Kat Parnell Sports Massage & PT

📸 2015 on a spin bike in Leeds with no stats, monitoring a 60-70% HR effort for 60mins on a Polar watch.

Zone 2 is the metaphor for life.

There are many physical benefits to engaging in this practice but the psychological reward in patience within the game shines brighter for me.

Zone 2. You’re somewhat relaxed, mildly content.

Still there is something going on. Your heart rate is elevated, you’ve got a weak sweat occurring, your perspiration is marginally under pressure.

How do you deal with that mentally… do you embrace it or block it out?

We all have Zone 2 stuff going on in our heads….

Bills, responsibilities, worries, unachieved goals, broken promises.

Resistance. Doubt. Baggage.

This is life. This is zone 2.

IMO maintenance of zone 2 is harder than that of zone 4/5.

Getting comfortable with being in your head for extended periods of time.

During zone 4/5 your hand is played for you. Your mind doesn’t have the chance to lock into your subconscious.

Zone 2 however, you have the ability to let your mind wonder. Can you deal with playing your own hand, focusing on wherever your frontal cortex sends you.

Are you happy with where it goes? Can you adjust accordingly if you’re not. Mastering Zone 2 will fundamentally let the demons we often shut down & find every way of escaping from, come to light.

It’s therapy. It’s peace of mind. It’s getting comfortable being uncomfortable with the muscle between your ears.

So when you see the phrase ‘movement is medicine’ (it really is), & if you hear ‘just go by feel’… let your mind sometimes take lead. Lose the gadget, drop the programme & breakdown the noise, that we often don’t hear until we’re quiet. Until we are travelling with intent but to no real destination (coddiwompling).

There’s something about being able to defend yourself that makes you way less interested in conflict. 🏹

💭 Each day is a new battle to say yes to what matters & say no to what doesn’t. Focus is a practice.

Remember :

Rome wasn’t built in a day but they were laying bricks every hour.



The first mistake is never the one that ruins you, it is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows.
Missing once is an accident.
Missing twice is the start of a new habit.

It is inevitable that at some point life is going to interrupt your flow & usually it’s when you least expect it. Get back on track as quickly as possible.

______
PS :
If you’re not doing enough to keep your ❤️ healthy & dedicating some quality time on your cardiovascular system, then this is also a post to remind you of how important it is.

Choose your weapon & go after it. This picture was on this day in 2018, where I can’t remember the exact workout but it probably went something like :

10 x 500m . 1min rest between sets. (Facials : When you’re 🧐 whether you can get enough air back into your lungs).

Fact.

There is an athlete in every body.

Fuelling, hydration, mental health are all factors that have more ‘weight’ on performance than weight itself ever will.

I was at my heaviest when I ran a 38min 10k & a 1:25 Half Marathon. My inexperienced mind once thought maintaining an unsustainable ripped figure is part of the equation to performing optimally. In time & through maturity I’ve realised I couldn’t have been more wrong. Focusing too much on how you look only distracts you from the enjoyment of taking part, & restricts you from actually making friends, because all you’re thinking about is hitting the exact numbers, both in training & nutrition.

Your weight is merely a number. It’s a gravitational pull between you & the earth. That’s all it is.

Embrace the body you have, whatever size or shape it is. Focus on what you can do with it, not how it looks. No one is judging you on that factor, & if they are, eliminate them… you don’t need that kind of negativity in your life.

When I hit this weight I’ll be happy! News Flash, you won’t. Happiness isn’t tied to what the scales say, it’s who’s in your surrounding making you feel good, & the fun you’re having whilst doing the things you love. The weight you are as a by product of this is exactly where you should be. Celebrate it.

Just some 💙 for whoever has got this far on this post & some 🤜🏻🤛🏻 for getting after it as best as you can.

Fear is not your enemy.

Struggle is given to us unexpectedly. The purpose of the somewhat negative emotion isn’t to make us stall, it’s there to move us into action.

Right now is 💯 the most exciting time to be alive, but the pressures of modern life & the consistent pull to conform to societies ideal norm, results in emotional discomfort, & it’s easy to just freeze & do nothing. Promoting stress to flood into a somewhat pleasant lifestyle, & instant gratification with a panic buy to console the momentary negative state.

There is a reason for the swings & the waves, & that’s to break us from the comfortable habit of which isn’t helping us grow. ACTION is the solution.

The moment you realise that fear isn’t your enemy, & that staying where you are now is worse than taking that anxiety ridden leap into the unknown, is where everything changes.

The struggle is given to you to MOVE.
It is there as a sign that you need to take ACTION.
The cure of whatever struggle you’re carrying comes in those 6 letters.

I talk about being fit for life a lot. Being able to adapt & work optimally with longevity in mind.

Pretend this picture relates to a position in someone’s life. At this moment in time a relatively steady pace, looks hard. What you don’t know is that it’s the last 400m of 26.2miles where the quads gave up 10miles ago & you’re doing everything in your power not to cramp up.

You might meet someone in life who is physiologically in their 25th mile, you might be passing them in a moment that they’re struggling & tasks that are generally easy for them are seemingly hard.

Don’t judge people on what you see until you know the full story. You have no idea what mile they’re on & how hard it’s feeling.

Always proceed with caution & be kinder than necessary. 💙

Sometimes you need to check in with yourself. Press pause & focus on a few important factors to make sure you’re not getting caught up in the momentum of society. It’s far too easy to conform to what others believe your trajectory should look like.

Only you have the power over what your next move entails. Own it. Here’s a few things I read to keep me aligned, especially when obstacles come into play :

1 Find a group of people who challenge & inspire you. Spend a lot of time with them, & it will change your life.

2 No matter how talented, educated, rich or cool you think you are, how you treat people ultimately tells all. Integrity is everything.

3 Don’t strive to be better than anybody else. Other people aren’t your competition. Your only competitor lies within the beat that pumps inside you, the natural rhythm that drives your energy towards your true passion.

4 Don’t cloud your focus with things you can’t control & pay attention to the way you react to them. Things work out best for those that make the best of how things work out.

5 When you’re feeling emotion, create motion. Keep moving. Keep the tempo, ride the waves & hit the ground running. Don’t allow your brain to give the negative & uncontrollable things, time.

6 One of the best lessons you can learn, is how to remain calm under pressure.

7 Make your body an instrument not an ornament & celebrate any ‘athletic aesthetic’ that comes from doing what you love.

8 Your ideal weight is the weight you are when you’re living the healthiest life you actually enjoy.

9 Invest in a good coach to teach you the principles of nutrition, training & progressive overload & then the method of training you’ll be most consistent with will be the one you naturally fall into & get excited about.

10 Don’t forget to smile, it confuses people.
💙