Welcome to ‘The Art of Movement’ - my weekly newsletter!
This newsletter is not just an opportunity for me to touch base with my dear patrons and show my gratitude for your monthly support, but also to offer you a 5 minute, easily-digestible read around the world of health, fitness and exercise. Here I will troubleshoot many common difficulties my clients experience, offer practical, actionable solutions for you to put to work in your life immediately, and of course provide my weekly motivation in the form of a favourite quote, and a takeaway lesson from it.
Please send me your feedback, questions and curiosity regarding the newsletter via the messaging tool on my Patreon page!
Week 16 - Rest and Relaxation
This week’s newsletter is going to focus on the importance of rest and relaxation in a hectic world which very often seems to get the best of us. I have had the recent fortune to be able to reflect on how important this is over the easter weekend, spending 3.5 days down in Cornwall with a few friends, going on some awesome coastal walks, breathing fresh sea air, being at one with nature, eating, drinking, laughing and sleeping in.
Nothing like a dip in some ice cold sea water to awaken your soul!
Doing things like this always leaves me in awe of a way of life we are spending most of our working lives missing out on. I have always had itchy feet, and the urge to travel. Most of my future objectives involve escaping the stresses of a work-centred life, and building more towards a life of enjoyment, nature, adventure and experiences (lightly peppered remote work I am extremely passionate about).
It is very important that even if we don’t have the luxury of being able to saunter off to somewhere remote whenever we feel like it, we still allocate space and time in our lives for proper rest and recuperation. It allows us to be more motivated at work, more efficient and generally happier, the more we filter these mini-escapes into our lives.
‘Work and play like a lion - Sprint, recover, sprint, recover.’ - Sahil Bloom
We should be applying this principle to almost all aspects of our lives. When we train hard for a number of weeks, we need to think about a ‘de-load’ week. Every 6-8 weeks of working our jobs we feel like we need a holiday - there is a reason for this. I already spoke in last week’s newsletter about the benefits and importance of sprinting during exercise and adopting sprint-recovery sessions. It is no doubt one of the most overlooked aspects of our lives, and I’m here for more of it!
Movement of the Week: GO FOR A WALK
This week simply get out there in the great outdoors. No phone, no music, just yourself and your thoughts. Some of my patrons I know are great at doing this anyway! But we can all benefit from regular gentle exercise and going for a relaxing walk in a place where there are no cars (and ideally very few people) is the best way to do it. Enjoy!
That’s all for this week! Please spread the word about my Patreon channel so more people can enjoy the videos and newsletters!
Thank you,
Gabriel