A few months ago, I basically doubled my training volume — from about 5 hours a week to 10 hours — doing a mixture of heavy lifting, higher volume hypertrophy work, and a lot of martial arts training.
Adapting to the sudden increase in work was surprisingly easy, and I’ve even hit PRs in the squat and bench press.
One thing that’s been helpful is I’ve basically trimmed all the fat from my workouts. Gone are the 15-minute long dynamic warm-ups and endless dates with the foam roller — I just do more warm-ups sets. (More on that later).
The other thing that’s paid off is I’m doing more simple meditation, primarily right after my training.
For example, after I hit the weights I’ll head to the East river and just chill out for a few minutes. Post fighting class, I’ll bike over to Chelsea and sit by the Hudson and nurse my bruised ego.
This is nothing major — no candles, no incense, no mantras — and certainly nothing that required attending a weekend certification course. Just 15 minutes of observing my amazing surroundings.
And it seems to be working, despite living in a high octane city like NYC.
So how do you unwind?