Written by: Libor Mattuš, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Spring is time of getting back from winter monthes. It's time to expose yourself to sun, take a reset and focus on overall rejuvination. How can biohacking techniques help you to support your health, longevity, performance, vitality and joy? In the article “4 Tips for Optimizing your Movement: A Biohacking Guide to Healthy Spring” you will discover practical tips, you can use to enjoy this spring to its fullest potential.
The partner of this article is Premier Sweden Omega-3 supplementation, which is the one choice for health leaders and biohackers world-wide for more than 14 years.
1. Move outside, move often
Movement is essential for health and vitality. We as humans evolved in constant motion. Our evolution made us to. We couldn´t survive without walking 30 km a day with infrequent run for pray or run from danger. It was day-to-day reality 150 000 years ago…
We still need to stay in motion even today, Our evolutionary biology hasn´t changed much in recent thousands of years. But in age of smartphones and apple computers, lot of us struggle to get movement needed, because of insufficient time possibilities – workload, family, social life frequently gets in the way. But there are ways, how to keep in touch with your health and fitness on day to day basis. How?
Keep moving during the day! You should set your mindset in this way: when you see a stairs in public or in your office building, you want to run up. Simply set, you want to be active. If you are overweight, in bad cardiovascular health or suffering joint issues or you are eldery, always customise your movement regime to your health condition. But you definitely need to get as active as possible. It supports your endocrine health, stimulates your nervous system. A lot of my clients got rid of sleep issues by remarkably increasing the level and intensity of the movement.
When talking about intensity, you probably measure step count. Walking is good and much better than sitting all day. Definitely walk as much as you can during your day. But don’t forget, more intense ways of movement, like quick up to stair walk are far superior in their effects on your body and mind. So use them atleast 2-4 times every day. I see the pyramid of the movement choice a follows: standing (better, than sitting all day) walking slow – walking fast – walking up to stairs.
Never stop moving. It can literally save your life. Why? There is something called sarcopenia. It´s pretty striking muscle loss, when you got to certain age. It means your body is not “young” – you need to do your best to keep your muscles active, because it´s question of life or otherwise… There is never too soon to practise active lively lifestyle. You move. You move more. You love to move.
2. Hit the training time with HIIT
High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT for short) is wonderful option for keeping your fitness and longevity on the cutting edge level in shortest amount of time possible.
You can fit your HIIT training into 10-30 minutes of time. But this is not going to be an easy time! I will explain HIIT protokol on running. There are some other exercises, you can use for HIIT. Running is my HIIT exercise of choice. I sprint as fast as possible for 8-30 seconds and than I rest 4-6 longer time, than I run.
I was personally HIITing it whole winter, runnung outside, but being a professional cold exposure instructor, I have a good foundation to do so. Keep it smooth and start running in HIIT style just when you see that air temperature is good for you and you can breathe fast without getting any troubles.
The frequency of weekly training for optimal results is also pretty favourable for busy people: just train 10-30 minutes 2-3 times a week. Preferably changing the length of the training, so Monday for 30 minutes, Wednesday for 10 minutes, and Friday for 20 minutes is an ideal way how to stress your body in a very positive way! Don´t fall into the trap of making same old training length all over again… it´s ineffective.
Alternative is to use “norwegian protocol” which is summarised as 4x4. You run as fast as possible in constant tempo for 4 minutes. Than you rest for 4 minutes. Repeat for times. Easy to remember. Not easy to perform. But very effective, also for increase of your VO2 max. VO2 max is metric which shows how many milliliters of oxygen can 1 kilogram of your body weight use in one minute. The highest measured VO2 max was arround 93, the top of my my 55 old clients for business health coaching gets to 45, which is amazing.
The importance of VO2 max for not only physical condition, but also longevity, I will describe in the following articles. If you have spare time, definitely grab the book Outlive by Peter Attia, M.D.. I was in the group which brought his work to the market in my country, the Czech Republic. Dr. Attia´s book its really the source for cutting edge longevity research and real-life practises, which I use as a “must” read source for all my clients, especially in age 45 and beyond.
3. Avoid allergies, take care of your breath, and thrive in the new season
Spring is time, when grass and flowers are flourishing again. That is a time, when my past nightmares become true… Why? I used to suffer as a kid and teenager with heavy allergicic reactions to pollen, animal fur, dust particles. Those particles, which can´t harm me and you at all, but my overly active immune system was reacting, as it could. So I was sneezing whole spring and summer.
My solution, which I would like to share with you is breathing through nose. Even when running. And here we come to full circle in this article. When you move or exercise, ideal way is to breath using your nose. Only your nose. It means breath in and breathe out only using your nose. Obviously this is exceptionally difficult, when you get stuff. But I made my journey to not accept the game of mouth breathing (and poor level of energy and vitality as a result of that) . I krpt pushing forward my breath through my nose and my biochemistry, personality and sport performance to utterly new level.
If you want to know why, see for my next article. Or read directly book Breath of my friend Mr. James Nestor, who made a world-class research about the topic form ore than 10 years.
4. Use solid omega-3 supplementation
You can help yourself with muscle protection, cardiovascular health, also to decrease chronic inflammation in your body and potentially even get rid of annoying allergies by balancing your level of proinflammatory omega-6 and antiinflammatory omega-3s. The great help there is supplementing with the best omega-3 supplementation on the market. You can benefit from vegan and kids-friendly water-soluable versions as well. I take it with my meals, preferably with the breakfast and lunch. Because of vitamin D3 content, it´s not suitable for evening consumption. Vitamin D3 sets your circadian rhythm into day time (as long as its production is connected with sun exposure as well).
Why this formulation is my choice and I consider it to be far superior, than others? It combinees ultra-pure omega-3 oil from fishes with olive oil from unriped olives. The research shoes, that unriped olives have higher ratio of antioxidant polyphenols, which helps greatly your cells to include omega-3s to their cell-wall structure. Presence of olive oil púolyfenols is the key for omega-3s to really get absorbed by jsou body.
But don´t take my word for granted…
If you have taken any omega-3 supplementation before , I suggest you to take a omega-3 blood level test. The testing will really help you to see, how did your previous Omega-3 supplementation really worked or how consuming fishes influences a chance of having a good omega-6 and omega-3 ratio. There is a very authoritative research from Dr. Simupoulos on the topic of importance of healthy omega-6 and omega-3 ratio. Dr. Simupoulos reveals it in the study “The importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acids
Simply put, omega-6 are gass pedals of inflammation. Omega-3 acts as a breaks. You need an inflammation - its vital part of the immune reactions and we definitely wouldn't survive without this. But if your inflammatory reactions are too high, it's actually speeding up your aging and overall degradation of tissues.
Dr. Simupoulos speaks of the importance of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids in the balanced ratio and also in the prevention and treatment of degenerative issues, like cancer or inflammatory disease. The basic logic behind this fact is very simple. The balanced ratio of omega-6 and omega-6 is the point of scientific debate, but it usually starts at 4:1, and the recommended ratio goes lower. Generally speaking, for prevention, the lower, the better!
“The ratio of omega-6/omega-3 fatty acids in the brain is between 1:1 and 2:1 which is in agreement with the data from the evolutionary aspects of diet, genetics, and the studies with the fat-1 animal model. Therefore, a ratio of 1:1 to 2:1 omega-6/omega-3 fatty acids should be the target ratio for health.” (Dr. Simupoulos, 2010)
It´s because this ratio sets your body and cells in homeostasis. It helps you to naturally balance inflammation, which is needed as a part of our immune system to fight of infections, but if it’s overly active, it’s damaging you…
If the chronical inflammation is slowly damaging you for several decade, there is it is an increased probability to the degeneration and according to your genetic predispositions, it might be hard disease, Nerud, degeneration or cancer of different parts of the body.
That’s the reason why I take omega ratio measurements as the one of the very first things I measure with my clients. Not only during the spring.
To sum up action steps
Move frequently during the day: lightly higher intensity is preferred to low intensity. Low-intensity movement (i.g. walking or even standing is much better than sitting)
Use chosen HIIT training protocol 2-3 times per week.
Pay attention to your breathing, and lead it with your nose – in and out.
Use omega-3 supplementation daily, preferably early in the day, after your meals (breakfast or/and lunch)
To conclude, I hope you will enjoy this spring to its fullest potential with as much energy as possible. Keep up with your good effort!
If you want to talk with me about your lifestyle optimalisation, feel free to book a consultation with me, for 30 minutes or 60 minutes. If you want to explore options for your mutual cooperation for you or your company or team, sports club or friends, feel free to book an appointment with me.
Last remark, if you like, what I do, you can share your tips for healthier spring with me on my Linkedin here or write me an email on libor@libormattus.com.
Libor Mattuš, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Libor Mattus, is the leading Czech Biohacking / Lifestyle / Longevity Coach, Cold Exposure Expert, and Breathwork instructor. He is the author of the book Cold Therapy: Complete Guide. He wrote numerous e-books and articles. He was coaching two cold-exposure Czech Guinness World Rekord holders, David Vencl and Joska Šálek.
He studied Chinese medicine and also speaks fluent Chinese. He has been helping leaders, managers and employees of numerous international companies to set positive lifestyle habits, leading to reduced stress levels, increased energy, and enhanced health prevention. He leads shirtless winter climbs to Mt. Snezka for more than 7 years with his team. He lives in Prague and enjoys traveling worldwide.
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