Deceleration is extremely underrated.
The ability to quickly decelerate is extremely undervalued. It is often overshadowed by it’s more sexy counterparts of accelerating or pushing.
However, in the chaos of sports your ability to accelerate is often bottlenecked by your ability to first decelerate. There are a lot more important factors, but I want to keep this short as possible.
This is a skill you should seek to cultivate not only in your physical training, but also as a macro principle applied to different areas of your life.
Have you ever thought of the concept of deceleration in terms of diet or nutrition? A recurring theme with people is the cheat day turned cheat month or even worse year. There are a lot of factors behind this, but a lot of it comes from lacking proper triggers and a deceleration protocol.
Your triggers are simply warning signals that go off, whenever certain conditions are met. I.E. I had a cheat day yesterday, but now I’m eating cookies for breakfast the day after. By meeting a certain condition, it springs to my conscious mind that I am on the verge of a backslide.
That is when I must enact my deceleration protocol. One thing that leads to prolonged backsliding, is that what you are eating when unhinged vs your ideal meal plan are often polar opposites.
Thus, sub-consciously it seems like a huge leap to get back on the right path, so you just avoid it. That is why you need to bridge the gap. Don’t try to jump back into perfect eating, extreme intermittent fasting, or full fledged fasting. Eat somewhat healthy, and allow yourself some things that are considered in between.
This process of imperfection, will allow you to avoid weeks or months of devastation. It will help you get back into the right state of mind, that will allow you to carry on with whatever your healthy eating protocol is.
That is an example of the application of deceleration as a principle.
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