Ep. #145: MFL Book Club Podcast: Peak Performance by Brad Stulberg and Steve Magness

[00:00:00] Hey, this is Mike from muscle for life, and I’m often asked about books. People ask me for book recommendations on various topics. They ask me what book I am currently reading and what books I have recently read, and what my favorite books are, and so forth. And as an avid reader, I am always happy to oblige and get some book recommendations in return as well.

I also just like to encourage people to read as much as possible because I think that knowledge benefits you much like compound interest benefits your bank account in that the more you learn, the more you know, and the more you know, the more you can do, and the more you can do, the more opportunities you have to succeed.

And on the flip side, I also believe that there is little hope for people who aren’t perpetual learners. I know that might sound a [00:01:00] little bit pessimistic or cynical to you, but let’s face it, life is overwhelmingly complex and chaotic. And if we look around, we can find plenty of evidence that it simply suffocates and devours the lazy and ignorant.

So if you are a bookworm and you’re on the lookout for good reads, or if you’d like to just get into the habit of reading more, then this book club is for you. The idea is very simple. Every week I’m going to share a book that particularly liked, and I’m going to tell you why I liked it and give you several of my key takeaways from it.

I’m also going to keep these episodes short and sweet so you can quickly decide whether or not a book is likely to be up your alley or not.

So here is this week’s book, Peak Performance by Brad Stolberg and Steve Magnus. And if you want a detailed and practical overview of the science of optimizing both your mental and physical performance, [00:02:00] then I think you’re going to like this book. It explores three primary topics, how to use stress and recovery to stimulate progress and growth.

How to prime and prepare yourself for optimal performance and how to tap into the power of purpose. And I really like this book because it is packed full of insights and practical takeaways. I’ve read quite a bit in this space already. So honestly, I didn’t find very much in the book that I hadn’t come across elsewhere, but I did enjoy it nonetheless.

I thought that it’s a very well organized and well presented review of the performance literature and it’s written in a very breezy conversational style that makes for effortless reading. Now, I particularly liked that it gave an interesting procedure for finding and formulating a purpose, whether for an individual project or your entire life.

The procedure emphasizes finding something outside of yourself that you can dedicate yourself to and also identifying core values and fundamental beliefs. [00:03:00] And I think those two things are spot on because while self interest and acquisitiveness are worshipped in today’s culture, I do think that in the end they are incredibly unfulfilling and demotivating.

The reality is you can only spend so much time living just for yourself and accumulating money and things before you just feel empty before your soul yearns for something deeper and more meaningful, which is by definition, an existential crisis that if ignored for too long, will just hollow you out as an individual.

The right path, the authors argue, is in the opposite direction. Dedication of yourself to a course greater than you and in focusing on becoming the person that you want to be as opposed to having the things that you want to have. Again, I think that’s a very powerful message that It resonates deeply with me, at least.

And it’s not news, of course, high achievers and [00:04:00] thinkers of all stripes have been saying just that for millennia now, but I do think it can always bear repeating because sometimes you just have to hear things multiple times and at the right times and in the right words before you really start to take them to heart.

Okay, so let’s get to my takeaways. Here’s the first one. If you are interested in really improving as a performer, I would suggest incorporating the rhythm of stress and recovery into all aspects of your life. And my note here is that many people’s lives are horribly imbalanced when viewed through the lens of stress and recovery.

The majority of people are striving to minimize stress of any kind and maximize stress. Relaxation and recovery, which makes for easy living, but also personal stagnation and dissatisfaction, which of course is its own type of existential crisis. And then there’s the minority of us that refuse to take a break from stressful activities and make time for recovery, [00:05:00] which makes for burnout syndrome and just general malaise.

And I myself have been on both sides of this equation at different times in my life. When I was younger, I would say I was a bit lazy and listless. And over the last five years or so, I’ve definitely experienced being frenetic and uneasy. And I can say that while both have their silver linings, the former has, comfort and the latter has accomplishment.

Both suck just in different ways. So the challenge then, and this has been a personal challenge for me as well, is It’s finding your own personal Goldilocks zone, the sweet spot where you’re exposing yourself to enough stress and enough areas of your life to continue growing and improving, but not so much that the costs outweigh the benefits.

All right. Takeaway number two. Some individuals learn to assess stressors as challenges rather than threats. This outlook, which researchers call a challenge response, is characterized by viewing stress as [00:06:00] something productive and much like we’ve written as a stimulus for stress. for growth. In the midst of stress, those who demonstrate a challenge response proactively focus on what they can control.

With this outlook, negative emotions like fear and anxiety decrease. This response better enables these individuals to manage and even thrive under stress. Stress. My note here is that reframing stress as something that’s constructive rather than destructive is more powerful than you might think because it not only positively influences how you view and feel about the situations that you’re dealing with, it also impacts your physiology.

Studies show that people who react to stress with a challenge response release more of a hormone called DHEA than those who don’t. And this hormone counteracts the negative effects of cortisol, which of course goes up when you’re stressed, and can even confer various health benefits. For example, research shows people who view stress positively have a [00:07:00] 43 percent lower chance of premature death than those who view it negatively.

All right. Takeaway number three. The best performers are not consistently great, but they are great at being consistent. They show up every day and they do the work. And my note here is Stephen King wrote about this in his memoir on writing. He said, quote, don’t wait for the muse. Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you’re going to be every day from nine till noon or seven till three.

If he knows. I assure you he’ll start showing up and this really is the unsexy reality of success. A lot of it just comes down to doing the things that most people don’t want to do and doing them each and every day. You also often don’t want to do them, but you find the will to act anyway, which is something we’ll talk about a little bit more in a minute.

Next takeaway. Regardless of what you are doing, whether you are using your body, mind, or soul, repeating a purpose driven mantra during [00:08:00] times of fear, pain, or apprehension can yield big benefits. Doing so grounds us, attenuates negative emotions, and quiets the mind. Our ego. So my note here is that it is well established that self talk can boost performance and especially when our bodies and minds are telling us to quit.

For example, according to one of the coauthors, who by the way, is the cross country coach at the university of Houston. When elite runners start feeling pain and discomfort in their workouts, which they all do by the way. Just as much as the rest of us. They respond differently than most people do.

Instead of thinking about how painful it is and how much worse it’s going to get, or trying to just force their way through or fight against what they’re feeling, they have a calm conversation with themselves that goes something like this. This is starting to hurt now, which it should, I’m running hard, but I’m separate from this pain.

It’s going to be okay. I’ll just keep going. In other words, what they do is they decide how to respond to the stress of the workout [00:09:00] and it makes all the difference in their mindset. It helps them relax and thus their performance. They put up better times. I think this is a great strategy for dealing with stressful situations of all kinds in any area of our lives.

The, this too shall pass mentality can be very powerful. Okay, final takeaway. Students who were forced to struggle on complex problems before receiving help from teachers outperformed students who received immediate assistance. The authors of these studies summarize their findings in a simple yet elegant statement.

Skills come from Struggle. I like that. Skills come from struggle. This is a very powerful idea and a very powerful statement I think to include in your own self talk whenever you’re struggling through some situation or painful activity. As us weightlifters know, growth occurs at the point of resistance and often is preceded by failure, which then allows for failure.

productive [00:10:00] reconstruction, or if we take the metaphor outside of the gym, productive reflection and analysis toward some sort of solution to the situation. So remember that the next time that you are facing a challenge That feels barely manageable or maybe even a little out of control. These are the situations.

These are the struggles that grow your skills. All right. That’s it for this week’s book review. I told you, I’d keep it short and sweet. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did and you don’t mind doing me a favor, could you please drop a quick review of the podcast on iTunes or wherever you’re listening from?

Because it really helps. Boost visibility, which ultimately helps more and more people find their way to the show and check it out. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and you won’t miss out on any of the new stuff. And lastly, if you didn’t like something about this episode or just about the podcast on the whole, then definitely shoot me an email at Mike at most for life.

com and share [00:11:00] your thoughts on how I could make things better. I read all the emails myself, and I’m always looking for constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to the episode, and I hope to hear from you soon. Oh, and before you leave, let me quickly tell you about one other product of mine that I think you might like.

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