Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about how to keep my body in good shape for the long term, so I can stay active as I get older. Most of the things I enjoy doing involve physical activity, so it’s important that I take care of my body. I’m grateful that there’s so much research and information out there on maintaining health. We’re also seeing athletes playing at an incredibly high level longer than expected, proving it’s possible. Some examples that come to mind are LeBron James, Tom Brady, and Kelly Slater.
Recently, I listened to a podcast with a guy who focuses on longevity. His work is more about living longer rather than just staying in shape, but I think a lot of the same strategies apply. One thing that stood out to me was how he uses himself as a science experiment for his own research. I think that approach sounds really fun. I’ve been doing something similar with my Oura ring to track sleep, but now I’m wondering what else I could turn into an experiment.
A lot of people do this with weightlifting and bodybuilding. It makes sense since everyone’s body is different, and various training strategies work better for different people. I want to take a similar approach but focus on becoming more athletic overall. To me, athleticism includes speed, strength, mobility, endurance, and coordination. My plan is to come up with metrics for each of these categories, measure my current performance, then try different training programs and track how those metrics change. I think it will be fun to see how it all adds up. There are other variables to consider, too, like diet, sleep schedule, and my starting point for each experiment. Anyway, that’s what I’m thinking about right now. I’ll probably make a spreadsheet to track the experiment. Let me know if you’d like me to share it once it’s ready!
If you know me, this probably sounds about right. Turning life into a bunch of experiments sounds exciting to me. Aside from becoming more athletic and improving my sleep, I’m also considering running some experiments on how I like to travel (planning versus spontaneity) and tracking my finances. Let me know if you have any other ideas for experiments! Feel free to reach out on social media or by email ([email protected]).