Start with the Big Rocks

This a well worn story but it’s still a good one. Particularly if you’re looking to change your lifestyle. 

A teacher begins a lesson by filling a jar with large rocks until they cannot add another. They ask the class if the jar is full? Everyone agrees that there is no more room in the jar for more rocks. 

So he then lifts a container of pebbles and pours them into the same jar around the big rocks. Again, he asks if the jar is full? The class is now less eager to agree. 

Next, he lifts a container of sand and pours it into the jar and the class watch as the sand cascades through all the loose spaces between the rocks and pebbles. “Now is the jar full?”. This time everyone agrees again that there is now more room. 

Finally the teacher cracks a beer 🍺 and pours that onto the dry sand and watches it sink in... I take 2 morals from this story. First, start with the big rocks, rather than the minutiae. In fitness this means taking care of the things that will have the biggest impact first. Nutrition, sleep, training style.

Get these big rocks in order first then you can add the finer details later. 

Then you can deal with the small changes in details like the different types of bicep curl much further down the line.  

Secondly, there is always room for one more beer 😉

Chris ‘room-for-a-beer’ Pinner