“Don’t Be So Precious”

If you’ve been using “optimize” and “adapt” synonymously, congratulations! Today we’re gonna upgrade your lexicon. Though the difference between the two might sound like a small nuance, distinguishing one from the other isn’t as subtle as you may have been inclined to think..

Before this gets too meta, let’s reign in our attention to comparing optimization & adaptation with respect to desired outcomes in training.

For example, let’s say you have a goal to build strength in powerlifting. You’ve enrolled in a program specific to developing your back squat, bench press, and deadlift – like Strength 202! – and besides a newfound surge in intensity & consistency in your training, you’re highly motivated to explore how you might improve your recovery. This leads you to inquire about how you might upgrade your level of readiness prior to training, and voila – you’ve suddenly got a go-to breathwork protocol plus specific amount & timing of caffeine to consume before every session. That is, until one day when you hit traffic driving to the gym, and/or ran out of the coffee you usually drink. Oh, no! you think, how am I going to maximize my training session now?

While sticking with your usual routine might provide you with the best opportunity to optimize, to make the most effective use (at least, that you know of) for a training session, don’t discredit the opportunity to adapt, to resourcefully make the most of the situation you’re in, given less than ideal conditions. While to optimize might be ideal, can you see how choosing to adapt could also provide positive outcomes? In optimizing, you’re limited to employ what you know to be true; in adapting, you’re open to discovering what ELSE can be employed to get the job done, and while developing resilience, too.

If you’re a person who loves your morning routine, great! I challenge you to change it up from time to time

After all, if your entire day gets wrecked because you didn’t have your usual coffee in the morning, or because you had an off-night of sleep, I got some advice for you that Dr. Andy Galpin of Cal State Fullerton shared at an XPT Experience I attended in Miami a few years ago: “Don’t be so precious.”

If you can allow your day/week/month or even year to be thrown off thanks to a stubborn reluctance to adapt in lieu of optimizing, you’ll likely realize that the extent to which you could optimize – and in anything – was painfully limited to begin with.