One of my favorite things about training and working out is the almost limitless options to gain strength, build muscle, increase range of motion, and feel better over all. If you aren’t careful, this can lead to some paralysis by analysis which is why it’s always great to hire a coach. I might know a guy!

Most good functional training programs have a wide variety of bilateral (both sides working at same time) movements that consist of squats, deadlifts, presses, pulls, the Olympic weightlifting movements of cleans, snatches, and jerks, jumps, and some integration of nonstructural movements like rowing and skiing. 

All of these are great, but after 20+ years in athletics, professional basketball, and coaching a wide array of athletes, I’d like to make a simple observation: almost all athletic movements are done unilaterally. Whether on a field, court, track, bike, skates, or other athletic arena, many of the movements are in a unilateral (single side) fashion. This does not mean unilateral is better than bilateral, but it is definitely worth highlighting a bit as unilateral work often gets overlooked. 

Next time you are in a funk, feeling overwhelmed with life, or feel the weight of the world on your shoulders, try these exercise-related tools for managing and overcoming those thoughts and feelings. 

After many years in high level sports, twelve years of coaching, three years of podcasting, and countless conversations with some of the world’s most incredible humans, I have discovered a common thread in just about all of them. 

We are all a bundle of stories. Our worlds are heavily influenced by how we talk to ourselves, and the stories we tell ourselves based on life’s events. Keeping these stories bouncing around in our head isn’t a big deal in the beginning, but overtime, we accumulate more and more stories and without writing them down it becomes an unorganized library with books and pages everywhere. 

You see, writing helps us better understand our thoughts, our feelings, the events in our lives, and as I say often, “Writing fills the gaps within our thinking.” It helps us to create meaning. Below is some structure to help with this life changing habit you should start today. The habit is called journaling. I used to get touchy feely about this word and it had a negative connotation for me. So I prefer to think of it as brain dumping and mindset organizing. Let’s unpack this a bit.