Over the past week, Ruthless Performance has had a few appearances on various media platforms. With the current lockdown, our goal as a company has pivoted to a large degree, but ultimately for the same purpose–maximizing human performance. But our new (and temporary) focus on wellness isn’t to the exclusion of performance.
Performing at the peak of your capabilities, regardless of the domain is an emergent property of wellness. This means to ensure that you are able to out-compete the competition, you must first be healthy enough to do so. While wellness is under attack, it is our duty to ensure that our athletes and clients are sleeping adequately, avoiding stress, and have an immune system equipped to deal with prolonged duress.
While wellness is under attack, it is our duty to ensure that our athletes and clients are sleeping adequately, avoiding stress, and have an immune system equipped to deal with prolonged duress. Click To TweetWith all this in mind, here are a handful of opportunities we’ve had over the past week to talk about wellness or be lauded for our ability to produce top-tier athletes.
Stress Reduction on Addicted 2 Success
“3 Time-Tested Strategies for Reducing Stress Regardless of the Cause” – Addicted2Success.com
Hopefully you’ve heard about the dangers of cortisol (a stress hormone) and its effects on the immune system. If not, there’s still hope. Our debut article for Addicted 2 Success details a handful of strategies that we use with our clients and recommend to our audience when possible.
Things like your response to food, sleep quality, and active recovery are discussed in very briefly and with some scientific-but-actionable flair. As I mentioned in a past installment of Featured Fitness Content, when submitted, the article was titled Stolen Strategies from Sports Performance: Coping with Entrepreneurial Stress. That title was significantly more sexy, but at least now I have that wonderful title banked for a future article on the same topic.
You can read the full-length article here: 3 Time-Tested Strategies for Reducing Stress Regardless of the Cause.
Ruthless Performer Named Boy’s Swimmer of the Year
“ALL-AREA SWIMMING: Van Orden, Haas enjoy breakout seasons” – Pottsville Republican-Herald
A total of 6 current or former Ruthless Performance athletes have been named to this year’s Swimming All-Area All-Star list. As many know, our dryland training defies much of conventional thinking in the swimming world, as we rarely focus on sport specificity. Specificity (outside of the pool) is a quick path to overuse injuries. By focusing on mobility, injury prevention, maximizing strength in the various fundamental movement patterns, and using a wide array of conditioning tools like rowers, timed slam ball sets, and even atlas stones, we make seriously strong athletes that are also LESS prone to injuries than their weaker competitors.
John Matulevich, owner of Ruthless (and assistant coach for Pottsville Area HS) was named in the article as a contributing factor to Zaidian’s success. But ultimately, Zaidian’s work ethic–as mentioned by Head Swim Coach Ned Hampford– designated him “the hardest worker in the history of the sport at Pottsville”.
Above, you can see in Zaidian’s dominant finish here at the PIAA District XI Swimming Championships in the 200 Yard Freestyle, beating the second place finisher by over 2 seconds.
You can read the full-length article here: ALL-AREA SWIMMING: Van Orden, Haas enjoy breakout seasons.
The Lymphatic System Will Make or Break You
“Social distancing doesn’t mean don’t move” – WNEP
When glancing through some of my physiology texts, I was startled by the casual nature in which the lymphatic system was discussed. As I mention in the interview for WNEP, the lymphatic system has serious interplay with the immune system. It facilitates lymph utilization and drainage–a crucial element in shuttling diseased, compromised cells, and byproducts away from their origin sites.
The problem, however, with lymph is that it lacks a dedicated pump to facilitate flow. Textbooks seem to just glance over this without regards for its implications on hospitalized patient outcomes, cancer prevention, and more. In order to maximize flow of lymph, muscles need to be contracted regularly (particularly in the legs) and the arms need to be brought overhead at regular intervals, as lymph empties back into the blood near the neck.
This little-known fact about the lymphatic system is regularly ignored; the extent to which public health officials aren’t acknowledging this–particularly during a time with high incidents of shelter-in-place orders–is a recipe for exacerbating our current public health crisis well into the future.
The lymphatic system is regularly ignored; the extent to which public health officials aren't acknowledging this–particularly during a time with high incidents of shelter-in-place orders–is a recipe for exacerbating our current… Click To TweetIn this segment for Newswatch 16, I talked to reporter Chase Senior. I was first introduced to Chase during our Ruthless Performance Ride America fundraiser, even appearing on his Chase Down Podcast.
You can watch the full segment and read the associated story here: Social distancing doesn’t mean don’t move.
Stay Up-to-Date
This global health crisis, its implications for health–as well as its implications for Ruthless Performance and our athletes is changing by the minute. Stay in touch with us by following us on Instagram, Twitter, and reaching out via our contact page with any questions that you may have.