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Do you have good hip mobility? Better question, do you even have average hip mobility? Do you even know how to quantify an average amount of hip mobility? I recently came across this article detailing Ido Porter‘s 30/30 squat challenge. The goal of the challenge is to counteract the damage being done by our increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Ido Porter is an Israeli movement guru with an intense passion for getting himself and others moving. In a world where many of us are stuck in front of desk, the consequences of failing to move could be life threatening. I’m 23 years and I have already had hip surgery to repair a cab impingement, pincer impingement and torn labrum in my right hip at the ripe old age of 21. I learned a lot from my phenomenal physical therapist about the importance of hip strength and mobility during my 6 month rehabilitation. However, once I was left to fend for myself, I realized how difficult it was to maintain the strength and flexibility I had been working on for the past half year. Sitting for extended periods of time, like every university class I took, tightened my hip flexors. Luckily, long walks to class, yoga after track workouts, and retention of physical therapy exercises kept me loose. The new health tip du jour, “sitting is the new smoking” further motivated me to be cognizant of staying on my feet. Upon starting my office job in the financial services industry, all the good habits I was working on at Pitt became much harder to maintain. I was stuck in a tiny cube, making phone calls and answering emails, while I felt my body screaming to be set free. The tight neck tie and suit jacket certainly didn’t help. Having now quit the the financial services industry, I am focused on recommiting to attaining the hip mobility and strength that came naturally to our pre-office-life ancestors. I believe Ido’s challenge will help get me there.  The Challenge Spend a cumulative 30 minutes per day in a deep squat for thirty consecutive days with no rest days. These thirty minutes need not be consecutive, so I will start by taking 6 five-minute squats per day. Once this becomes easy, I will condense to fewer, longer sessions per day. After that I hope to expand past 30 minutes per day before the end of this 30 day challenge. Proper Form
If you are unsure if your form is correct, observe these six rules
Good luck! I will have after photos and a reflection for you in a month. Let me know in the comments, on Twitter, or email me at goingdeepaaron@gmail.com if you are trying it out. I have accepted that I am extremely competitive. On a recent vacation, I worked myself into a frenzy over losing a game of rummy 500 and tried to kick a soccer ball through a glass door. I have worked on being more mindful, but I have no desire to eliminate it entirely. It is my heightened sense of competitiveness that has fueled my pursuit of mastery in multiple disciplines and eternal search for any advantage I can find. This quirk peaked upon reading an article about Kobe Bryant. A specific line stuck with me and brought me back to the article an hour later. “Most people don’t realize he is on a polyphasic sleep schedule, just a part of his total body optimization. He does dual core 2x naps.” Upon further research, I found that he sleeps for two 2-hour stretches at night and takes two short naps during the day. This is called a Dual Core 2 sleep schedule. The Dual Core refers to the two extended sleeping periods Kobe has during the night. The 2 represents the number of 20 min naps he takes during the day. More research revealed that you can modify the length of your two core sleeping periods to give you up to 7 hours, or as low as 4 hours, of primary, recovery-focused sleep. Polyphasic sleeping acolytes claim that monophasic sleeping (one 7-9 hour period of sleep) is an unnatural byproduct of the Industrial Revolution. Essentially, we have been raised to believe we need “a good eight hours” because that is the only reasonable options for adults with a 9-5 job and any other responsibilities. Returning to the behaviors of our prehistoric ancestors is similar to the argument against sitting for extended periods, for the paleo diet, and for non-monogamous relationships. That was enough to convince me to give it a shot. Here is the plan for modifying my sleep schedule from monophasic to polyphasic sleep schedule.
Goal; To limit my daily sleep to no more than 6.5 hours per night and increase my daily productivity. Achieve this without sacrificing performance (writing and physical activities). Other behavior modifications to consider;
Be sure to check back in 3 weeks from today to read about my progress. I will be lifting and running regularly and eating as healthy as possible. More experiments are also in the works for the future, let me know if you think there is something I should try. P.S. - If I fail, at least I know I wasn’t alone. Other bloggers have tried and failed to successfully convert to a polyphasic sleep schedule and still took away some valuable information. |
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