Your body isn’t fucked. It’s just not CURRENTLY prepared for the sports/activities you love to do

I was led to believe that my body was fucked.

After going to 5 of the best ‘experts’ I could find, I was told to settle and that my body isn’t able to do things I love anymore (Jiu Jitsu & strength training) at 25. Time to settle.

But if you follow me on Instagram, you know this isn’t the case. I’m doing Jiu Jitsu & strength training towards high-level goals, among many other things.

From the outside view, you wouldn’t know I suffered with 10 years of chronic pains & injuries and had to give up things I loved for a time.

At 30 now, I’m doing all the things I wanted to do at 25 and more! I plan on doing the things I love until I’m put in the ground. I plan to live to over 100, and keep doing what I love until the very end. You might think I’m joking but I’m not at all.

This is why I prioritise my body so much and try to spread better information to help people do the same. It will catch up with you at some stage in your life.

Your PHYSICAL FREEDOM will be taken away from you at some stage if you don’t make your body a priority. And when that happens……you’ll wish you listened to that passionate man online who wouldn’t shut up about it.

I’ve had it taken away from me at a young age. I know what it's like. And you don’t want to be there, trust me.

You can come out of it, but as our parent’s say “prevention is better than the cure!”. One thing they are definitely right about.

Diagnoses as a Death Sentence (The Problem)

We go to ‘experts’ and get ‘diagnosed’. We get told what’s ‘wrong’ with our bodies. And what we need to ‘fix’ it.

This leads us to believe that we are like a computer with broken parts. We just need this FIX, and then we will be brand new.

Like humpty dumpty who fell off the wall and just needs a bit of glue to stick himself back together. Then we will be right as rain. A new man.

THIS…..is the start of the problem.

We are led to believe our body is like a computer or a car that can be broken and fixed…..but in reality this is not how the body works at all.

And this delusion leads to a distortion in your thinking which fucks everything up going forward if you are trying to get your PHYSICAL FREEDOM back. If you want to be able to look after your own body going forward for the rest of your life.

This false view of the body bestowed upon us by (a lot) of the ‘experts’, leads to a myriad of issues:

• False beliefs about the human body (which keeps us in the dark about the truth, and hence we’ll always be fooled)

• No proper education on how the human body works

• Nocebo effect (opposite of placebo - which links to increased pain levels)

• Traps us in a prison where we are searching for the WRONG ANSWER (so we will never get the result we want)

• Take the locus of control AWAY from us, and puts them in control (hence we need to rely on them forever to ‘fix’ us. And keep going back spending our time, energy & money for no result)

And where does this lead?

For me, it led to me trying to find the fix for my multiple diagnosis for 10 years……which never happened.

I would go to a different healthcare practitioners……thinking they have the FIX…..to only be given a NEW diagnosis. ANOTHER thing ‘wrong’ with my body. The cycle goes on and on.

In the las 1/2 years of that period of my life, 5 DIFFERENT experts gave me 5 DIFFERENT ‘diagnoses’ of what's wrong with me. This was when the penny finally dropped for me. That these ‘experts’ really don’t know whats happening. As if they did…..well then they would all diagnose me with the same thing wouldn’t they?! But I’m getting 5 different ones after I say the EXACT SAME SYMPTOMS. Like throwing darts at a dart board. The Russian roulette of quick fixes.

This was when I had a huge realisation which is very important to understand:

All ANYONE (doesn’t matter if they have 10 doctorates or haven’t a single qualification) can tell you, is their OPINION based on their EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE. THAT’S IT

They aren’t ‘divine’ answers of truth, they are OPINIONS. People have different education, people have different experience, and through this combination they will have different OPINIONS….and this is what happens no matter who you go to see (me included).

The whole allure of the ‘experts’ was now shattered for me. I took them down of the pedastal I had them on. I could see behind the veil now. The mirage was gone like a puff of smoke. And hopefully it is now for you too.

Then I went looking for better answers. One’s that actually made sense.

After TAKING OWNERSHIP of my body, FOLLOWING THE RESULTS, and EDUCATING myself on how the body actually works…….this is when I found out the truth. This is when things started to change for me.

The person who first helped me with my back pain more than the best qualified healthcare practitioner ‘experts’……used knowledge from a weekend course on mobility to do so. The irony eh?

This was when I saw the power of FOLLOWING THE RESULTS over doctorates & degrees and anything else.

Results are king. Who gives a shit where they come from as long as I get my physical freedom back.

So if we aren’t like a computer, like a car, like humpty dumpty. If we aren’t broken and then fixed……how does the human body work then?

Your Body is Not a Machine, It’s an ADAPTABLE ORGANISM

This is the truth.

We are ADAPTABLE ORGANISMS. We ADAPT to our environment and CHANGE. This is how the human body works.

It may not make too much sense now as to how this is the answer, but keep reading and it will.

If you want to know how the human body and brain work and what they are designed to do, you need to look at evolutionary biology.

Think of it like if you were going to buy a stock. You don’t just look at the stock TODAY (i.e like the experts look at you CURRENTLY - you are fucked), you look at when the company started, where it came from, its trajectory over time since its inception, how has it adapted and changed, you look at IT’S WHOLE HISTORY….so that you can make an ACCURATE decision about what to do going forward. And that’s exactly what we should do with the human body (except we don’t).

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the 2nd best time is NOW. So let’s get to it.

Humans have been here for around for 6 million years. The species of humans that me and you (and the whole world) are, is homo-sapiens. We are around about 200,000 years.

Over all this time, the human body has ADAPTED TO IT’S ENVIRONMENT. That is what we are designed to do - ADAPT to our environment to help us survive and reproduce. If we didn't, then we wouldn’t be here. The human species would have died off a long time ago.

EVERYTHING we have in terms of our body now, was chosen through natural selection because it had an advantage in keeping us alive. The shape of your nose, your eyebrows, the fact we walk on 2 feet, our ability to think abstractly, our cardiovascular endurance, our ability to sweat to cool down so we can endurance hunt animals that overheat with their fur and who are unable to sweat. You could go through it all.

The point here is the HUMAN BODY IS ALWAYS ADAPTING. It’s always CHANGING. It has been for the last 6 million years, it will be until our extinction.

The irony is that we think we ‘can’t change’ (i.e my hip mobility is terrible, I can’t change. I’ve always been tight and stiff, you don’t get it). But in reality, YOU ARE CHANGING EVERY DAY. It’s literally the OPPOSITE of what you think and are led to believe.

You are either adapting & changing POSITIVELY (i.e slowly becoming more mobile) or you are adapting & changing NEGATIVELY (i.e slowly becoming tighter and stiffer).

This is all happening slowly EACH AND EVERY DAY in the background……but you just don’t realise it.

It’s only after an ACCUMULATION OF YEARS AND DECADES…..that all these negative small gains have added up to the BIG GAINS….and now you feel like the tin man/woman looking for the ‘fix’.

But you are blind to the actual problem. The problem was your LACK OF EDUCATION on how the body works, to understand that you are changing all the time slowly.

The small gains are CONSTANTLY WORKING either FOR or AGAINST you. And when you are unaware of this and live in this modern world (sitting most the day, no focus on mobility, hammering ourselves with sport etc)….we all adapt negatively.

Once you truly understand this (and get the right plan to work on your current limitations), now you can start to turn the SMALL GAINS IN YOUR FAVOUR. You can start to turn the tide and slowly adapt POSITIVELY, instead of negatively.

This is the way out. It’s all I have done and what I do with clients. And you can too.

Because I had no clue of this and kept looking for the ‘fix’ (as I continued to miss the big picture and kept adapting negatively every day), I ended up like the tin man giving up things I love to do.

But now I’m 5 YEARS turning the tide and chasing the SMALL GAINS positively (improving my mobility & strength). My example is just showing you what’s possible and how it works.

This is why I always push the SMALL GAINS on Instagram. As that's all you can ACTUALLY get.

You can literally only change in 2 ways:

• SMALL GAINS negatively

• SMALL GAINS positively

So what are you waiting for? The sooner you start to turn the tide the BETTER. I wish someone told me this after 1 year instead of 10 but what can you do. You can still improve from anywhere.

The starting points don’t matter, it's your ATTITUDE & APPROACH that will determine your progress and where the small gains take you.

Now that you know how it really works…..let’s look back at our previous belief. We have (unconsciously) been adapting negatively for DECADES, and now feel like the tin man/woman. And now, we want a ‘fix’ that will just someone undo all these adaptations that have happened over the last decade?! That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

It didn’t happen overnight, so it won’t be solved overnight. You need to get this into your head and ACCEPT IT. Acceptance of where you are at, and awareness of the problem is the first point of change.

We’ll wrap this up with an analogy (analogies are great as they help us understand & retain information much better by attaching an UNKNOWN - the new information you are trying to learn, to a KNOWN - information you already know).

Your Body is on a Journey (whether you realise it or not)

Think of how the body adapts and changes every day like a car journey.

You HAVE to go on the journey. You can’t stop the car. It doesn’t work like that.

You can’t stop the car from moving (or the body from adapting)…..so what CAN you do?

Well, you can decide WHERE THE CAR GOES. That’s what you can do.

Do you want to end up somewhere in 10 years that you hate? (e.g not able to do sports/activities you love as you get older. Unable to play with your kids).

Or do you want to arrive somewhere you love (e.g regain your physical freedom and have it as you age. Continue to do sports/activities you love and play with your kids).

I know you would pick option 2 there.

But what are most people doing????

They are in the backseat of the car. They don’t even know they are on a journey. The driver is on the route towards tin man city and you are there in the backseat oblivious to the pain and suffering coming your way. You have no idea the destination you will arrive at.

It’s only when you get there 10 years later, that you will realise your mistake. “Driver can you fix this and bring me back instantly please?! Doesn’t work that way son. It’s your decisions that got you here. It’s going to be a long road back.

So what do we need to do?

Once we are educated on how the body works we KNOW BETTER. We are EMPOWERED.

You wake up from your slumber of ignorance in the back seat. You tell the driver to pull the car over.

You KICK THAT MOTHERFUCKER OUT OF THE CAR like you’re playing GTA, and YOU TAKE THE WHEEL.

YOU TAKE CONTROL. YOU ARE THE CAPTAIN NOW.

You DECIDE where this car will end up in 1,2,5,10,20 years. You DECIDE how your body will adapt and change going forward.

It doesn’t matter how far you have drove in the wrong direction, I wen’t fucking 10 years in the wrong direction.

All that matters is NOW. All that matters is you make the decision to GET ON THE RIGHT PATH.

As my business mentor tells us - “every breath is a chance to start again”.

Your future self will thank you. Your future family will thank you.

When I eventually realised this and started FINALLY getting on the right path, when I finally started driving the car in the right direction, it was LIBERATING.

I knew I was so far from where I wanted to be……but I knew I had the right ATTITUDE & APPROACH now. I knew progress was INEVITABLE IN TIME.

I didn’t know how far I could or would take it. I didn’t know how long this journey will be back, but I had comfort and peace knowing that I was heading in the right direction. A direction I would be proud of choosing when I look back years later.

And like all journeys, rather than keep counting the km’s or looking at the clock…..I put on the tunes and ENJOY THE JOURNEY. I learn as much as I can, and I share it to help others along the way. It makes me a better person and a better coach.

Why do I make all this content? Because I’m on the motorway of PHYSICAL FREEDOM…….and I see so many people on the other side of the motorway towards tin man city. I feel for them.

They have no idea where they are heading. I try to tell people but they are blaring the same old tune so loud they can’t even hear me. Nothing I say will will help them.

So I try to set up my own communication channels. I put out info on a radio station that each car can CHOOSE to listen to. And if they do, I can change their path and their LIFE.

If they choose to listen and implement what I’m telling them…they can turn off the motorway to tin man city and take the ramp onto PHYSICAL FREEDOM highway.

There are 6 lanes but fuck all cars. There’s room for us all but not many even know it's here.

They don’t even know their body is on a journey. They are still out there looking for the ‘fix’.

3 Actionable Takeaways:

1. STOP treating your body like a machine - The quick fix model doesn’t make sense in terms of how the body works - Your body is an adaptable organism constantly adapting and changing - We need to take this into account and work with the principles of the human body

2. Understand that your body is the way it is because of the decisions you have made

- Bar some small percentage of people with serious issues at birth, our body is the way it is from the decisions we made

- If you didn’t prioritise your body, it has adapted negatively over years/decades to where it is now

- Your old decisions got you here. Your new decisions can get you out of it

3. View it like a car journey - But you CAN decide what way the car is going. Towards tin man city, or towards PHYSICAL FREEDOM - You are either small gaining your way towards losing your physical freedom or towards gaining/keeping it. YOU decide. There is no 3rd option - You can’t STOP the car journey. You can’t STOP your body from adapting

A good client example of someone who went to many healthcare ‘experts’ looking for the fix, but was left disappointed and not able to return the sport he loves: Dylan Luddy!

Through the education & coaching, Dylan turned the tide with the small gains now towards his PHYSICAL FREEDOM. And he got back to Jiu Jitsu! What’s it all about!!! Read his review below! Hear it from Dylan.

If you think that happened overnight it didn’t. It was over months. You can see Dylan saying "Significantly improved my knowledge around mobility, strength and most importantly the POWER OF MARINGAL GAINS". He got on the highway towards physical freedom and committed to the journey and process. He small gained his way there, there was no 'fix'.

A text from client Bill below is how you get the confidence to see you can end up there too! When you know you are early on in your journey, but you finally see you are heading in the RIGHT direction now. Small gaining your way towards your PHYSICAL FREEDOM.

This Week:

Education:

• Current Reading: Denial of Death (Ernst Becker)

• Podcasts

(Modern Wisdom Podcast - Surprising Psychology Truths: Gurwinder Bhogal)

(Tim Ferris Show - The Myth of normal, metabolizing anger, processing trauma, and finding the still voice within: Dr Gabor Mate)

Both savage podcasts. So many notes taken!

Business:

• Some client wins:

• Kevin’s knee is much better after having chronic pain. Progressed onto some plyometrics now!

• Barry finally getting into a good routine with the mobility with his busy lifestyle (father & busy job). Feeling ‘less crepid’ I think the words were! haha But this is the start! The small gains are starting to go in the right direction now (just like explained in this newsletter). Chronic pains for decades won’t evaporate in a matter of weeks/few months, but he knows he’s on the right path now

Personal:

• Fun this week:

• Went for a meal in town Wednesday evening with a friend

• A client Gloria came down from Galway on Thursday to do one of the sessions in person and we also went out for food!

• On the train home now on Saturday and going for a meal out with the family when I arrive home

Training:

• Back to Jiu Jitsu again this week. 2 sessions in (Tuesday & this morning). Knee feeling good! But I am still making sure not to fully bend it for now.

• One arm chin up session last Saturday. SMALL GAINS in the assisted one arm chin ups! Went from 10kg assistance last session to 7.5kg assistance now for 4x7 reps. Another 3-5 sessions of this block and then I’ll be testing the one arm chin and see if I get a PB (last PB was a one arm chin up with 3.75kg assistance)

• Also got another upper body (push) session in and a leg session.

• I use ‘buffers’ for my training. Jiu Jitsu (1-3), Strength (2-4). So I try to stay within them and obviously towards the higher end! But sometimes its the lower end. Main thing is to STAY ON THE PATH, and keep moving forward and whatever pace you can. The only way to fail is quit

That’s it for this week! Hopefully there has been some insightful moments where the penny drops! and you can start to change things going forward from here. YOU are the captain now.

Any questions or coaching inquiries, just reach out to me on Instagram! All my socials are linked at the bottom of this email. If you are reading this online article and want this to your inbox each week - put your email in the box down at the bottom! Would be happy to have you on board the journey of small gaining your way towards your potential!

Enjoy the weekend! Chat soon.

Don’t Settle,

Mark