April 4, 2025 • 17 mins
When we think about pickleball, there are three pillars that comes to mind which we developed a few years back; the mechanical, the strategic, and the athletic pillar.
The mechanical and strategic pillars focus on how and when to hit the ball and the athletic pillar emphasizes the synergy between body and mind. The mind is super important, but it's one-a-half of the athletic pillar, there's the other part of the athletic pillar, which is the body.
Your body supports and nourishes your mind thus a healthy, well-conditioned body enhances mental performance.
To enhance mind-body connection, consider these steps;
1. Physical activity: Engage in regular exercise to boost both physical and mental well-being. It could be focusing on strength training, mobility, or flexibility. What the exercise session does is that it uplifts your spirits and sharpen your focus.
2. Hydration, sleep and nutrition: Dehydration or lack of energy can impede your ability to concentrate and perform. Ensure you’re adequately fueled and hydrated to maintain mental clarity.
3. Manage expectations: If your body is not at its peak, it’s normal for your cognitive abilities to reflect that so be kind to yourself and adjust expectations accordingly.
If you’re new to physical training, begin with simple exercises like controlled chair squats or full-body workouts like getting up from a lying position. Walking is also an excellent low-impact cardio activity.
If you're already active, good for you, consider incorporating additional elements such as strength training or flexibility exercises.
Join our email list; https://betterpickleball.com/
Stay confident and perform at your best prepare with this play guide; https://betterpickleball.com/prepare-to-play/
Podcast episode on controlling how you respond; https://betterpickleball.com/237-why-are-you-upset-mindset-shifts-for-competitive-play-in-pickleball/
Tony's favorite workouts; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8CDeZurWmQ&list=PLRe6hjjhF-o4F-8QyurfoW0RM8_664o_T
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
It's the only podcast dedicatedto your pickleball mind.
If you're new to the podcast,welcome to the podcast.
We have several new listeners that havebeen joining us each week,
and I want to give you a hearty welcome.
I introduce myself.My name is Tony Roig.
I am the host of this weekly podcast.
(00:25):
I am a pickleball player, pickleballcoach, and pickleball thinker, I would
Today, and I've been doing this podcastfor about four years, bringing
helpful information about the mind thatyou can use while playing pickleball.
But bigger picture,you can use it outside of pickleball, too,
because pickleball is basically like acanvas that you get to use to
(00:48):
expand yourself, to grow yourself.
And so we use pickleball as a tool toallow us to grow in the bigger
picture that is our lives.
So that's how we approach themental side of Pickleball.
This podcast is a part of a biggerproject called Better Pickleball.
So if you're not yet on our mailing list,email list, I highly recommend you do it.
(01:10):
It's betterpickleball.Com.
Actually, you can go on there.
I'll put a link in the notes, we have aprepare to play guide that
you're welcome to download.
Then you'll put your email in, we'll sendyou the thing, you'll be in the email
list, and you'll get additionalinformation about what we do in our
coaching and helping players realizetheir full potential inside this sport.
(01:32):
All right, so this week, what I want to dois I want to talk about the other
side of the athletic pillar.
When we think about pickleball,there are three pillars to this sport.
We call them the three pillars of thepickle ball, which we
developed a few years back.
We have the mechanical pillar, which ishow to hit the ball, strategic pillar,
what shot to hit when, and the athleticpillar, which is body and mind.
(01:56):
So the mind, super important, but it'sone-a-half of the athletic pillar.
There's another other part of theathletic pillar, which is the body.
And I want to talk about that this weekbecause the body definitely impacts how
your mind performs, and having anunderstanding of that
will help you navigate themental side of pickleball, the mental side
of life, and also gain the benefits offocusing on the body, of potentially
(02:21):
fixing or improving that sideof the house, if you will.
And way to think about it isyour mind isn't in a vacuum.
It doesn't exist in a vacuum.
In fact, not to get too far off on thistopic, but if you look at
the way scientists think about the body,your body really only has one purpose,
(02:44):
which is to support your mind.
Frankly, it's to feed it.That's the whole thing.
So like, movement is super critical to us.
We'd be able to moveis our top priority because,
historically, I mean, nowadays, you stillhave to move a little bit, I guess,
to the door to get a door-dash.
But particularly back in the day, you hadto either walk for your food or hunt your
food or go gather it, things like that.
(03:05):
So you needed to move to get food.
And so that's really the wholepremise of the body.
But they're intertwined,the body and the mind.
And so what I want to do is talkabout it in three different pieces.
And then at the end, I'll give you somerecommendations to either get started with
your body journey or if you're already onone, maybe give you a suggestion that
might spark you to addsomething else to it.
(03:26):
So let's talk about it generally first.
And I've already started that part of theconversation because you can't
separate the mind from the body.It's just not possible.
They're intertwined.
And so when you think about that,your mind's performance
will in part, be determined byyour body's performance or
(03:49):
your body's level of ability.
And by ability, I just mean how healthy isyour body, how conditioned is
your body to support your mind.
If your body is not in a great place,then your mind is not going
to be in a great place.
And if you want to think about itvery simplistically, just think about
(04:12):
putting something in your bodythat's not favorable to it.
And you can just think like alcohol.
And I got nothing against alcohol.I'll have a drink here.
I don't mind a littlesip of bourbon and things like that.
But if you continue to add that to yourbody, you overwhelm your body, And all of
a sudden your mind can't function as well.
But that's because of your body,stuff you put into your body.
(04:35):
And it works the other way as well.
The better your body is in terms ofvitamins and things like that, then
everything's going to be tuned up and yourmind is going to be better able to
do the things that it needs to do.
Personally, I've been on a journey of...
I'm focusing on a couple of things.
I'm focusing on strength, and I'vebeen focusing on mobility, flexibility.
(04:58):
So one thing that I'm almost able to do isa full squat down on your heels, heels
on the floor, squat all the way down.
I'm not quite there yet, but I've gonefrom, I would say,
about two and a half inch, three inch heellift to maybe a half inch, three quarter
(05:18):
inch heel lift, which means that there'smuch more flexibility in my hips and in
all that area, in all that critical area.
When you think about it, When you were...
Everybody who's listening to this,when you were a baby, you could do it.
When you were a child,you could probably do it.
Then little by little, we start losingthat flexibility, that mobility.
(05:40):
That's one thing, and theother thing is strength.
But what I find ismy trips to the gym to do my exercises are
very good, not just for my body.
They're very good for my mind,because what I know is that when I leave
the gym, I always have more energy.I feel better.
I feel If I've been having a rough morningor something, and I go to
(06:02):
the gym, I leave the gym.
It's not that everything's roses, right?
I'm not suggesting that to you,but everything is a little bit better.
If we went into the gym and it was adark shade of gray, now it's a light
shade of gray, and that's better.
So the exercise in your body has a direct,in the moment, positive impact.
(06:27):
And it also is going to have somelong term positive impacts for your body,
injury prevention, all that type of stuff,but also for your mind,
because your mind doesn't haveto be worried that much about...
If you're injured, your brain isprocessing pain information while
you're trying to do other things.It's just distracting your brain.
So there's a lot of benefits generallyto engaging in some body work.
(06:50):
And I'll talk at the end alittle bit about that idea.
Then the second component I wanted totalk about was in the particular moment.
And here, what I want to focus on here arethings like, hydration
is a good one, or sleep is a good one.
And food is also important.
But what happens is you're out thereplaying, and all of a
(07:13):
sudden, you can't focus.
So our initial reaction is,why can't I focus?
What's going on?I got to double down on my 110 %.
I got to get in the zone,whatever, those types of things.
Let's go, that stuff.
But what happens ifyou haven't hydrated correctly.
I don't care what you do in terms ofgetting yourself psyched or whatever.
(07:39):
Focus is not coming.
Focus is not coming becauseyou're dehydrated.
And your brain He's like,I'm dehydrated, man.
I'm going to survive a motor.
I got time for no volleys and dinksand whatever else you want to hit.
And then if you think about a similarcorollary, there would be electrolytes.
Your body runs on electrolytes.
And I'm not going totoo far down this path.
(08:00):
But for instance, you coulddie from drinking too much water.
It's happened.
Actually, it's notinfrequent, but it happens.
And the reason it happens is because youdilute the electrolytes
in your bloodstream.
And so your Basically, your heart stopsbecause the nerves can't
send signals anymore.
That's a body function of your mind.
(08:23):
It's the physical way in whichsignals are transmitted inside your body.
And so electrolytes are important,hydration is your water.
Also energy.
Let's say allof a sudden you're like dragging on the
court, and then afterwards you're like,Yeah, I didn't have
lunch today, or whatever.
I didn't have breakfast,or whatever it is.
(08:44):
I don't know what to tell you.
Your body and your mindfunction on energy.
And if you want to look atenergy consumption, Google it.
Look how much your mind consumesof the calories that you intake.
Now you're in the middle of a game.
It's a competitive game,meaning it's challenging.
You're trying to solve it.You're trying to figure stuff out.
You're taxing your brain, and your brain'slike, I'm sorry, but you
(09:07):
chose not to feed me.
I got nothing left in the tank.
Those are particulars that you can look atin terms of your performance and
understand that your lack of focus or yourdragon, or I can't read the outball in
time, whatever it is that's happening toyou on the cord,
work backward and find out, was there apart of the body that I neglected and that
(09:30):
now I'm feeling the consequences of inmy mind because those two work together.
And then the last one I want to talk aboutbefore I give you a couple of
suggestions is the expectations idea.
Now, some of these you have control over.
And what I mean by that is, forinstance, you don't want to hydrate.
That's your choice.
(09:51):
Electrolytes,there's different types of electrolytes,
so I'm not telling you which ones youshould use, whether it's like something
that has sugar in it, not havesugar in it, pre-bottled, whatever.
But you're an intelligent human being.
You have a supercomputer inside yourpocket with your phone, so you
can look at different ideas there.
Pickle juice works reallywell, stuff like that.
But it's your choice, whetheryou want to do that or not.
(10:12):
Last week, we talked about control andagency, and you have a ton of
control in the agency over this.
If you're listening to apodcast, check that one out.
But the third thing I want to talk aboutis not beating yourself up when your
mind can't perform because of your body.
In particular, I mean, listen, don'tbeat yourself up at all, anytime.
But let's say you're not performing welland you think about it,
(10:35):
you're like, You know what?Because this happens to me.
When we do camps, I get into it.
I'm coaching, I'm doing my thing, and Ilook in my water bottle and
it's still seven eighths full.
And we've been on the courtfor four hours in the sun.
And so I'm dehydrated.
And I can see it in my...
Your eyes get whatever, the bottomof your eyes and all that stuff.
So I know what the effectsare of not hydrating.
(10:59):
And so you want to makesure that you're hydrating.
And so when you hydrate...
I mean, hydrating issomething you have a choice.
But if you don't hydrate and you have alack of focus, don't beat yourself up.
What you want to do is just notice it.
What I started doing in camps is I've beenadding electrolytes to my water, not
(11:19):
necessarily because Ineed the electrolytes.
It's more because I want the flavor.
The flavor lets me drink more.That's just my trick.
So that's a trick that I use.
Those are things that you can do toencourage yourself to to hydrate
better and things like that.
But the key here, and the third point isbe realistic with yourself,
be reasonable with yourself.
When you have a drop in focus, if it'sbecause you didn't hydrate, just make a
(11:41):
note of it, and then nexttime, try and hydrate better.
But there are going to be times thatyou're going to have
difficulties with yourseeing the ball, reacting in
time, making the right decisions.
And it can be something like,I didn't sleep well last night.
It's not that I didn'tsleep because I chose to.
I just couldn't sleep well.
I didn't have control over that.
(12:01):
Okay, then that's who you are today.That's okay.
I had food poisoningor something, whatever.
I'm like, I'm coming back fromthe flu or whatever it is.
Don't expect your mind to be at 100 %when you have your body not at 100 %.
So expectation is really important.
Don't beat yourself up and tryand find the right cause of it.
If it's something you have controlover, don't beat yourself up.
(12:23):
Note it, fix it, next time.
If it's something you don't have controlover, then okay, I'm doing the best I can
under the circumstances andeverything is copacetic.
All right, here's a coupleof ideas here for you.
If you haven't started any workout thingbefore you do anything, if you're not
sure, check with your medical provider.
Just don't hurt yourselfdoing these things.
But I would always recommend startingout very light with this process.
(12:47):
For instance, I'll go tothe gym almost every day.
I try and find some time.Sometimes I just go for 20 minutes.
I only have 20 minutes that day.I'll do the 20 minutes.
I'm doing my 20 minutes if I can.
Sometimes I'll be in Ican go for 45 minutes.
Sometimes I can go for 20 andI end up with 40, whatever.
But don't let perfection be the enemyhere, where if I can't assign three hours
(13:10):
to my workout today,I'm not going to do it.
Okay, why not do five minutesif that's all you have?
So some things you can do is working onthe body, on your strength
of your body is super simple.
Again, check yourself before you do thesethings, make sure you're
comfortable doing them.
Something as simple as just getting in andout of a chair 10 times,
slowly and in control, right?
Stand up, sit down, sitdown 10 times under control.
(13:33):
You're going to feel it probably in yourlegs if you haven't worked out in a while.
Another one that is a full body workout,believe it or not,
is you just lay down on the floorcompletely on your back,
and then slowly, youstand up slowly under control,
and then you get back down again,and then you get back up and do that 10
times, and you might be out of breath.
That happens, too.
(13:55):
So the strengthening, youcan do all sorts of things.
Recommend starting, I think legsare a really good place to start.
They're a huge muscle group.
They do a lot of work for you, andyou get a lot of benefit from that.
The other thing you can do is, if you wantto do cardio, for instance, if you want to
work on your cardio,walking, folks, amazing.
(14:15):
It's low impact on the body.
It's what your body is designed to do.
It's what we started thiswhole conversation with.
Movement to find food, walking.
Walking is super good for you.
Then the other thing you can do is you cando some light stretching, just
a little bit, little by little.You don't do anything crazy.
There's a ton of stuff on YouTube.
I'm not going to belabor this pointbecause there's a million videos out there
(14:37):
on YouTube that'll explain themto you and help you out with them.
But you can do some stretching of yourlegs, of your hips, of your shoulders.
Particularly, if you have an area that'sparticularly troubling you,
look at it and see if a stretching willhelp it, maybe some
strengthening will help it.
I will tell you this, and this is notmedical advice, so I'm not a doctor, but I
(14:59):
will tell you that my My personalexperience and anecdotally from others who
I know, plus I think you can make a commonsense correlation here,
is that when I've experienced eithershoulder or arm issues, like elbow,
forearm, shoulder issues,with Then what I can do, some strength
training has helped mebecause what it's done is allow my body to
(15:21):
then rebuild that area and to make it alittle bit stronger, a little more
resilient, a little less likely tofeel the pain and get injured again.
So Those are some areas you can start in.
If you're already doing some ofthem, maybe add something else.
So let's say you already walk every day.Kudos.
That's awesome.Keep doing it.
And maybe add a little bit of strengthtraining at the end of it
once your body's warmed up.
If you're already doing a little bit ofstrength training, maybe add a little bit
(15:44):
of cardio in there, or addsome flexibility and mobility.
There's all sorts of programsyou can use out there.
If you're not sure what to do and you wantto get started,
Taiji is actually really good, too.
Taiji is amazing.Qigong is amazing.
Our friendly Holden has a wholeprogram on Qigong that's available.
So it's really good stuff.
(16:05):
But if you're not really sure what to do,you want to get started, if you go to the
In2Pickle YouTube channel,there's a playlist called Tone.
I'll put a link in the show notes, butit's like Tony's Favorite
Work or something like that.
And there's just some stuff, andthere's some hip opener stuff.
There's some mobility stuff.
There's Tai qi's in there.
I'll see if I can find somethingfrom Lee, and I'll put it in there.
Anyway, so that'll get you down the road.
(16:26):
But definitely remember thatyour body is a part of your mind.
It's not separate from your mind.
And so if you want to improve your mind,don't sleep, or do sleep
on your body, actually.
Sleep a lot, but don't sleep onthe body in terms of a concept.
All right, that's this week's podcast.I hope you enjoyed it.
If you have a minute to rate andreview it, really appreciate it.
(16:46):
And as always, considersharing with your friends.
If you are benefited from thispodcast, my guess is they might.
Hope you have a great week, and I'll seeyou in the next episode
of Fingalball Therapy.
Be well..
Hello and welcome to Pickleball Therapy,the podcast dedicated to
your pickleball improvement.
It's the only podcast dedicatedto your pickleball mind.
If you're new to the podcast,welcome to the podcast.
We have several new listeners that havebeen joining us each week,
and I want to give you a hearty welcome.
I introduce myself.My name is Tony Roig.
I am the host of this weekly podcast.
(00:25):
I am a pickleball player, pickleballcoach, and pickleball thinker, I would
Today, and I've been doing this podcastfor about four years, bringing
helpful information about the mind thatyou can use while playing pickleball.
But bigger picture,you can use it outside of pickleball, too,
because pickleball is basically like acanvas that you get to use to
(00:48):
expand yourself, to grow yourself.
And so we use pickleball as a tool toallow us to grow in the bigger
picture that is our lives.
So that's how we approach themental side of Pickleball.
This podcast is a part of a biggerproject called Better Pickleball.
So if you're not yet on our mailing list,email list, I highly recommend you do it.
(01:10):
It's betterpickleball.Com.
Actually, you can go on there.
I'll put a link in the notes, we have aprepare to play guide that
you're welcome to download.
Then you'll put your email in, we'll sendyou the thing, you'll be in the email
list, and you'll get additionalinformation about what we do in our
coaching and helping players realizetheir full potential inside this sport.
(01:32):
All right, so this week, what I want to dois I want to talk about the other
side of the athletic pillar.
When we think about pickleball,there are three pillars to this sport.
We call them the three pillars of thepickle ball, which we
developed a few years back.
We have the mechanical pillar, which ishow to hit the ball, strategic pillar,
what shot to hit when, and the athleticpillar, which is body and mind.
(01:56):
So the mind, super important, but it'sone-a-half of the athletic pillar.
There's another other part of theathletic pillar, which is the body.
And I want to talk about that this weekbecause the body definitely impacts how
your mind performs, and having anunderstanding of that
will help you navigate themental side of pickleball, the mental side
of life, and also gain the benefits offocusing on the body, of potentially
(02:21):
fixing or improving that sideof the house, if you will.
And way to think about it isyour mind isn't in a vacuum.
It doesn't exist in a vacuum.
In fact, not to get too far off on thistopic, but if you look at
the way scientists think about the body,your body really only has one purpose,
(02:44):
which is to support your mind.
Frankly, it's to feed it.That's the whole thing.
So like, movement is super critical to us.
We'd be able to moveis our top priority because,
historically, I mean, nowadays, you stillhave to move a little bit, I guess,
to the door to get a door-dash.
But particularly back in the day, you hadto either walk for your food or hunt your
food or go gather it, things like that.
(03:05):
So you needed to move to get food.
And so that's really the wholepremise of the body.
But they're intertwined,the body and the mind.
And so what I want to do is talkabout it in three different pieces.
And then at the end, I'll give you somerecommendations to either get started with
your body journey or if you're already onone, maybe give you a suggestion that
might spark you to addsomething else to it.
(03:26):
So let's talk about it generally first.
And I've already started that part of theconversation because you can't
separate the mind from the body.It's just not possible.
They're intertwined.
And so when you think about that,your mind's performance
will in part, be determined byyour body's performance or
(03:49):
your body's level of ability.
And by ability, I just mean how healthy isyour body, how conditioned is
your body to support your mind.
If your body is not in a great place,then your mind is not going
to be in a great place.
And if you want to think about itvery simplistically, just think about
(04:12):
putting something in your bodythat's not favorable to it.
And you can just think like alcohol.
And I got nothing against alcohol.I'll have a drink here.
I don't mind a littlesip of bourbon and things like that.
But if you continue to add that to yourbody, you overwhelm your body, And all of
a sudden your mind can't function as well.
But that's because of your body,stuff you put into your body.
(04:35):
And it works the other way as well.
The better your body is in terms ofvitamins and things like that, then
everything's going to be tuned up and yourmind is going to be better able to
do the things that it needs to do.
Personally, I've been on a journey of...
I'm focusing on a couple of things.
I'm focusing on strength, and I'vebeen focusing on mobility, flexibility.
(04:58):
So one thing that I'm almost able to do isa full squat down on your heels, heels
on the floor, squat all the way down.
I'm not quite there yet, but I've gonefrom, I would say,
about two and a half inch, three inch heellift to maybe a half inch, three quarter
(05:18):
inch heel lift, which means that there'smuch more flexibility in my hips and in
all that area, in all that critical area.
When you think about it, When you were...
Everybody who's listening to this,when you were a baby, you could do it.
When you were a child,you could probably do it.
Then little by little, we start losingthat flexibility, that mobility.
(05:40):
That's one thing, and theother thing is strength.
But what I find ismy trips to the gym to do my exercises are
very good, not just for my body.
They're very good for my mind,because what I know is that when I leave
the gym, I always have more energy.I feel better.
I feel If I've been having a rough morningor something, and I go to
(06:02):
the gym, I leave the gym.
It's not that everything's roses, right?
I'm not suggesting that to you,but everything is a little bit better.
If we went into the gym and it was adark shade of gray, now it's a light
shade of gray, and that's better.
So the exercise in your body has a direct,in the moment, positive impact.
(06:27):
And it also is going to have somelong term positive impacts for your body,
injury prevention, all that type of stuff,but also for your mind,
because your mind doesn't haveto be worried that much about...
If you're injured, your brain isprocessing pain information while
you're trying to do other things.It's just distracting your brain.
So there's a lot of benefits generallyto engaging in some body work.
(06:50):
And I'll talk at the end alittle bit about that idea.
Then the second component I wanted totalk about was in the particular moment.
And here, what I want to focus on here arethings like, hydration
is a good one, or sleep is a good one.
And food is also important.
But what happens is you're out thereplaying, and all of a
(07:13):
sudden, you can't focus.
So our initial reaction is,why can't I focus?
What's going on?I got to double down on my 110 %.
I got to get in the zone,whatever, those types of things.
Let's go, that stuff.
But what happens ifyou haven't hydrated correctly.
I don't care what you do in terms ofgetting yourself psyched or whatever.
(07:39):
Focus is not coming.
Focus is not coming becauseyou're dehydrated.
And your brain He's like,I'm dehydrated, man.
I'm going to survive a motor.
I got time for no volleys and dinksand whatever else you want to hit.
And then if you think about a similarcorollary, there would be electrolytes.
Your body runs on electrolytes.
And I'm not going totoo far down this path.
(08:00):
But for instance, you coulddie from drinking too much water.
It's happened.
Actually, it's notinfrequent, but it happens.
And the reason it happens is because youdilute the electrolytes
in your bloodstream.
And so your Basically, your heart stopsbecause the nerves can't
send signals anymore.
That's a body function of your mind.
(08:23):
It's the physical way in whichsignals are transmitted inside your body.
And so electrolytes are important,hydration is your water.
Also energy.
Let's say allof a sudden you're like dragging on the
court, and then afterwards you're like,Yeah, I didn't have
lunch today, or whatever.
I didn't have breakfast,or whatever it is.
(08:44):
I don't know what to tell you.
Your body and your mindfunction on energy.
And if you want to look atenergy consumption, Google it.
Look how much your mind consumesof the calories that you intake.
Now you're in the middle of a game.
It's a competitive game,meaning it's challenging.
You're trying to solve it.You're trying to figure stuff out.
You're taxing your brain, and your brain'slike, I'm sorry, but you
(09:07):
chose not to feed me.
I got nothing left in the tank.
Those are particulars that you can look atin terms of your performance and
understand that your lack of focus or yourdragon, or I can't read the outball in
time, whatever it is that's happening toyou on the cord,
work backward and find out, was there apart of the body that I neglected and that
(09:30):
now I'm feeling the consequences of inmy mind because those two work together.
And then the last one I want to talk aboutbefore I give you a couple of
suggestions is the expectations idea.
Now, some of these you have control over.
And what I mean by that is, forinstance, you don't want to hydrate.
That's your choice.
(09:51):
Electrolytes,there's different types of electrolytes,
so I'm not telling you which ones youshould use, whether it's like something
that has sugar in it, not havesugar in it, pre-bottled, whatever.
But you're an intelligent human being.
You have a supercomputer inside yourpocket with your phone, so you
can look at different ideas there.
Pickle juice works reallywell, stuff like that.
But it's your choice, whetheryou want to do that or not.
(10:12):
Last week, we talked about control andagency, and you have a ton of
control in the agency over this.
If you're listening to apodcast, check that one out.
But the third thing I want to talk aboutis not beating yourself up when your
mind can't perform because of your body.
In particular, I mean, listen, don'tbeat yourself up at all, anytime.
But let's say you're not performing welland you think about it,
(10:35):
you're like, You know what?Because this happens to me.
When we do camps, I get into it.
I'm coaching, I'm doing my thing, and Ilook in my water bottle and
it's still seven eighths full.
And we've been on the courtfor four hours in the sun.
And so I'm dehydrated.
And I can see it in my...
Your eyes get whatever, the bottomof your eyes and all that stuff.
So I know what the effectsare of not hydrating.
(10:59):
And so you want to makesure that you're hydrating.
And so when you hydrate...
I mean, hydrating issomething you have a choice.
But if you don't hydrate and you have alack of focus, don't beat yourself up.
What you want to do is just notice it.
What I started doing in camps is I've beenadding electrolytes to my water, not
(11:19):
necessarily because Ineed the electrolytes.
It's more because I want the flavor.
The flavor lets me drink more.That's just my trick.
So that's a trick that I use.
Those are things that you can do toencourage yourself to to hydrate
better and things like that.
But the key here, and the third point isbe realistic with yourself,
be reasonable with yourself.
When you have a drop in focus, if it'sbecause you didn't hydrate, just make a
(11:41):
note of it, and then nexttime, try and hydrate better.
But there are going to be times thatyou're going to have
difficulties with yourseeing the ball, reacting in
time, making the right decisions.
And it can be something like,I didn't sleep well last night.
It's not that I didn'tsleep because I chose to.
I just couldn't sleep well.
I didn't have control over that.
(12:01):
Okay, then that's who you are today.That's okay.
I had food poisoningor something, whatever.
I'm like, I'm coming back fromthe flu or whatever it is.
Don't expect your mind to be at 100 %when you have your body not at 100 %.
So expectation is really important.
Don't beat yourself up and tryand find the right cause of it.
If it's something you have controlover, don't beat yourself up.
(12:23):
Note it, fix it, next time.
If it's something you don't have controlover, then okay, I'm doing the best I can
under the circumstances andeverything is copacetic.
All right, here's a coupleof ideas here for you.
If you haven't started any workout thingbefore you do anything, if you're not
sure, check with your medical provider.
Just don't hurt yourselfdoing these things.
But I would always recommend startingout very light with this process.
(12:47):
For instance, I'll go tothe gym almost every day.
I try and find some time.Sometimes I just go for 20 minutes.
I only have 20 minutes that day.I'll do the 20 minutes.
I'm doing my 20 minutes if I can.
Sometimes I'll be in Ican go for 45 minutes.
Sometimes I can go for 20 andI end up with 40, whatever.
But don't let perfection be the enemyhere, where if I can't assign three hours
(13:10):
to my workout today,I'm not going to do it.
Okay, why not do five minutesif that's all you have?
So some things you can do is working onthe body, on your strength
of your body is super simple.
Again, check yourself before you do thesethings, make sure you're
comfortable doing them.
Something as simple as just getting in andout of a chair 10 times,
slowly and in control, right?
Stand up, sit down, sitdown 10 times under control.
(13:33):
You're going to feel it probably in yourlegs if you haven't worked out in a while.
Another one that is a full body workout,believe it or not,
is you just lay down on the floorcompletely on your back,
and then slowly, youstand up slowly under control,
and then you get back down again,and then you get back up and do that 10
times, and you might be out of breath.
That happens, too.
(13:55):
So the strengthening, youcan do all sorts of things.
Recommend starting, I think legsare a really good place to start.
They're a huge muscle group.
They do a lot of work for you, andyou get a lot of benefit from that.
The other thing you can do is, if you wantto do cardio, for instance, if you want to
work on your cardio,walking, folks, amazing.
(14:15):
It's low impact on the body.
It's what your body is designed to do.
It's what we started thiswhole conversation with.
Movement to find food, walking.
Walking is super good for you.
Then the other thing you can do is you cando some light stretching, just
a little bit, little by little.You don't do anything crazy.
There's a ton of stuff on YouTube.
I'm not going to belabor this pointbecause there's a million videos out there
(14:37):
on YouTube that'll explain themto you and help you out with them.
But you can do some stretching of yourlegs, of your hips, of your shoulders.
Particularly, if you have an area that'sparticularly troubling you,
look at it and see if a stretching willhelp it, maybe some
strengthening will help it.
I will tell you this, and this is notmedical advice, so I'm not a doctor, but I
(14:59):
will tell you that my My personalexperience and anecdotally from others who
I know, plus I think you can make a commonsense correlation here,
is that when I've experienced eithershoulder or arm issues, like elbow,
forearm, shoulder issues,with Then what I can do, some strength
training has helped mebecause what it's done is allow my body to
(15:21):
then rebuild that area and to make it alittle bit stronger, a little more
resilient, a little less likely tofeel the pain and get injured again.
So Those are some areas you can start in.
If you're already doing some ofthem, maybe add something else.
So let's say you already walk every day.Kudos.
That's awesome.Keep doing it.
And maybe add a little bit of strengthtraining at the end of it
once your body's warmed up.
If you're already doing a little bit ofstrength training, maybe add a little bit
(15:44):
of cardio in there, or addsome flexibility and mobility.
There's all sorts of programsyou can use out there.
If you're not sure what to do and you wantto get started,
Taiji is actually really good, too.
Taiji is amazing.Qigong is amazing.
Our friendly Holden has a wholeprogram on Qigong that's available.
So it's really good stuff.
(16:05):
But if you're not really sure what to do,you want to get started, if you go to the
In2Pickle YouTube channel,there's a playlist called Tone.
I'll put a link in the show notes, butit's like Tony's Favorite
Work or something like that.
And there's just some stuff, andthere's some hip opener stuff.
There's some mobility stuff.
There's Tai qi's in there.
I'll see if I can find somethingfrom Lee, and I'll put it in there.
Anyway, so that'll get you down the road.
(16:26):
But definitely remember thatyour body is a part of your mind.
It's not separate from your mind.
And so if you want to improve your mind,don't sleep, or do sleep
on your body, actually.
Sleep a lot, but don't sleep onthe body in terms of a concept.
All right, that's this week's podcast.I hope you enjoyed it.
If you have a minute to rate andreview it, really appreciate it.
(16:46):
And as always, considersharing with your friends.
If you are benefited from thispodcast, my guess is they might.
Hope you have a great week, and I'll seeyou in the next episode
of Fingalball Therapy.
Be well..
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