Essay
Redoing the sports plan – Part 1: Metrics
Rebuilding my sports plan starts with knowing what to measure. These notes map nine exercise adaptations, from skill and strength to aerobic capacity, with proposed tests and starting measurements.
Health & training
How do we put ideas into practice?
Training notebooks, food experiments, and historical reading on health.
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Book review
This is Going to Hurt
Adam Kay’s diary of six years as a junior doctor mixes gruelling NHS work with comedy. A short review of the contrast between the two, and a book shaped by individual encounters rather than an overarching argument.
Book review
Power to the People
Pavel Tsatsouline’s strength-training book centres on heavy, low-repetition work, fatigue management and training cycles. Notes on its techniques and claims, including the different priorities of strength training and bodybuilding.
Book review
Het Tekort van het Teveel
Damiaan Denys questions what mental healthcare is asked to solve. My reading of his argument is to prioritise people with severe suffering while questioning the urge to treat every discomfort as a clinical problem.
Essay
Ginger Drink
A short recipe note explains how to start and maintain a ginger bug, then use it to ferment a lemon and ginger drink. It includes ingredient amounts, fermentation timing, and a reminder to leave room for pressure to escape.
Essay
Hummus
A working hummus recipe covers soaking and cooking chickpeas, blending them with tahini, lemon, garlic, and spices, and adjusting the texture with cold water. The notes suggest flavour variations and other beans to try.
Essay
Whole Wheat Bread
A whole-wheat bread recipe with oats, flaxseed, and other seeds, followed by the resting, shaping, and baking steps. The notes suggest freezing a loaf, adding dried fruit, or using some white flour for a softer texture.
Essay
Stretching Plan
A personal stretching routine organised around mornings, sports sessions, and rest days. It distinguishes warm-ups and dynamic movement from isometric and relaxed stretches, with notes on movements, repetitions, and hold times.
Book review
Stretching Scientifically
Kurz presents flexibility training alongside strength, matching stretches with the demands of a sport. A useful, specific approach, with notes on methods, timing and managing fatigue.
Essay
Dog Food
A personal research note comparing the cost of homemade dog food with the food Max was eating at the time. Floris then finds a vegetarian commercial option that appears cheaper and records a plan to try it.
Essay
Finally getting that six-pack
A personal notebook on planned food and exercise changes while trying to reduce body fat. Slower meals, more cardio, a daily smoothie, calorie estimates, and a temporary home workout sit alongside questions still being worked out.
Book review
How Not to Diet
A short, positive 2020 response to Greger’s weight-loss book. I found its advice useful and recorded dietary changes partly inspired by it.
Book review
Eight Weeks to Optimum Health
Weil brings diet, exercise and meditation into a holistic account of health. A largely unconvincing account despite some practical value, with outdated evidence, anecdotes and unsupported claims about supplements and healing.
Essay
Eat for Health & Energy
A 2020 food-planning essay combining research questions, a plant-focused Daily Dozen checklist, and a proposed eating routine. Floris records personal habits and questions about supplements and meal timing, drawing on nutrition claims from books and other sources.
Essay
Music to Improve your Performance at Fitness
Three proposed ways music can support exercise: matching movement to rhythm, increasing arousal, and diverting attention from discomfort. The article connects these ideas to gym sessions and running, with song suggestions and references.
Book review
Beyond Coffee
Beshara surveys nootropics and possible alternatives to coffee. Little felt new to me, given the overlap between the book’s main recommendations and Queal’s Flow product.
Book review
10% Happier
Harris recounts how meditation helped him in an entertaining, biographical style. Recommended for readers who enjoy that approach, though it offers relatively little depth on meditation itself.
Essay
Life is an Obstacle Run (Dutch)
Na een eerdere mislukking overwint Floris een vier meter hoge muur tijdens een Strong Viking Run. De modder, obstakels en hulp van zijn broer worden een aanleiding om na te denken over volhouden en samen uitdagingen aangaan.
Essay
Carbohydrates 101
A running-preparation notebook on carbohydrates, glycogen, and eating during exercise, followed by an account of trying snacks on a run. It records the nutrition claims and practical experiments informing Floris’s thinking at the time.
Essay
Running a Marathon
A personal account of training for and running a marathon with his brother. Floris recalls a 3:45 target, a 4:20 finish, hitting the wall after 30 kilometres, and the lessons he wanted to carry into another attempt.
Essay
Hitting the Gym
A beginner’s gym guide that starts with personal goals and habit cues before laying out sample cardio and strength routines. The emphasis is on making regular visits easier to begin and sustain, with help from gym staff.
Essay
The Sleep We Need
Notes on sleep stages and sleep schedules, comparing a siesta with polyphasic patterns such as Everyman and Uberman. Floris recalls his own Everyman experiment and the social difficulty of fitting frequent naps into daily life.