If you come train with me either at my gym, The Movement Minneapolis, or via online coaching you’ll have to adopt a new paradigm for their training – but once you do you’ll find that it permeates the rest of your life.

The classic paradigm is essentially one of prescription. Your program says to do this so you do this. Maybe you make some small adjustments. If you’re working with a good coach they definitely make some tweaks. But generally speaking you’re going to do what is planned.

I teach a different approach. I only want you to do things that are good for you to do – right now. If it’s going to make you better, you do it. If it’s going to make you worse, you don’t do it.

Mark Fisher calls it “everything is optional” at their place. I like that.

So how can you know whether it’s good for you or not? Surely deadlifts are always good for you, right? No, not so fast.

The state of your body, mind, and all of the pieces and systems that are parts of the whole are in constant flux. Your tissues are constantly adapting, remodeling, and changing and your brain and nervous system too is always in flux.

So what would be a bad day to deadlift? Well a day in which you’ve created a lot of tissue damage with another workout probably wouldn’t be ideal to add more heavy deadlifts to your recovery load. Or, on the “softer” side of tissues, a day that you’re perhaps physically fresh but mentally completely exhausted from strenuous mental exertion might not be the best day to add more nervous system load.

But how can you know?

When it comes to movement, this is where biofeedback is extremely useful. You can simply test how you respond to the actual movement. If you respond positively then great it’s good for you to do right now, if you respond negatively it’s probably best to push it out until the next time. The question is, “Is this good for me to do right now?”

But what about things that aren’t so clearly movement based. That perhaps you can’t test so easily.

This is where the big picture of asking “is this good for me to do right now” comes into play.

If you’ve ever worked on learning a skill you know that there are days when you feel like everything is clicking, and days where no matter how hard you try things just aren’t coming together. And yet, you can come back to something you were really struggling with and a day or two later it just clicks.

What I try to do is make the most of the times when things are clicking, and cut short the sessions where everything feels off. Even if it doesn’t feel great to give up or stop doing something you love to do when you’re feeling frustrated. Obviously there is a wide gray area between putting in the work and the inherent struggle of learning and when things aren’t going well, but as I’ve written before, the better you get at predicting the better your results will be.

What you’ll find is that if you stop the poor practice prematurely, your brain will integrate when you’re away from the practice itself and when you come back you’re better than before seemingly without having done anything.

We’re going to talk more about speeding up and supporting that process of integration in a follow-up article, but the main point to keep in mind is maximizing the good practice, and minimizing the bad.

As you probably know, one of my passions besides lifting is skydiving. Since the advent of indoor vertical wind tunnels skydivers can turn money into noise and skill faster than ever before. But flying in the tunnel can be as frustrating as it is mentally exhausting. Because a single 15-minute session in the tunnel can easily equate to a month of skydiving you can see the skill improvement measured in minutes in a way that really is unparalleled by anything I can think of. By the same token, I know that if something isn’t clicking it’s best for me to either move on to a different skill or to stop completely for the day. Usually when I come back in a week whatever I was struggling with comes to me almost instantly.

Of course, this paradigm doesn’t just apply to skill acquisition, motor learning, or training.

The two sectors of peoples lives most often affected by this mindset shift are their job and their relationships.

“Is this good for me, right now?”

If you are going to work every day and answering no, this is not good for me, I would wager your days at that job are numbered.

If almost every moment or engagement in a relationship results in a “not good” rating, I’d wager that relationship is coming to an end.

And why shouldn’t it? Time is your only non-renewable resource. It’s almost indisputably your most valuable resource. If what you’re doing isn’t good for you, it means you’re wasting time that could be spent on something that is good for you to do.

In the early 1970s the United States Air Force issued a request for defense contractors to design and a new advanced lightweight fighter jet. A team from General Dynamics would go on to design the F-16 Fighting Falcon which is still in use today by over 25 countries and is widely considered the most effective and best-designed air combat fighter ever designed.

Long time readers will know what a fan of military strategist and engineer John Boyd I am, and may recognize him as the originator of the O.O.D.A loop, a model for approaching decision making in everything from design to combat. What you may not know is that John Boyd was one three members of the Fighter Mafia that made the F-16 what it is.

If there is one way to summarize how these three men designed the greatest fighter jet the world has ever seen it’s to understand how they constrained the design and decision making.

The first contraint that Boyd introduced was that it had to use a particular engine. That simplified a lot of their design decisions, but it also meant that certain parameters like the amount of power available were fixed from the beginning. If they wanted more speed, they’d have to make a lighter and smaller aircraft. The result contributed to incredible power-to-weight ratio that made it extraordinarily maneuverable.

The second constraint was that they wanted it to have long range, but refused to do what you typically would do to increase range which is to increase the amount of fuel it can carry. Instead they again focused on making it more aerodynamic, lighter, and smaller. Think of this in a way like the difference between a super-heavyweight lifter and a weight class lifter. The weight-constrained lifters are shredded and boast incredible strength-to-weight ratios. The unconstrained lifters have extreme strength, but they’re encumbered in nearly every other way by their size.

The third important constraint is that this wasn’t a blank-check project. They were to design a $3 million dollar plane, which is a hell of a lot of money, but in terms of a combat aircraft it is pennies. As a result they couldn’t add all the bells and whistles that would add size, weight, and complexity – they had to keep it simple.

Ultimately these three key (and other smaller) constraints allowed the designers to stay on a path that resulted in this legendary aircraft.

Setting constraints is counter-intuitive – you might think that limiting your options or freedom will make it harder to reach your goals. On the contrary, appropriate constraints make it easier make good decisions.

– Setting daily caloric or macro targets makes it easy to lose or gain weight, but still gives you the freedom to eat whatever you want. Or, flipping that, constraining the types of foods you eat usually limits your intake as well as a result.

– Having a training program planned out ensures that the unlimited variety of options in the gym doesn’t overwhelm you but still gives you the flexibility to make adjustments on the fly.

– Planning your day out with specific activities at certain times virtually always ensures that you get more done than a day when you have nothing planned and you could have done anything. Bumpers keep you out of the gutter.

Take a minute to look at what you’re trying to achieve or create and whether or not you’ve put appropriate constraints around it so that you’re setup for success. If you haven’t, time to limit your options.

Sleep is the ultimate performance enhancing drug. If you could bottle up all the benefits of sleep in a side-effect free drug you’d have the first trillion dollar drug. Most people only get about four-fifths of the sleep they need. Which doesn’t sound so bad until you think about the chronic cumulative effects. What if your salary was cut by 20%? The immediate effects would be bad enough, but imagine what it would do to your retirement savings.

Lack of sleep can even affect your genetics. One recent study showed that people who slept for less than seven hours per night had an increased genetic risk for obesity. But how is this possible, aren’t your genes encoded at birth? Yes – and you can modify the interpretation of them with your lifestyle choices.

I protect my sleep fiercely. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a 9-10, sometimes 11 hours of sleep a night guy. Despite my best attempts I usually get to bed around 10, which means I’m usually up around 9. I take quick naps in the mid-afternoon often. While I’d love to be one of those people who can get away with 5-6 hours, I don’t think it’s ever going to happen for me, it’s just not in my genetics. But on the flip side, I reap the myriad benefits of all that sleep.

Sleeping better is accessible to almost everyone, but you’re going to have to do the fairly mundane work of basic sleep hygiene that you’ve been ignoring in the hopes of finding a sleep hack.

Environment

First let’s talk about your bedroom. You need a comfortable mattress. Sure you can buy one of those hip mattresses advertised on Facebook, but I think it’s worth taking it a step further considering you will literally spend a third of your life sleeping on it. Consider calling my friend Casey at Wildcat Mattress and telling him about your needs and preferences. Next you need to darken your room significantly. Buy room darkening roller blinds if you don’t already have blinds that block all outside light. They’re dirt cheap and incredibly effective. Finally, you need to be able to get your room down to a good sleeping temperature – between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Depending on your situation getting an extra window unit or wall-mounted air conditioner might be the most efficient and effective way to do this. Our current house has central A/C but I still have a Haier ultra-quiet window unit because it’s both more effective and more efficient than trying to chill my entire house down to 60º. Temperature, light, mattress – fix these things.

Habits

Next you need to address the behavioral habits surrounding your sleep. If you watch TV or use electronics immediately before going to bed, you should probably stop. Research has shown that the predominantly blue (in terms of spectrum) light emitted by modern electronics is double plus ungood for sleep and may in fact cause other pathologies including eye issues. Amber-tinted glasses can help with this. Big picture though, it’s also best to wind down before sleep in a more natural manner.

Getting to sleep before 10pm is ideal, as most people will experience a bump in cortisol levels around that time if they’re not asleep yet – experienced as the well-known “second wind” you get late at night. This cortisol coming at the wrong time could be the cause of many downstream deleterious effects.

You’ll have to experiment and figure out for yourself if caffeine late in the day (or at any time of day) is a problem for your own sleep cycle. Between self-experimentation confirmed by genetic testing I know that I’m a caffeine “fast metabolizer” and it doesn’t affect me negatively if I have caffeine even as late after dinner. Your mileage might vary, and you might have to cut it out after noon.

Apps

Most (all?) sleep apps don’t truly measure your sleep, they sort of approximate it based on things that are easier to measure like how much you’re moving. Zeo was a company that actually measured your brain signals, but unfortunately they failed. BUT, I still think it’s worth using a sleep monitor app, even one as simple as Sleep Cycle because it brings your focus and attention to improving your sleep. It can also help you sort out variables that affect your sleep – such as when you’ve had caffeine or worked out.

Talk to Your Doc

If you’re more than 50 pounds overweight and/or snore significantly you should strongly consider asking your doctor for a sleep study. If you need a CPAP you’re probably not going to sleep well without one, so get it checked out.

Supplements

There are some supplements that can help with sleep. ZMA is one that could be beneficial, is pretty cheap, and is unlikely to have any ill effects. Melatonin is the most popular sleep supplement, and it’s worth experimenting with but you can become dependent on it so it’s best to back it out once you’ve normalized your sleep rhythm. Plus, supplementing with melatonin doesn’t do any good if you’re not covering the other basics first, and in fact it can totally backfire.

Ultimately, these steps are mundane. You’ve probably heard them before. If you were hoping for some sleep hacks you are disappointed. The good news is that means you haven’t done moved the simple and effective big rocks to improve your sleep, and you still stand to gain from the most effective actions.