Robe and today I want to talk about why I go sea swimming
Robe and today I want to talk about why I go sea swimming. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question. This podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Robe Man Podcast. Robyn, welcome back to another Robyn Cycling Podcast. Thanks for joining me, it's a fresh Monday, it's a fresh week and I am feeling exceedingly fresh after my dip in the cold water. Today, I want to talk to you about why I bought or put myself through the hardship getting into cold water and honestly, a lot of the reason I have, I jump into the cold water as often as I can, it was reinforced by some of the speakers and I'm going to talk to you about that and which one impacted me. And yeah, just a lot more to follow from it because I've had the weekend to reflect and it's the first time I've had a little bit of a reflection period. Since I was like full gas all the way through that summit, so with that period of reflection I definitely have some learnings that are a little bit more textured and nuanced than when I interviewed my speakers. But Rob, before I jump into it, it is the festive season, it's the season of giving and I'm on asking you to head on over to patreon because the good people at patreon, your peers, they are the ones who support this podcast. They buy me the price of a beer once a month, five euro once a month, that's all it costs to keep this show on the road. So please, I would ask you to head across to antony, sorry to patreon.com forward slash antony underscore watch, buy me the price of a beer if you're getting some value out of this podcast which I sincerely hope you are since you're dedicating your time to it. Okay, real men, let's talk about why I packed up my towel and I headed down that short walk to the sea earlier on and what I do is as often as I can. So I've had a bunch of podcasts talking about morning routine and I really value cold water in the morning and it's just nailed in, dialled in part of my morning routine. But I also try and supplement that with as often as I can. Now I'll put a caveat on this because people are listening to this most thing. This lad has 62 hours in every single day the amount of stuff he gets done. I don't get into the sea for a swim every day I'll typically get into the sea on a day where I'm not training on the bike So if I'm riding six days a week, maybe I only get in once if I'm riding five days a week Maybe I'll get in twice the occasional time. I'll get in if I'm a short ride But just that's the way it typically plays out for me but there's so many reasons to get into the sea and after I I listen to the speakers on the summit. And particularly, I'm talking about Bradwood Neil here with this early stuff.
As I go through, I'm gonna talk to you about the teachings of some of…
But as I go through, I'm gonna talk to you about the teachings of some of the speakers on the summit and how they've reinforced for me that need to just get into the sea as often as I can. So the ones that I knew about, like we had a 2007 study that I think Bradwood Neil references in his talk about cold water exposure, lowering levels of depression and reducing the chances of dementia. And I think there's also a recent study this year about reduced chances of dementia with daily cold exposure. He also spoke and it's been well documented the benefits on the immune system by increasing the number of white blood cells. But then we had Scott Morphy, he's the physiotherapist from Mitchellton Scott. We had him chime in on this, talking about how some of the Reuters in his team, Mitchellton Scott, on Grant Horace, toward the France, Vuelta España, Jiro, Natalia, how they will choose to use ice bats after a races. And one of the reasons he spoke about there was for the anti-inflammatory effect. So as athletes, that's something else we're always seeking. There's other studies out there talking about the increased testosterone production in men. It's also good for the skin. And for me, in the morning I've spoken about it even before the podcast. I haven't today, but there's many podcasts where I've had to record late in the evening after a long, long day. And I'm thinking to myself, I can't have an Americana or I can't have a double espresso at 10 o'clock at night, but I need to change my state I need to arrive at this podcast with energy I need to discover the first podcast anyone is ever listening to on the road, man I want to make an impression I want to give the best of myself and I don't want to have a coffee Because I don't want to be up all night. So what do I do? I change my state by getting into that cold water So for me, it's an alternative to coffee. So like we're seriously starting to benefit stack here it's absolutely unreal. And then once you get into the cold water, anyone who's in there, like what I got in today, I climbed down into the cold water, I dipped my ankles in, then all of a sudden a wave hit me and it just rinsed me up to my, probably up just above shoulders, getting the neck, getting a lot of those cold receptors. And immediately, I could not think about anything. I couldn't think about emails that I hadn't answered last week when the summer was getting busy. I couldn't think about, you know, gauging how the summit went. What was my metrics for how the summit went? Was it a success? Was it not a success? You don't think about any money related issues. You don't think about any issues with family, with friends. It's just total absolute focus on the here and now on being present in that moment. It reconnects you to your survival, your basic ancestral self. But for me, really, what I love to do is it was something that chair Redmond reinforced in the summit Well, what I thought were probably two of the best, most poignant words across the whole summit.
Don't know if Jerry intended them to have such depth
And I don't know if Jerry intended them to have such depth. He just said two simple words, get uncomfortable. And I just think that's brilliant. Get uncomfortable. And that's what the call goes. You get uncomfortable. So when you think about what it is to get uncomfortable, anyone you admire, they got there by long periods. I'm talking sport, basketball, baseball, hockey, cycling, anyone who got somewhere that you admire, they got their true long periods outside that comfort zone of getting uncomfortable. Even think about cycling in Sam Bennett. I'm not super close friends with Sam, but I came up around the same time as him. So I know a lot of the stories and a lot of friends who are close friends with Sam's and teammates with him. And through so many years that he was so so close to walking away from the sport and he is someone I would describe as he got uncomfortable for a long period of time when almost all common sense said look, cycling's enough for you, pack it in, walk away, get a job, he persevered season after season after season and what was the result of the get uncomfortable for such a long period he is the fastest man in the world at the the moment. When you push past that voice, it's offering you excuses. You move into a zone of worthwhile that I call it. And it's the same voice of excuses telling you not to bother with the cold water. And it'll come up with all these excuses. I've no time to do cold water. It's just it's on too far away from the cold water. It's on too busy of a busy schedule. A lot of people don't have the same schedule as me. I have kids. This is the same voice that's holding you back from whatever you want to do, it's maybe it's learning another language, maybe it's starting your dream business, or maybe it's achieving your true sporting potential in cycling. It's that same voice holding you back. When you push past that voice, when you push into that cold water and that cold water hits you and you know what it truly is to get uncomfortable. That's my message for you today, roadman. Get uncomfortable and get into that cold water. Chat you tomorrow! Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14 day Kickstarter challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guesswork out of everything. It's 14 days of training plans regardless of what your level is. There's Masters, Beginner, Advanced. There's meal plans, shopping list and even a video course holding your hand and talking you true at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. That's roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day.