manhattan apartment. My homies from elementary & high school were there to help me and my roommate, also a friend from elementary, move in.

The story I remember was, my friend’s saying they didn’t think they were going to help us move in. I was naive, gave them the unloading from the truck job, and took the stairs. For 5 hours.

I didn’t stop.

By the end of the night, I was exhausted and both achilles had busted blood vessels and had zero mobility.

It was a process to unwind, it took nearly 6 months to work without pain, and over 12 months to fix my limp.

I was 27, was training improperly for years, and this was the caravan that broke the camel’s back.

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Let’s dive in.

1. Mobility is accessible and usable space, in the body, mind, heart, and otherwise. Mobility in wellness/fashion is awareness of the market, how the product is used and by whom, and then how it is able to position itself to be impactful.

2. Strength is the perpetual learning, and building reserves to better perform and, again, create impact consistently. It’s important to understand that ‘strengthening' is a verb. We’re not about aesthetics here. We’re about landing in a place that is aesthetically appealing because it’s so damn good.

3. Endurance is consistency. Putting in the reps. Mastering strengths. Smoothing out the operations. Having solid management. Being able to keep up and create a reserve of energy to deal with unexpected challenges.

4. Recovery is stillness. Stillness is movement, it’s the moment to process. We can only do so much. The point of contention with many wellness/fashion owners is energy exertion, and doing too much and spreading themselves thin. Recovery is the tool we can use to slow down to speed up.

5. Variability is an overlapping piece. Variability in mobility are movements on different planes, tempo, and exertion. Variability in strength is elasticity, force, and stability. Variability in endurance depends on the tempos and duration of the challenges. Variability in recovery is married to the action, the action has an opposite effect, hang out there.

I enjoy working on all of these. I’m stronger in some than others, and that’s the fun of it.

At the end of the day, we build ourselves from the ground up. We show up excited to do, gain, simplify, and expand.

Nothing better than expansion.