Last week’s Junction, the 101st if you’re counting, might be the most TL;DR edition yet. If that wasn’t embassaring enough, by the time I realized how long I’d been yapping, I decided I’d yapped too long to even begin to yap about the thing I wanted to yap about. So here, in my follow-up to last week’s What Revs My Engine!, which, despite the yapping, I steadfastly stand by, is what I intended to yap about to begin with.
Perhaps predictably, I have become a thoroughly idiosyncratic old man. There is a Junction post pending about this. I’m not sure if even the people closest to me know how pronounced my idiosyncrasies have become. I’ve become the fish riding the bicycle. This is not a lament; it’s not a brag or a humble brag. It’s just that I’m all but destined to don a monocle any day now.
Even my workouts have become wholly idiosyncratic. Last week I made a case for a morning mobility routine, moving weight, and running. Conventional stuff. Just do it, as they say. But do it with rigor and unconventional intensity, as I say.
Now I want to share with you the rather unorthodox stuff I do on the regular. Let’s call it My Top 10 Idiosyncratic Exercises:
Walk backwards. Great for joints, balance, and posture. I was running last week and saw three old ladies walking backwards on the path in the park. I gave them all the double thumbs up, they reciprocated. Get retro!
The farmer’s carry. Dude. So simple. Grip strength. Core strength. Balance. Carrying a week’s worth of groceries up six flights every Saturday, as is my lot in life, is not enough. Pick up heavy stuff and walk. Can’t beat it.
Battle ropes. With the possible exception of a whisky flask, battle ropes might have been my best pandemic purchase. I was out in the park with my rope during lockdowns and have been devoted to them ever since.
Bear crawls. Not the same as beer crawls, though I do both with equal intensity. I’m an old man, so I don’t care how the kids at the gym look at me. I wonder at what age I will give myself license to roar. Prolly sooner than later.
Turkish get-ups. Terrible name, great impact. Huge fan. I do TGUs because I need more shoulder stability. I like TGUs because they are easy, but require substantial focus. I see TGUs like practicing piano scales: when I do them slow, steady, and rhythmically, my workouts seem to improve. I try play scales and do TGUs most mornings. Both are meditations that make everything else better.
Stand on one leg when you brush your teeth. I’m serious! Your balance probably sucks. Fix it before you get old, fall and break a hip. With brushing in mind, check out nerve flossing, which 100% changed my life.
Have a catch. Playing catch is half the reason I had a kid. I forget the other half and my kid doesn’t play catch with me much anymore. The struggle is real y’all. So if you’re in Berlin and wanna have a catch, please reach out! I’ll toss a ball but prefer a frisbee.
Fun fact: when the Pluto Pie (invented by Fred Morrison in 1937) was renamed the Frisbee in 1958, the instructions, molded into the underside, written by his wife, Lu Morrison, read like a Zen koan:
Play catch / Invent Games
To Fly, Flip Away Backhanded
Flat Flip Flies Straight
Tilted Flip Curves / Experiment!
Push that sled. If you have one at your gym, definitely use it. This is mine. We have a love/hate relationship. Lots of push and pull. Dad gonna dad joke. But for realsies: this thing brings out the beast in me. Sometimes I loop a battle rope through the hook on the bottom and pull the sled backwards step by step.
Multitask Your Planks. Planks are great exercise: great for scrolling social media or talking to my dad or brainstorming the next substack idea. Netflix and chill, meet Netflix and plank.
Smile! Like literally turn your little lips upward and make yourself smile when you're working out. It's amazing what a difference it makes. Just try it. You'll see.
I tend to tell my students about the facial feedback hypothesis. You know this one? It suggests that facial movements can influence emotional experiences. Darwin pioneered the idea. It’s been repeatedly substantiated for 150 years. In class, we replicate a 1988 study by Fritz Strack which found that participants who held a pen between their teeth (inducing a smile) rated cartoons as funnier compared to those who held a pen with their lips (inducing a pout). Ya hear me Gen Z?
The data on smiling is bountiful and irrefutable. You wanna feel good in 2025? Turn up your lips and take your boy’s workout advice.
There. I’m a fitness influencer now. Check that off the 2025 bucket list. Boop.
Again, I share all this merely in my hope to help. Take it or leave it. But don’t judge the intention. Look. If you read this thing, I want you to feel good in 2025. That’s that.
Now this: I love this Buddhist meditation sequence that I just learned from the Ezra Klein podcast, where you repeat these Five Remembrances:
I’m of the nature to grow old. I’m of the nature to get sick. I’m of the nature to lose people I love. I’m of the nature to die. So how, then, shall I live?
Take care y’all.
Love,
DL
P.S. If you have Remembrances of your own, perhaps a mantra of sorts, can you please send them to me (or comment on this post)? I want to write about this. Yup, I’m becoming that guy. A monocle and oodles of turquoise. Boop.