7 STEPS TO INVINCIBLE HEALTH: Mind Over Matter Mastery

The ebb and flow of an effective exercise routine is vital to a healthy and happy life. When you know when to rest and when to train hard you are gradually increasing your strength over months and years.

The point of this type of training is to reduce injuries and avoid them altogether. Because if your are injured regularly, you won’t enjoy life fully. When injured you’re not training and therefore you’re not able to do what you love. I’ve been there and that’s how I felt.

When I started taking rest days after hard training, and taking a step back from it all, I found myself spending less time in pain and more time doing the things I love.

This section will teach you a fresh mindset which is about thinking more deeply about your training and living with intention.

Breathing is a skill and a discipline. It takes daily practice and repetition to learn how to breath correctly. When I say “correctly” I mean breathing in a way that will support you in meeting challenges in life.You can change every aspect of your life for the better by mastering breath.

Have you ever noticed what happens to your breathing when something starts to get you mad or excited?

Breathing speeds up, gets uneven, and comes more from the chest than from the diaphragm. This type of chest breathing is common and is something that happens when you’re stressed out, mad, or just unaware of your breath… until you start to practice right breathing.

Practice breathing from the diaphragm, not the chest.

Just remember these 2 points:

-Practice elongating each breath.

-Test if you’re breathing right by putting your hand on the upper stomach just below the rib cage. If you feel that area rising and falling with every breath, you’re on the right track. If not, you’re breathing from the chest. Try again and think of bringing your breath lower, lower towards the vital organs.

And the next time you feel a person or situation starting to stress you, think of that exercise and focus on keeping your breaths long. It makes a world of difference.

Elongate your breaths both in your high intensity exercise (cardio) and during lower intensity activities such as walking. This is a great way to practice more control over your breathing, which in turn will change your performance for the better.

Another way to breath with power is to time your motions with your breaths, especially quick or rapid motions that require a great exertion. The breath is the power source.

There is breathing during normal day to day activities and there are specific breathing exercises. Knowledge of correct breathing can be used to benefit the body in many way including to repair cell damage from oxidative stress, increase endurance and increase mental and physical peace and strength.

4. Make Your Diet Work For You, Not Against You

Diet can either undermine your health and training gains or it can support and multiply them. Whether you’re training for a triathlon or just trying to get rid of chronic stomach pain which bothers you during the day at work, understanding the chemistry between the different foods you consume will change everything.

Your activity level and lifestyle determines which foods are an ideal combination. For me, removing meat from my diet dramatically increased my energy level and improved my digestion. Though I made that change 8 years ago, I’ve continually adapted my diet, and I’ve taken out more foods than I’ve added in. I’m constantly looking at how I feel vs. what I’m eating.

Here’s 3 things to do that will help you optimize your diet:

-Learn to read ingredients. This means educating yourself about common, inflammatory ingredients such as canola oil, sodium benzoate and hydrogenated oils. Starting to avoid those ingredients will improve your energy level and your mood.

-Fast 1-3 times a week.

There are many ways to fast. But even a 4 hour fast can be transformative. For example: If you normally eat breakfast within an hour of waking up, try not eating anything for the first 4 hours after you wake up. This speeds up metabolism, muscle recovery and stimulates healing of the intestines and organs.

This is a powerful way you can build up energy and avoid injuries. You give your body time to prepare and heal up scar tissue from past workouts.

Another key I use is self applied trigger point therapy. I’ll go into that in more depth during Lecture 7.

Anticipate your diet and you’ll have more energy to get your day done without a struggle. One primary cause of food comas and fatigue is a diet that is too heavy.

Strong liquor such as mescal has healing benefits if used responsibly.

That being said: there’s a lot of low quality alcohol out there, so it’s important to pay attention to what you’re drinking. And most importantly, stay hydrated!

Balance your meals towards a dynamic flow that incorporates heavier foods such as potatoes and grains after workouts and fruits and vegetables on rest days.

The topic of fear is little- talked about and very important. I’m not talking about the fear of a crazy dog that’s running towards you as you cross the street, which makes you jump out of the way by reflex. That kind of fear keeps you alive and there is no internal debate or conflict going on. It’s an immediate threat, then an immediate path to safety.

I’m referring to the type of fear that has stayed with you for years, that holds you back from getting the things you desire most in life.. the kind of fear that does cause internal debate. It’s a psychological fear that quietly affects all your decisions and just never seems to go away.

There’s a great quote from legendary martial artist Rickson Gracie:

“You have to face your fears. Because if you don’t they’ll eventually wear you down and destroy you.”

And it’s true, fear and anxiety need to be addressed and given attention. But for that you need the intention to do this difficult work on yourself and you need to believe you can heal the mental scars and blocks that are holding you back. And don’t leave it for tomorrow. Start on it today.

Fear slowly erodes conviction and will eventually destroy hopes and dreams in the long run.

Learning to do my own body work, specifically trigger point therapy, was a cornerstone of changing my health and fitness and reaching previously unimagined levels in my life. And you can do it too.

An effective practice of trigger point therapy uses a deliberate combination of leverage and pressure to penetrate tense muscles, fix old injuries and prevent future injuries.

Tools used include rocks, corners of furniture or walls and (my bread and butter tool) a lacrosse ball (I think a tennis ball is too soft).

Trigger point therapy takes patience, precision and dedication but can be a life- changing practice when applied daily.

I spent years learning and practicing it and cured myself of arthritis and chronic joint and muscle pain using trigger point therapy.

What are trigger points?

Trigger points are pea- sized contraction knots found in the the body (specifically in the muscles). Doctors specializing in finding and working on patients’ trigger points have found that these knots are the primary cause of pain a staggering 75% of the time. They have also found that trigger points have at least some role in virtually every pain problem.

The daily clinical experience of thousands of massage therapy practitioners, physical therapists and physicians strongly indicates that the majority of our aches and pains, and many other puzzling physical complaints are actually caused by trigger points.

Trigger Points are the root cause of a long list of ailments and medical conditions. Joint pain caused by trigger points is misdiagnosed as:

-Arthritis

-Tendinitis

-Bursitis

-Ligament injury

-Tennis elbow

Other roving pains and ailments caused by trigger points are

-lower and upper back pain

-neck and jaw pain

-headaches

-earaches

-heartburn

-arrythmia

-nausea

This problems in the lists above are stunningly easy to fix, IF you have two things:

1. The right information

2. The focus and work ethic to learn where the trigger points in your body are and the consistency to work on them daily.

The best thing about all of this information is that you can put it to the test right now, and as you practice daily, you’ll see it’s powerful results.

The facts about trigger points have been written about in medical journals for over 50 years! Yet most doctors and other health and fitness practitioners remain oblivious to this powerful science- backed method.

Fibromyalgia, which affects millions of people, and even scoliosis, have been seen as having their beginnings with trigger points.

And when it comes to every- day smaller afflictions that we all experience at some time or another, we must keep in mind that trigger points are often responsible, causing sinus pain and congestion, as well as chronic fatigue. This prolonged fatigue can lead to reduced immune function, and in turn reduced resistance to disease and infection.

Trigger point therapy, a system of pain relief that deals with referred pain (wrist hurts but the source of the injury is in the shoulder, etc.) is the single most powerful method in the world for muscle recovery and pain relief. I began to practice this method daily with incredible, fast results. I began to feel like a different person, younger and not in pain.

Why hasn’t this tried and true method been shared and used to help more people?

The fact that trigger points are real and indeed proven to be real by science has been met with great resistance by modern medicine.

One main reason is that trigger points have been confused with acupressure points, which come from ancient Chinese medicine. But acupressure points are NOT the same as trigger points. While Eastern methods of healing are seen to potentially offer benefits to health, they have evaded solid scientific proof of their legitimacy.

Trigger points however, have been verified and proven by Western medical research. Trigger points are real and this has been proven because they’ve been photographed by the electron microscope and shown in the muscle tissue. Trigger points also emit electrical signals which can be measured by modern medical electrical equipment which is extremely sensitive to frequencies and signals imperceptible to the senses . And most of all, trigger points can be felt with the fingers.

In conclusion, I'm delighted to have been of service in sharing this information with you. I can't imagine where I'd be without this powerful knowledge and I'd also like to preemptively remind you to stay the course and always apply patience, practice and persistence.

Doing trigger point therapy can be painful, but that is part of it. The pain is your guide. If it's too much pain, then just stop. But as you practice you'll begin to learn how the most tender spots are the ones most needing trigger point therapy. So make sure to practice daily!

Remember: The moment you tell yourself that your body CAN or CANT do something, you cement that as your reality. Trigger points are backed buy science. But your brain has a huge role in dictating how you experience reality. Therefore you must practice this with a mind open to new knowledge and new subtleties.

For more resources, diagrams, technical and scientific information about trigger points i highly recommend a book by Claire Davies M.D. called ‘The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook’. It is a masterful work and helped me advance in my journey to heal chronic muscle pain and understand trigger point self therapy on a deeper level. 8 years later I feel like a new person.

You can also check out the short videos on my instagram account (linked below the above videos in this section)

Thanks for all you do and talk to you soon,

Andrew