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Padel Progress Report – Year 2 (2018)

Last updated: February 06, 2021Leave a Comment

Myself with Pablo Ayma, one of the best padel coaches in the world.

It’s time to take a reflective view of my second year as an amateur padel player. As I’ve mentioned in other posts on my blog, I am taking this journey very seriously and dedicating a lot of time and effort into becoming the best player possible. You can read the summary of my first year in padel here.

My second year of playing padel was quite intense and I feel like I’ve tried many things. I’ll start off by saying that I didn’t improve as much as I wanted to this year, so that’s a negative point. As for the rest, there was plenty to be happy about, and most of it will probably serve as a building block to my next big jump in my padel level that hopefully will happen in 2019.

I bought a car towards the end of the year and that gave me a lot more flexibility and allowed me to play at clubs that are further away from the city center. In Barcelona, the best clubs are not so centrally located, so having a car is a must really. I was deluding myself for some time thinking I could do without it, but now that I have it I’m very glad I did buy it.

In September, I underwent surgery (bone marrow biopsy) in order to investigate the sources of my anemia that showed up in the regular bloodwork I do. Thankfully, there were no important issues there, however, the surgery kept me out of action for a few weeks as I had to recover. This disrupted my flow a bit and I struggled to get back on track towards the end of the year. I also got sick with flu-like symptoms and fever on several occasions and that also conditioned me physically.

I ran the padel level test as I did at the end of last year and the results are the ones you see below. Again, I think they are slightly optimistic and I would rate myself as a 4 player not a 4.5 one, and that’s when I’m having a good day. I still need to polish many basic things especially since I haven’t transitioned to padel from another racket sport. My movement is still a bit clumsy too.

Physical Fitness

This year I really took my fitness to a different level entirely compared to what I had ever done before, and I ended the year in the best shape of my life by far.

I achieved this mostly by working with personal trainers to improve my mobility and shore up weak areas of my body. I also did a lot of work on agility, coordination and reaction time, working with tools such as agility ladders, skipping ropes, and ball grab and toss exercises.

I had always trained on my own in gyms, but training with a personal trainer was a huge difference. It made it much easier to train consistently 3-4 times a week. My personal training takes around 30 minutes, and I spend anywhere between 20-60 minutes after my session training on my own.

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Designing Your Bedroom as a Recovery Room

Last updated: February 23, 2020Leave a Comment

The bedroom once did what it promised on the tin: there would be a bed, some furniture such as a wardrobe, drawers and maybe a dressing table or a desk. Technology changed things, first with televisions in the bedroom, and today with the multitude of devices that allow us to watch movies, listen to music, interact on social media and play video games from the comfort of our sleep kits. The bedroom has effectively become an extra living space, instead of a room for sleep.

Like the marginal-gains approach, we need to look towards stripping as much of the potential obstacles away as possible as we head towards a sleep state. And if we can’t strip them away then we need to at least learn to control their impact. Our bedrooms must become a sleep sanctuary – a mental and physical recovery room.

The Empty Shell

The first step in creating your recovery room is to start with a blank canvas, this means taking everything out of your current bedroom. You could literally do this if you felt so committed, but doing it in your head works just as well. This empty room is no longer a bedroom, nor is it an extension of your living space. Starting here, it is your mental and physical recovery room.

My first bit of advice would be to paint it white and put nothing back on the walls. We don’t want any potential stimulus in the room that a loud color scheme or pictures on the wall might provide, just a very simple, clean and neutral décor.

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My Thoughts on Formal Education and University Degrees

Last updated: January 12, 2023Leave a Comment

My education has been quite extensive; built on these three pillars:

University degrees (3 of them from two different universities)
Countless courses at technical centers
Lots of reading on my own

By far the most valuable of the three was the reading I did on my own time and based on my interests and ambitions. It’s what enabled me to build my own business and learn the skills needed to succeed. The rest of the aptitudes I got from my upbringing and people I met along the way.

I largely agree with Bryan Caplan’s view that formal education is mostly signalling. This is the view that school doesn’t so much teach you valuable skills, but helps filter society by which people are smart, conscientious and conformist enough to put up with it. This filtering can explain why schools seem to teach so much useless stuff, yet are nonetheless a requirement for almost any good job.

This way of thinking does not apply to all professions, however. There are several professions such as law and medicine where it would be foolish to think that you can study on your own and attain anywhere close to the knowledge that actually going to university would give you. What I disagree with is society’s relentless push for all young students to go to University as if not going would be a failure in itself. There are only a limited number of courses available at university and an infinite amount of human aptitudes and talents, so if young students feel that no course suits them they should seriously consider skipping University.

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What to Eat Before and After a Padel Match

Last updated: April 23, 2019Leave a Comment

What we need to ensure before a padel match is that we have an optimal reserve of glycogen. The process is known as carb-loading. Glycogen reserves are the body’s reserves of carbohydrates, and they will help us maintain our energy levels for the duration of the match.

Athletes engaged in exercise over a long period of time produce energy via two mechanisms, both facilitated by oxygen:

via fat metabolism and
via breakdown of glycogen into glucose, followed by glycolysis.

How much energy comes from either source depends on the intensity of the exercise. During intense exercise that approaches one’s VO₂ max, most of the energy comes from glycogen.

When you run out of glycogen during a match you hit “the wall.” Your body has to slow down as it turns fat into energy, and this can lead to weak legs and fainting sensations. That is why we need to make sure to take care of our glycogen levels.

For breakfast tortillas, oatmeal, bread, pancakes, waffles, bagels, yogurt, and juice are all easy-to-digest options. Many fruits are high in carbs but are also high in fiber—and too much can cause stomach trouble mid-match. Bananas are a low-fiber choice and you can peel apples, peaches, and pears to reduce their fiber content.

The main meal before the match should be taken around 2-4 hours before, and we should eat carb-based food with a high glycemic index. Having a high glycemic index means that the carbs are rapidly absorbed. Carbohydrates are key with a moderate amount of protein, adding in some antioxidants if possible.

Try a pasta/rice dish with some lean ground turkey meat sauce, or a chicken stir-fry with lots of rice and veggies. We should be looking at between 1 and 4g of carbs for every kg of body weight, eaten 3-4 hours before the match. In the hour preceding the match, if we haven’t yet taken our full ingestion of carbs, or simply feel hungry, we can eat 30-60g of carbs. If we ate more than that, we would be risking going in with a heavy stomach that will impair our performance.

Some typical snacks for pre-match are Gatorade Energy Chews and PowerBar Energy Blasts or simply fruit.

Keep in mind that it is also very important to stay well hydrated throughout the day of your match. Monitor urine color on game day. It sounds silly, but you want it in the light lemonade or even clear shade. If you get into the apple juice shades, hydration levels are lacking.

What to Avoid Before Matches

How you fuel your body before a game or practice can still have major performance benefits. Here are some items to avoid eating as part of a pregame meal.

Fatty foods. It seems easy, but athletes often forget to steer clear of any high-fat foods. That includes fried foods – including French fries, chicken strips, fried chicken and onion rings – and fatty cuts of meat such as hamburgers and bacon. Steer clear of high-fat foods—like creamy sauces, cheese, butter, and oils—as well as too much protein. Both nutrients fill you up faster than carbs and take longer to digest, she says. Pick jam—not butter—for your toast, tomato sauce in lieu of alfredo sauce on your pasta, and frozen yogurt instead of ice cream for dessert.
Too much protein. Normally, protein sounds good, and it does play an important role in a football player’s overall diet, but not in large quantities before a game. So, stay away from protein shakes or protein bars. You can find a good amount of pregame protein in other ways.
Artificial sweeteners. Be careful with artificial sweeteners. They can mess with digestion, and the last thing anyone wants during a game is an upset stomach.

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How the Dickens Process Can Completely Change Your Outlook to Life

Last updated: January 12, 20232 Comments

The Dickens Process, named after the famous novelist Charles Dickens, is a unique approach to personal development and self-improvement that has been popularized by life coach and motivational speaker Tony Robbins.

The process is based on the themes and lessons present in Dickens’ classic novella, “A Christmas Carol,” in which the protagonist, Ebenezer Scrooge, is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. Through these encounters, Scrooge is able to gain a deeper understanding of his own actions and motives, and ultimately transforms into a kinder and more compassionate person.

Similarly, the Dickens Process encourages individuals to take a reflective journey through their own past, present, and future, in order to gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their actions. By examining past experiences and memories, individuals can identify patterns and behaviors that may be holding them back, and work to overcome them.

The process also involves looking at the present moment and identifying areas of their life that they are dissatisfied with, and setting clear and specific goals for how to improve them. Lastly, individuals are encouraged to visualize their ideal future and the person they want to become, and take action towards making that vision a reality.

Listen to Tony himself describe the exercise and how to do it in this YouTube video:

So how do you do this exercise?

Close your eyes and visualize yourself in the present moment.
Imagine a future version of yourself, 10 years from now, who has achieved all of your goals and is living the life you desire.
See, hear and feel everything about this future version of yourself as vividly as possible. Imagine your surroundings, the people around you, and your emotions.
Now imagine going back in time and visiting different points in your past, starting with the most recent and going back further and further.
As you visit each point in your past, imagine how your future self would have handled the situation differently. Imagine how your future self would have acted, spoken and thought.
Continue going back through your past until you reach your childhood. Imagine how your future self would have handled your childhood experiences differently.
Finally, return to the present moment and open your eyes.

The idea behind this process is to help you gain a new perspective on your past and present, and to give you a clearer vision of the person you want to become in the future. By visualizing yourself as the person you want to be, you can start to take action to make that vision a reality.

Physical Fitness

The Empty Shell

What to Avoid Before Matches

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