The Digest - 3 June

• Love at first sight? Or is there something more to it?
• Your boss hates these 4 things, and you can use that to your advantage.
• Don’t let your core temp ruin your next race.
• Overheating during exercise impairs brain function (potential long-term damage?)
• Clear up your confusion about “hand entry” in swimming.

• I’m sure you know the feeling: you meet someone for the first time, and within seconds you’ve made up your mind whether you like that person or not. Don’t be too hard on yourself, science says that’s human nature. As you can see from this article, science demonstrates that there are at least 9 things people will decide about you from the first few seconds of an encounter. These things include whether you’re trustworthy or not, whether you’re “high status”, how smart you are, your level of promiscuity, whether you’re successful or not, and others. Yes I know it’s superficial, and judgmental, and and and… BUT, the reason I’m bringing this up is because we DO live in a certain kind of society, and if one of your goals is to achieve high performance (personal, social, professional, or otherwise), you need to know what signals you’re sending to your “audience” when you walk into a room. I often tell people that the power of “self-consciousness” is tremendous: being able to see yourself “as a spectator” will allow you to mold your language, body language, and behavior to achieve the desired effect.  

• I’m not a CEO, but I’ve advised countless CEOs and continue to do so. So when I came across this article about the top 4 things CEOs hate, it resonated true, but not just with CEOs, with anyone trying to grow a business that involves people (i.e. all businesses). But this advice is not just relevant “managers”: if you’re an “up and coming star” looking for a fast-track for success in the corporate world, then making sure you protect your CEO/boss from these 4 things they hate will cast a different light on you: someone who’s aware of what’s happening around them and is thinking beyond his/her own job description.

• Anyone who’s been in endurance sports for a period of time would be familiar with the horrible feeling of an “overheating core”. Once your core temperature starts to rise above a certain level, performance falls off a cliff, and often brings you either to a crawl or puts you in an ambulance. Nowhere is this more relevant than in Dubai, where the endurance community has to suffer through months of blistering heat and humidity. Studies I’ve reviewed in the past show that even though we love dumping ice cubes down our kit in a race (or even in training), and we love spending $$$ even more on fancy high-tech “cooling” clothing, the No1 undisputed method for staving off a rising core temp remains “cooling from the inside out” by drinking ice-cold water. Of course, my priority is always health over performance, but even if you care more about performance vs. health, this study from the Badwater Ultramarathon shows that those who are able to keep their core temperature the lowest are the ones who inevitably perform better. Of course, some are genetically better suited to maintain a relatively cooler core body temperature (athletes with smaller builds for e.g.), but pre-cooling (cooling prior to race/training start) and frequent ingestion of cold water can help “bigger” athletes deal with conditions.

• On a related note, training in hot weather is linked to a decline in cognitive (brain) performance following exercise. I would even venture to say that repeated “overheating” may even cause progressive degeneration in brain tissue (although I have yet to find a study exploring that). I used to be under the impression that neck cooling (using cold towels) helps prevent “hot blood” from reaching the brain. It turns out I was wrong, as this study reveals. My advice (and now my practice) is to avoid overheating in the first place, and when inevitable (e.g. in a race), focus on cooling your core temp asap by ingesting ice-cold water.

• I’m fortunate to be able to watch many beginner swimmers every wed at the Beginners’ Sea Swim, and many of the observations (and remarks) I have are related to the “entry”: how your hand enters the water. People new to swimming (or to open water swimming) tend to have an inefficient hand entry. Some of the common errors I see are: fingers pointing up, hand and fingers rigid, hand entering at the centerline (crossing over), etc. This article nicely illustrates how your hand should enter the water when swimming for both comfort and efficiency.