After a few months of fairly consistent routine (and making pretty good progress in the gym)…

The past few weeks have been (mostly fun) chaos!

A trip to San Diego to visit my brother and his family.

36 hours later, a trip to Austin for my friend Chris Guillebeau’s NeuroDivergence Conference.

Then, four days at home in Nashville which included two late nights of tornado sirens and sitting in my bathtub in my “safe space” bathroom at 3AM. Luckily no tornados formed near me!

After that, it was off to NYC for two quick days to catch up with old friends…

And then on to Massachusetts to visit my mom for her 70th Birthday. 

The next two weeks stay crazy too! Carlsbad, Palm Springs for a golf tournament, and Los Angeles.

I’m trying to say yes to more things lately, but I haven’t traveled like this in a long time!

Luckily, I have a plan to follow whenever life gets truly chaotic.

Let’s Tread Water

We humans feel better when we make progress towards our goals.

And when we aren’t making progress, it can feel totally demoralizing.

Reality paints a different picture: 

The opposite of “progress” isn’t “no progress.” 

It’s “regress”: going in the wrong direction.

I think of my goals like swimming. Instead of worrying about swimming quickly in a certain direction towards a goal, I sometimes shift my focus to “treading water:” not making things worse, not swimming in the wrong direction, and not drowning.

When the alternative is “drowning or going the wrong way,” treading water is actually a perfectly acceptable strategy! And we can tread water for a long time if we have to.

This is my exact mentality for the current six weeks of chaos I find myself in!

Steve’s “Tread Water” Workout Routine

During a regular week, I hit the gym four days a week for about 45-60 minutes.

While traveling and when I need to tread water, I radically adjust my expectations down to 15 minutes. If I have time for more, great. But 15 minutes still counts as a “win” to me! 

I try to use a hotel gym, or sign up for a one-week pass, or sometimes even a one-day pass.

Here is my entire “Tread Water” workout routine:

• Workout A: Deadlifts – warm up, then 1 big heavy set of 3 reps of deadlifts. Then go home!
• Workout B: Pull-ups, push-ups, and handstands for 15 minutes. Then go home!
• Workout C: Barbell Squats – warm up, then 1 set of 5 reps of heavy barbell squats. Then go home!
• Workout D: Pull-ups, push-ups, and handstands for 15 minutes. Then go home!

By going really heavy for one exercise, it helps make sure the food/protein I eat gets allocated to my muscles and maintains the strength I have.

I also don’t worry about certain workouts on specific days of the week. I work out on the days I can, and then I just do the next workout when I have the opportunity.

The point isn’t to keep making progress, it’s to make sure I don’t go backwards. Then, when my full schedule settles down, I can usually pick up right where I left off with my sets and reps and weights.

Steve’s “Tread Water” Diet

When it comes to my nutrition, I’m normally pretty dialed in. I know my daily calories, macros, and so on.

When I’m treading water, though, I change my expectations accordingly.

I have only two goals while treading water:

Protein: Try to get at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. This means picking a protein-first option for meals on the go, and also using shakes and bars if necessary. I’m a fan of the Core Power Elite vanilla shakes (42 grams of protein), and the MET-Rx super cookie crunch protein bars (32 grams of protein).

Fruits and vegetables: I’m often spending lots of time on airplanes or in airports. Which means I’m not eating mostly meals in line with my goals. That’s okay though! Fruits and veggies on the road will never be a bad decision, and can help keep me feeling mostly health and mostly happy.

Everything else is negotiable.

By just prioritizing those two things above, it gives me a tiny nudge each day to try to make the best choices I can, but still allows for some room to eat outside of my goals, especially if I find myself in an airport or on a train or out with friends and there’s something delicious on the menu.

What’s your “Tread Water” Plan?

Sometimes life requires us to tread water for weeks, months, or years.

“Pre-deciding” what to do for when things get crazy can be a game-changer, because the only guarantee in life is that things won’t go according to plan!

As long as we can do something, it can be a helpful reminder that we’re working on something, and we’ll feel better about ourselves too.

We do this with every NF Coaching Client too: each client has a button they can hit on their app during the days when life happens, that changes their workout down to a pre-decided “plan b.”

What’s YOUR “tread water” strategy?

A simple bodyweight workout you can do in your hotel room or basement?

A goal of “just walking for 10 minutes” on your lunch break?

“I’m just gonna go to the gym and do one exercise?”

Set those “tread water” expectations as low as necessary to still do something. The goal isn’t to make progress…it’s to stay afloat long enough until you can start swimming again later!

No matter how far ‘behind’ you think you might be…you’re still here.

You’re here reading this reading, and that means you’re still floating.

-Steve