Behaviors

A few times a day, bridge the fingers together and pull the chin back to counter forward posture.

Adopt a bigger-breath posture to improve trunk organization and movement output; get into the biggest position in which you can take the biggest breath.

Use sun salutations to get the system going and expose the body to positions early in the day.

In the morning, spend 8 to 10 minutes doing one spin-up: hip spin-up if your back or knee hurts, shoulder spin-up if your shoulder or neck hurts, or breath spin-up otherwise.

Mobilize the abdomen, obliques, endopelvic fascia, and pelvic floor with a ball, especially from belly button south if there are pelvic floor issues or discomfort. Stay away from the openings; if anything hurts to compression, contract and relax there. One implementation is sitting on a coffee table or similar surface and placing the ball around the pelvis, glutes, and pelvic floor.

For trunk training, hang from a bar and curl up rather than relying only on floor crunches.

Train the trunk in long-lever positions, not only short-lever crunch patterns.

Do spinal engine work such as side bending and twisting with a PVC pipe to train trunk function beyond rigidity.

While hanging from a bar, bring the right foot to the left hand or similar cross-body patterns to add rotation.

Use the couch stretch to assess and improve hip extension; start with one knee in the corner by a wall or couch, foot vertical, then progress to more upright positions. In the position, squeeze the glute, keep breathing, and if breath gets small that indicates a limitation. You can camp out there, take some breaths, and use contract-relax or resisted isometrics.

Use big forward or backward lunges to train hip extension.

Use overhead pressing as a non-negotiable movement pattern; one variation mentioned is pressing from a front-foot-elevated split stance to expose hip extension limitations.

Structure training so that 80% of workouts are at about 80% of what you could do that day, 10% at 90%, 5% at 95%, and 5% all-out 100% efforts.

Avoid always training to complete exhaustion; leave some reps in reserve so you can show up the next day.

Be able to kip as well as do strict pull-ups; Kelly says inability to kip suggests something is wrong.

Maintain the ability to jump and land as you age; lower-level exposure can include trampolining.

Use resistance training to become stronger and better at running rather than treating the gym as a closed loop.

Sprint once a week; ideally use hill sprints and repeats if tissue tolerance and range of motion allow. If running sprints is not appropriate, use a bike to measure and train peak wattage.

Treat workouts as concentration-building time rather than interrupting them with social media or texting; if using audio, listen through an album, podcast, or book chapter sequentially rather than fragmenting attention.

Do rolling, self-massage, or soft tissue work in the 10 minutes before bed to improve adherence and help the brain shift toward sleep.

In a very hot sauna, breathe slowly through the nose for 10 to 15 minutes to train calm under stress.

Use changes in heat tolerance and cold tolerance as indicators of stress and recovery state.

If readiness markers are poor, make it a 70% day in the gym rather than taking a full day off.

As part of a physical practice, walk throughout the day and try not to sit in one place for a long period of time.

For athletes needing more calories, putting food on a table with a tablecloth may increase intake.

Avoid starting body recomposition plans with fasting or brutal calorie restriction.

Regular physical activity habit done when weather allows.

Avoid turning enjoyable exercise into an extrinsically rewarded activity by logging it in a phone app or over-focusing on watch/Fitbit metrics.

Brief conversations with strangers increase positive emotion, reduce loneliness, and improve the sense that life is going better; applies to introverts and extroverts.

See real faces at least once a day, not just faces on a screen.