I came across a quote the other day that got me thinking.
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive.
The older I get the more I agree with this concept that life is counterintuitive. The more life I live the less secure I feel in my ability to know just exactly how things will turn out. How often have you experienced the following scenario:
- You want a certain result.
- So, you take the action that you feel is exactly right.
- The result happens…but it’s exactly the opposite result of what you expected!
Yea…I’m right there with ya!
The key question is “What next?” When you get a result that is NOT what you expected, what do you do? Hopefully you don’t keep taking the same action…because…that’s the definition of insanity!
Insanity = Doing the same thing over & over & expecting different results.
Maybe George Costanza had it right in “The Opposite” Seinfeld episode! You need to do exactly the opposite of what you THINK you should do. You need to take the counterintuitive approach!
To prove my point, here are 7 counterintuitive concepts that I’ve recently come to accept.
#1 Counterintuitive Concept: More Structure = More Free Time
In the world of efficiency this is a foundational concept. And believe me…I fought this one for years. How could maintaining a tight schedule possibly give me more freedom? I believed for years that less structure allowed me to “go with the flow” & thereby have more available time. The problem was…it wasn’t true. Even though I had free time…I never felt 100% relaxed. My brain was always thinking about what needed to be done & trying to remember things I shouldn’t forget. When I finally started structuring my time through time blocking, all of a sudden, my off time was truly free! The structure (i.e., lists & schedules) gave my brain the OK to stop thinking about work…and I am finally able to experience the full benefits of 100% “free time”! It’s amazing!
#2 Counterintuitive Concept: When I’m Busier I’m More Efficient
This concept is one that I am continually reminded of because my business has busy & slow seasons. The core idea is this: When I have more appointments, more swim lessons, more clients to manage, I do a much better job of managing my time. Since I have less available time to get things done, I have to be more efficient in how I do my work tasks. By contrast, when my business is slower, I often find myself wasting more time…simply because I have more time to waste. This newsletter is a great example. When I’m really busy, I allocate 4-6hrs to complete this newsletter. But when things are slower, if I’m not careful, the newsletter might take 8-10hrs to complete simply because I’m rewriting & rewriting & rewriting…!
#3 Counterintuitive Concept: Mess Your Technique Up to Improve Your Technique
This concept has been drilled into me (no pun intended) through my piano practice. And now I drill it into my swimmers. What do we tend to do when we want to perfect a technique? We practice that technique over & over & over & over…in the same way every time…with the idea that we’ll get better at it. To a certain point, this approach does work. It’s the basis of “practice makes perfect”. But, after a certain level of proficiency, this approach fails. After a certain point, all that additional practice won’t produce significant results.
Essentially your brain shuts down. Once you’ve practiced a skill in a specific order enough, you’ve created an automated base motor pattern (the order in which the muscles fire to produce the skill). And an automated base motor pattern means that your brain now runs that pattern on autopilot…it doesn’t have to think about it anymore. That’s both a good place AND a bad place to be. The good is that you’ve established a solid motor pattern. The bad is that your brain isn’t thinking about this motor pattern anymore – it’s just pressing replay & letting it run.
So, if you want to make any additional changes to that skill (fine-tune it or improve it in any way), you’ll have to snap your brain out of autopilot. A really great way to do this is to mess up your technique. By deliberately trying to do the skill in ways that are NOT correct, you force your brain out of autopilot, you force it to think again. And, when your brain is actively engaged with what you’re doing, you can change & refine the motor pattern. Bizarre…but it totally works!
#4 Counterintuitive Concept: Exhaling is More Important Than Inhaling
Humans need oxygen (O2) to live. We get O2 from breathing the air. Inhaling is how we bring O2 into our bodies. Therefore, inhaling must be the most important part of breathing, right? Well…not really! Actually, exhaling is the more important part. This is because the quality of your exhale directly determines how much O2 your lungs will absorb. If your exhale is short & fast (like in hyperventilation), you won’t absorb much O2 at all. Whereas if your exhale is long, extended & slow, your lungs will absorb quite a bit more O2. Suffice to say, increasing your carbon dioxide levels (by slow exhaling and/or holding your breath at the end of an exhale) will increase the amount of O2 uptake by the lungs. For more info on this, read my blog post “Breath Control…It’s All in Your Head”.
#5 Counterintuitive Concept: Lifting Super Slow to Access Fast-Twitch Muscles
I was just (last week!) introduced to this concept & it completely blew my mind! All the education I’ve received on slow- versus fast-twitch muscle fibers taught me that we access slow-twitch muscles by doing long, slow endurance-based workouts & fast-twitch muscles by doing short, hard explosive exercises like plyometrics. This is all true. BUT there is another way to access fast-twitch muscle fibers…a much less injury-prone way – Time Under Tension (TUT).
TUT is defined by how long a muscle is loaded during an exercise set. The goal of this style of workout is to lift VERY slowly (05sec up, 05sec down) to complete failure at a total time of 01min 30sec to 02min. Again, the goal is to have that muscle continually loaded for the entire time. This means no stopping, no locking out joints…just slow, continuous motion…to failure. It’s uncomfortable, it’s painful, it’s super effective!
When you continually load the muscle for an extended period of time, the slow-twitch Type 1 muscle fibers fatigue first. But you’re still lifting. So, your body then recruits the fast-twitch Type 2A fibers. Due to the length of the lift, those Type 2A fibers fatigue. But you’re still lifting!! Finally, your body pulls in the last of your fast-twitch fibers – your Type 2B’s. When these fibers fail…well, you’re done…there ain’t no more lifting to be had. And voila! You’ve trained all your fast-twitch muscles without the potential danger of high-speed plyos! Brilliant!
And there you have it, folks! My list of counterintuitive concepts that, if you embrace them, will most definitely give you a very different outcome. So, get out there & embrace the opposite!