SOFIA HUSTON

I was talking to a new client this morning & she told me that “making progress always takes longer & is more difficult” for her, compared to others.

She went on to explain that her previous efforts to gain strength/endurance have looked like “a lot of time & work with minor rewards”, while her peers apply less effort & see more results.

I am all too familiar with the mindset of “everyone has it easier than I do”… I was the queen of playing up my own personal suffering & clung hard to all my reasons. 

It felt good to point to things outside my control.

It felt good to resent those who performed better than I did.

It felt good to focus on how hard it was for me, personally.

… But sometimes the things that make us feel “good” are the things making us absolutely f*cking miserable. 

Because I operated under this pretense for so long (& still battle it), I can tell you that wallowing and ruminating and assuming that other people have it easier is guaranteed to make you miserable.

#1: You never have the full picture, not even of your best friend. You don’t know how long they’ve really been at this, or the years of hard work at something else that’s helping them out in this new realm. You don’t know how hard they are truly working. You don’t know what they’re doing (or not doing) every hour of every day. You don’t know what’s going on in their head. You don’t know what the cost of their results really are. 

#2: Even if you did have the full picture and you knew with 100% certainty that it truly is “just easier for them”… Ok, and? Now what? Are you gonna give up on something that matters to you because “it’s just harder for me”, and then never even come close to where you could have gotten had you just stayed in your lane & believed you could improve? 

Come on now.

Beyond that, stop assuming there’s this elusive “easy mode” that other people are playing the game in. The “easy level” doesn’t really exist. Different/new hard things just replace old hard things. 

I remember being a white belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, getting my ass kicked by blue belts, & thinking “Jiu Jitsu is just easier for them”. 

Now I’m a blue belt and LOLLLLLLLLL. 

It doesn’t get easier. You just unlock new hard. 

Please stop with the narrow focus on how hard your pursuits are, whatever they are. Stewing in this sense of powerlessness / unfairness is so insanely demotivating & will lead you to believe that your actions have less value (so you’ll take less action and thus get less results and thus feed into your self-pity cycle). 

Self-pity is not self-compassion. Self-pity is egocentric & isolating. Self-compassion plugs you back into the collective and reminds you that your human struggles are the same human struggles that have been repeating themselves for millions of years (and that humans have been overcoming for millions of years).

Your ability to be resourceful and persist and do hard things is not inadequate. You possess all the needed faculties to be better than you were before, and then better than that. 

Quit torturing yourself with made-up stories that are not helping you grow. Mind your business & keep going. ❤️

Peace & Love, 

Sofia

…

Have you ever heard something like “build strength AND endurance AND lose body fat AND build muscle AND improve your vO2 Max AND AND AND … with this ONE EXERCISE!” …?

I get it — most people have limited time to train and they want it all, all at once. So, the idea of one workout/exercise/piece of equipment that will give transform your strength, conditioning, and physique simultaneously is pretty enticing (and a great marketing strategy).

Unfortunately, there’s a lot of over-promising and under-contextualizing in the fitness industry. 

Yes, you can technically build strength and endurance with the same exercise/workout style (think: KB circuits, metcons, pilates, etc) — but only to a certain point. The ceiling of potential for both strength AND endurance, without distinction/separation, is limited. 

You will never maximize your strength, nor your endurance, if you are not willing to do dedicated PURE cardio or dedicated PURE strength work. 

STRENGTH is determined by how hard your muscle fibers can contract. As you can imagine, something like a 1RM requires harder contraction than a set of 8-12, which requires harder contraction than a 30 second sprint, which requires harder contractions than a 30-minute jog…

ENDURANCE is determined by perfusion – in other words, how efficient is your body at pumping blood (oxygen) to your muscles & how efficiently they’re able to utilize it. Basically, does your body know what to do with the fuel it has to delay fatigue for as long as possible? 

Now we start to see there’s a difference between the systems and adaptations at play! So, it would only make sense that the training required to maximize strength vs. endurance would look pretty different, right?

SO… CAN YOU BUILD STRENGTH & ENDURANCE WITH THE SAME WORKOUT? 

Yes and no… 

It depends on the level of fitness you already have. A beginner will absolutely see improvements from just doing metcons, kettlebell circuits, etc. There’s still a strength component and a cardiovascular component, but this kind of training will never be as potent as pure cardio (running, swimming, cycling, rowing, etc) for building endurance, or pure strength (lifting heavy & resting adequately between sets) for building strength. 

If you’re someone who just wants to be generally healthy and you just want your workouts to be fun so that you actually do it, circuit workouts are certainly better than nothing and there is absolutely no shame in the game. But, if you really want to optimize your strength/endurance, it won’t cut it. You’ve got to do some separate training for each. 

One of the biggest mistakes I made early on in my career in fire was doing metcon after metcon, thinking it would have excellent transfer up on the hill and make me the most well-rounded athlete I could be. I need to be strong and I needed to have great endurance. It all checked out!

It wasn’t until I allowed for separation of the two that I really saw my ceiling for strength AND endurance improve. 

Peace and Love,

Sofia

I know I’m a tad late to the “ins and outs” trend, but it’s fine… & I felt compelled at 11PM last night to make a list of my own. 

If this trend is new to you, it’s exactly what it sounds like:

INS = Things we want more of. Things we’re encouraging. 
OUTS = Things that need to die, respectfully. 

So, here are my “ins and outs” for 2024 — fitness edition: 

IN:

• Intra-workout carbs
  Running with your dog
• Coregasms
• Letting accountability & discipline have a seat at the self-love/self-compassion table
• Strength AND endurance goals
• Skepticism towards stuff you hear on podcasts, even when “the research says” xyz
• Full rest days
• Eatin’ good (enough) on your rest days
• Making nutrition choices from a place of self-respect/love to present AND future you
• Being inclusive
   

OUT:

• Letting your whoop strap tell you what to do with your life
• Thinking high intensity cardio is just plain bad for your hormones
• Asking personal trainers to diagnose your pain / “weird thing going on” at a dinner party
• Advertising as “primal” or “ancestral”
• Warming up w/ an an entire physical therapy routine when you’ve not been prescribed nor need an entire physical therapy routine to start your workout
• Unsolicited comments on other people’s bodies & food choices
• “POV: this exercise cured this/shrunk this body part” videos
• Telling women who “don’t want to get bulky” why lifting won’t make them bulky, instead of inquiring/challenging their fear of putting on size

I would loooove to talk about any of these — whether you agree, disagree, or just have questions. 

Comment & let me know: what’s in and what’s out for you in 2024?

Peace & Love

Sofia

This week I want to share some helpful reflections on the past year, as well as some thoughts on resolutions. 

New Year’s Resolutions get a bit of hate, especially in the “fitness” space, as every trainer/coach is blasting you with “wHy wAiT TiL tHe nEw YeAr”, “the best time to start was yesterday” etc… in hopes of taking your money before Jan 1. 

There’s something to be said for that… but also, we are cyclical & seasonal beings and there can actually be a lot of benefit in viewing the New Year as a fresh start and joining the collective in their pursuit of improvement. If YOU want to make a resolution, make one. 

But first, take a look back at 2023 with the following reflections & lessons:

• What wisdom did you gain? (hint: honor it)
• What really challenged you? (hint: what did it give you?)
• What brought you joy? (hint: create more)
• What brought you pain? (hint: feel it & transmute it)
• What did you learn about yourself? (hint: remember it)
• How did you give/receive love & compassion? (hint: create more)
• What actions brought you fulfillment/purpose? (hint: do more)
• How did you surprise yourself? (hint: remember it)
• If someone looked at your behaviors alone, what would they assume you value most? (hint: if you don’t like these answers, change something)

• The wisest decision I made was…
• The thing I am most grateful for…
• The biggest risk I took…
• The people who influenced me the most…
• The people who supported me the most… (hint: thank them)
• Where am I harboring pain & resentment? What can I forgive?

Sit with your answers. Now, instead of asking what you want to DO this year, I actually want to know:

How do you want to FEEL? 

EXAMPLES: 

Empowered, wise, connected, seen, loved, fulfilled, peaceful, gentle/soft, present, devoted, healthy, strong, free, content, ambitious, hopeful, creative, spiritual, expansive, playful, wonder, proud, confident, aligned, courageous, grateful, inspired, energetic, rested, passionate, loving, adventurous, compassionate… 

Choose a few that really strike a chord with you.

Now the question is… how will you create those feelings? What is the strategy to feel as [X] as possible this year?

EXAMPLES: (action: feeling)

•Daily gratitude practice/list: GRATITUDE

•Get consistent with strength training: STRONG/EMPOWERED

•Daily phone calls to a friend: CONNECTED

•Daily prayer, meditation, or time in nature: SPIRITUAL

•Choose to do something that scares you: COURAGEOUS

•Put yourself out there, as authentically as you can: SEEN

Time will pass. Pain will come. What will it be? The pain of fighting the good fight or the pain of complacency? 

If I can urge you to cultivate & keep one thing, it is a reckless & unwavering belief that you can and will be the person you want to be, living the life you dream of. 

The vision you have — whatever it is — exists for a reason…

…and it’s right on the other side, waiting for you with open arms. 

Peace & Love,

Sofia

“Self love” is so interesting to me.

Or forget self-love…Even just simple self-acceptance! It’s one of those things that everyone is always talking about but very few seem to actually embody/understand. For me personally, it’s a concept similar to god. You get little glimpses of what it is and then as quickly as you had it, you’ve lost it. And you go about your little life, day after day, trying to find it and lose it again.

So, I’m not really an expert on the matter. I don’t know if I love myself, but if I ever do arrive at a consistent sense that I do — I’ll let you guys know .

What I DO know, however — is that when I’m deep in a self-loathing spiral, I don’t find any solace or utility in suggestions like:

• Use affirmations in the mirror!
• Speak kindly to yourself!
• Take yourself on a date/spa day!
• Journal all the things you like about yourself!

Like I’m so sorry but I’m not going to do any of that shit. I don’t like myself right now. If I could just easily decide to “speak kindly to myself” I wouldn’t have this problem.

If that’s at all relatable, here are 10 impactful ways I’ve found to EXPRESS love to myself, even if I’m struggling to FEEL it. 

1. Intentionally put your skin in the sunlight like you’re a little potted plant. Drink up those rays. Try your best to feel deserving of the warmth. 
2. Give yourself permission to feel ugly sometimes. Zoom out and remember… You’re just a human dealing with the COMPLEX EXPERIENCE OF HAVING A BODY! You can carry on existing. You don’t have to do mental gymnastics to convince yourself that you’re not ugly. Maybe you could still be alright & live a dope a$$ life, even if you are.
   • For the record: I’m not telling you you’re ugly, just suggesting a reframe that might feel a little more within reach sometimes. Lol.
3. Learn how to physically process your emotions. Get out of your thinking mind. Ground yourself with temperatures, textures, pressure, sound, smell. Practice body-scans & contraction/relaxation techniques. Learn some breathwork for downregulation & upregulation. Utilize movement for emotional processing (shaking, dancing, yoga, running, etc.) 
4. Allow for a self-respecting amount of time to do things people ask you to do. “I need about 2 weeks to get that ready”. “Can we talk about this another time?” “Here are the days/times I’m available, do any of those work for you?” Etc. 
5. Admit your successes out loud. I was recently part of a women’s circle where we partnered up and were told to “brag about something you’re proud of” for one minute. It was powerful & inspiring to say the least. You can be humble & still celebrate yourself. I noticed I was eating up everything my partner said during her minute of bragging, but was terrified to say anything about myself.
6. Go somewhere alone, without your phone. Even if it’s just a walk around the block. It’s hard to really love someone that you’ve never hung out with 1:1. Your favorite podcast hosts don’t need to 3rd wheel all your me-time. 
7. Wear clothes you actually like, that make you feel like you. 
8. Make a PowerPoint of your life, up to this point. I did this recently for my birthday. I started with the day I was born and included photos from each stage of my life, with a few words describing what was going on for me at the time. As challenging as it was to make/re-live at times (I cried a lot), it gave me a massive appreciation for my story & all that I’ve gone through.
9. Do an honest audit: If an outsider looked at your life and had to tell you something(s) you really need support with, what would those things be? How can you be proactive in getting yourself that help?
10. Stop suffering at your own hand for no reason. Look at your day-to-day and see if there’s anything making you kinda miserable that could be changed. Wearing uncomfortable shoes or clothes that don’t fit you right. Enduring a 6-hour gap between lunch & dinner when you could just, like, have a good snack. Not cleaning your filthy car & continuing to drive to work every day sitting on a throne of crumbs. Not Putting creamer in your coffee when you like creamer in your coffee. Never dropping your shoulders. Never taking a full breath. 

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got. Comment here & let me know some ways you love on yourself, practically. Thanks in advance. 😊

Peace & Love, 

Sofia

That’s not the point.

You’re going to lose motivation. It’s about as inevitable as the sun going down. In fact, I’d even argue that you’re supposed to lose motivation.

What?

It’s an inevitable [& important] part of the process. Ask anyone who’s ever pursued/achieved something worthwhile: at some point, usually sooner than expected, they lost motivation. They woke up one day and before even getting out of bed, had thoughts like “what’s the point”, “I’m bound to fail”, “this is too hard”, “I can’t”.

And at that point, every single person who has ever tried doing anything, has made a choice of 2 options:

Option 1: Acknowledge those thoughts as a natural part of doing something challenging…. & keep it moving. 

or

Option 2: Let those thoughts sink their teeth in, take the wheel & drive them straight into a wall. 

The first option has you perceiving loss of motivation as your mind’s natural preference for a comfortable hell over an uncomfortable paradise. You’re allowing the feelings to exist… but separating them from reality. 

Awareness + separation + action = freedom. 

In other words, you feel like shit and do it anyway. With time & consistency, the feeling like shit will be less and less frequent. Action can exist in the face of fear (which is all any negativity ever is – it all boils down to fear).

The second option plucks you out of the driver’s seat and lets “it’s too hard” and “what’s the point” tie you up and toss you in the trunk as they drive to no man’s land. 

And guess what? The pain and the fear are there in both options… but you’re either walking alongside it or letting it drag you through the mud. 

There is the pain of stagnation & the pain of growth. They can sting equally, but the outcomes are very different. 

So, one thing you can do to continue continue walking alongside the pain of growth: 

Define your relationship to “good”. 

Is your definition of “good enough” actually perfection? 

Is it something you’re “striving” for (while knowing it’s always out of reach), or is it something you genuinely expect of yourself (or would expect of a close friend)?

Perfect is the enemy of good. 

“Perfectionism” is an excuse to not take action. It’s why you consistently feel like a failure & keep quitting & starting over with things that, had you just kept taking messy action, would have turned out incredible. 

Define what good enough looks like, and please get VERY real with yourself. What are some things you actually have evidence of accomplishing most days on a normal week that move you in the right direction? 

Define your good enough action items — the things that don’t necessarily make you feel like a rockstar, but rather just a normal human doing their best — and respect them. They’re unglamorous and trivial and that’s exactly why they are so important… because they are the things you will actually do.

Now, picture what it looks like to do the bare-minimum. 

Visualize the weeks where you’re drowning and the best thing you did for your goals was eat enough & wake up on time. Accept that those weeks will happen and promise yourself you will not let them convince you to give up entirely. This is the long game.

Time passes anyway. Pain comes to us anyway. You can choose how you spend said time & you can choose the type of pain you’ll welcome as it pertains to certain goals. 

Will it be the pain of no change, the pain of coulda-shoulda-woulda(“what if I’d just taken small, consistent action? What if I didn’t give up?”), or will it be the pain of elbowing your way back into the driver’s seat each day, even if it’s just to drive a few blocks closer to your destination?

Chew on that, the next time you’re “just not motivated”. 

Peace & Love,

Sofia

“I want better endurance.”

“I just gas out so quickly.”

“I do cardio, but don’t feel like I’m making progress.”

Can you relate?

As someone interested in the science of endurance/energy systems, I talk about it a lot — with clients, friends, family, training partners, coworkers, etc.  

And I hear it all the time — People want better conditioning, but they don’t know how to get there. They do their cardio, but they’ve seemed to hit a ceiling. So, let’s talk about some potential pitfalls.

5 REASONS YOUR ENDURANCE STILL SUCKS (DESPITE DOING CARDIO)

1. YOU’RE NOT TRAINING AT A VARIETY OF INTENSITIES: A lot of times, people want to improve conditioning & they decide to go out and start running or pick up orange theory or what have you, and they aren’t intentional with intensity. They go out & try to go as fast as they can for as long as they can, or as fast as is comfortable to just check the box. You need to understand that good endurance is comprised of multiple systems, mainly your aerobic & anaerobic system. They work together, but they also do different things for & need to be trained somewhat differently. Aerobic: think long, slow, conversational pace work. Anaerobic: think sprints, threshold work, higher intensity stuff. Let easy be easy and let hard be hard — and be intentional about both!
2. YOU’RE NOT PUTTING IN THE WORK: Ouch. This is not the case for everyone — sometimes folks are putting in too much work. But most people underestimate how much of a time commitment is actually needed to see big gains in your endurance, particularly because your aerobic fitness (which is big big important) responds best to a lot of volume. You need to just do a ton of it over a long period of time. The greater your aerobic fitness, the more you’ll need to do to get it to keep improving. 90 minutes/week might start out being plenty of training to improve, but for an elite athlete 90 minutes might be half of one day’s session. It just depends.
3. YOU’VE BEEN INCONSISTENT: It’s important to have a good program, but don’t just hop from one program/trend/training method to another before you’ve really given your body time to absorb & adapt to what you’ve got going on right now. Endurance takes TIME to build. It’s a slow grind, but it’s worth it. Be patient & embrace the monotony. Building endurance is a lot of doing the same thing week after week, literally putting one foot in front of the other with like, a 1% improvement each week. You have to trust that it will add up. 
4. YOU’RE NOT DOING MUCH SPECIFIC TRAINING: Consider why you want better conditioning. What’s the arena you want to be able to apply it in. Up on the mountain? On the mats? On your bike? On the pavement? Cool — now let’s see… Are you spending time doing the thing you’re trying to get better at in the environment you’re gonna be in? If you want to get better at running, you must run. If you want to get better at hiking, you must hike. Not every session…cross training is a good idea! Especially if your overall training load is high & you’re trying to spare your joints/tissues while still getting the cardiac adaptation. But don’t complain if you wanted to be a better hiker & gas out on the hill, if most of your cardio was done on the rower.
5. YOU’RE NOT SUPPORTING YOURSELF ELESWHERE: Strength training to build resilient bones/tissue. Eating/hydrating enough to give your body the building blocks needed to do what you want it to. Sleeping & managing stress so recovery can occur. Investing in a good pair of shoes. Setting boundaries. Taking full rest days. If this is important to you, let your life reflect that. 

That’s all for now. If you want to chat about this, or need some guidance, my inbox is always open & I’d love to hear from you! 

Peace & Love,

Sofia

I got my first tattoo last week.

It’s the first line of one of my favorite quotes by Terence McKenna:

Nature loves courage.

You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. 

Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. 

This is the trick. This is what all these teachers & philosophers who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. 

This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. 

This is how magic is done. 

By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.

Ok I know the sentiment is nothing groundbreaking. Be brave, chase your dreams, don’t fear failure/the unknown. 

I’ve heard iterations of it my whole life… But sometimes these cliche universal truths need to be said in a certain way & find you at a certain stage of evolution to finally land. I found this quote at the beginning of a year full of massive change.

Some of the best decisions I made in the last year came with an enormous amount of fear & doubt.  Fear and doubt don’t always mean inevitable failure. They’re often precursory to growth. Every cell in your body sensing a transition of seasons: the wilting & death of some things (but vibrant regrowth in their place)

If there is a subtle internal friction between you and something – perhaps it’s because an alternate something is scratching at the door of this reality asking you to pivot & create the space for it to come in. 

And perhaps you are waiting on what you think is courage. But really you are waiting for the absence of fear and uncertainty. In which case, you may wait forever. 

Courage is not confidence. 

Courage is knowing that dreams are meant to be pursued, not achieved.

Courage is knowing that failure is very possible. 

Courage is feeling that fear intimately, yet choosing to walk forward, with shaky knees, hand-in-hand with it. 

When you find the courage to throw yourself into the abyss of uncertainty, you make new realities available to you. Nature will reward you. 

Create whatever mosaic of experience is most beautiful to you. Hurl yourself in a new direction if you must, because be it by the process or the outcome, some next evolution of you will be alchemized. 

And you may, eventually, land in a featherbed. 

Peace & Love,

Sofia