• “awareness of the elements of environment through physical sensation” (1);
• “a single unified awareness derived from sensory process while a stimulus is present”;
• “the act or faculty of apprehending by means of senses or of the mind; cognition; understanding”;
• “immediate or intuitive recognition, as a moral or aesthetic qualities; an artist of rare perception” (2);
• “a complex process of receiving and interpreting of information, providing for the organism ability to reflect the existing reality and orientation in surrounding world” (3).

These definitions demonstrate that perception incorporates all senses, feelings and mental activity during human interaction with surrounding nature. In others words, without acutely developed perceptive abilities, we’re unlikely to do anything truly well.

The main organ of the perception is the brain. How the brain functions was beautifully described in Lawrence Gonzales’ “Deep Survival” (4): “(the brain) receives images from receptors in the body and from the sense organs that take in the outside world. (The images can be smells, sights, sounds, or feelings (Fig.4.1)). At the same time, the brain provides a stream of outputs that shape the body’s reactions to the environment and itself, from adjusting blood pressure to mating. So the brain reads the state of the body and makes fine adjustments, even while it reads the environment and directs the body in reacting to it. In addition, that process continually reshapes the brain by making new connections. All of this is aimed at one thing only: adaptation, which is another word for survival.”

Another aspect of survival is how quickly we learn to do everything that we need to survive. Gregory Bateson (Fig.4.2), a great American scientist, wrote (5) that learning, and “science is a way of perceiving… But perception operates only upon difference. All receipt of information is necessarily the receipt of news of difference (Fig.4.3), and all perception of difference is limited by threshold. Differences that are too slight or too slowly presented are not perceivable. They are not food for perception. Knowledge at any given moment will be a function of the thresholds of our available means of perception”

This important part of learning has an intrinsic relationship with the development of our biomechanical abilities and skill development in sports training and performance.

Our progress will only be as good as our ability to differentiate one movement from another, one effort from another. Our success in taking in and processing all the signals, all the information about our body position in space, the timing of our movements and the level of efforts exerted will determine our success in the given sport.

Examples of highly developed perceptive abilities abound in sport. World–class high jumpers are reputed to be able to “feel” the difference when one support for the bar is a mere half–centimeter higher than the other support. Olympic weight lifters can recognize the difference when the weights on one side of the bar are but a few ounces heavier than those on the other side. Professional basketball players have been known to stop a game to point out that the back of the rim is a half–inch lower than the front.

While this list could go on indefinitely, the essence of it is that perception is the cornerstone of skill development. Assuming that skill is the ability to use all available sources of information and feedback to reach the desired goal, then it follows that those sources are only available through the highest levels of perception. With acute perceptive abilities, we recognize signals, evaluate deviations from the desired standard, and make the necessary corrections. Everything is based on perception: the guideline for our development in technique, mental and psychological condition or the physical attributes of strength, speed, endurance and flexibility.

In order to raise our athletic performances to a higher level, we must develop the ability to perceive and shape all the movements and variables in our chosen sport. Just as a ballerina’s virtuoso performance is refined by the development of high levels of perception development, so to be the efforts of runners, swimmers and cyclists.

Exerpt from Chapter 4: The Perception Concept, from "The Pose Method of Triathlon Techniques".

Stretching of muscles has no place in sports. What you want and what everyone is really talking about is called FLEXIBILITY. But since there is no clarity on this subject and terms 'flexibility' and 'stretching' are used interchangeably there are many problems arising from that, and it leads many people to have the wrong picture of how to do flexibility exercisese, and to say or to think that flexibility is bad, which is in correct, or that there is such a thing as 'too much flexibility', which is incorrect as well. Stretching of muscles has very limited use, which is specifically in rehabilitation.

There is a world of difference between the natural function of muscles (contract and relax) and the artificial stretch created by specific intent to do exactly that. What is the desired outcome? Easier bending of joints? By stretching your muscles? That sounds illogical. Why not simply bend the joints and let muscles contract and relax on their own. Your best bet is to warm them up with a regular warm up regimen.

While "stretching" or lengthenning of muscles to a degree and in a certain way naturally occurs during flexibility exercises, the visible "stretching" action that can be observed during those exercises is actually a relaxation of muscles, and another action leads this hierarchy. The action is that of flexing your joints. Since muscles are attached - they follow (passive!) the 'path' naturally created by this movement, muscles perform the supporting role by simply being there and doing their job. However, when WE create the path by intentionally stretching muscles, we force the 'unnatural' onto our muscles, and they protest.

Muscles contract and relax. When you stretch them - they actually loose a bit of elasticity (for a period of time), so you intently and intentioanlly weaken your muscularskeletal system instead of strengthening it. Stretching your muscles on regular basis will have lasting effects, and not the ones you were looking for.

Seemingly innocent and widely promoted as beneficial, stretching exercises carry more potential to harm than to help. The 'hamstring stretch', the 'calf stretch', all that 'stretch' stuff is crazy talk arising from not having a clear understanding of the subject. The word 'stretch' should be taken out of the sports lingo unless of course it's a 'homestretch' that we're talking about, but as you know it has nothing to do with your well being.

"Our muscles do not like any special efforts made to lengthen them and react to these attempts by becoming tense; the muscles contract in order to prevent hyperextension, as you can probably recall from your own experience. Nevertheless, millions of people exercise stretching, moving in the wrong direction of damaging their own muscle tissues." (Read full article here: FLEXIBILITY vs STRETCHING)

So, simply put, what you're looking for, what you're trying to work on is a better ability to bend your joints and ability to simply relax your muscles when doing so. That's flexibility.

1. STOP TRYING TO LOOSE WEIGHT. Yeah, you read it right. If you're overweight and want to do something about it, the first thing to do is to stop trying to loose weight - get it out of your head. Do not make it your goal. Trying-to-loose-weight is the beginning of a never-ending and a vicious circle that you're most likely already familiar with. The minute you decide to start loosing weight, your body gets an automatic memo to raise the defenses, start storing fat, because shortage of food is imminent.
2. CHANGE YOUR CONCERNS. So if you're not focusing on loosing weight, what should you focus on? Anything else. Got a stamp collection? Make sure you discuss it with your friends. Go to a museum to walk around and look at art. What you're looking for here is a distraction from food and change in established patterns, as well as dissipation of accumulation of feelings of anxiety around the subject of your weight.
3. STOP WORRYING/WONDERING IF YOU WILL LOOSE WEIGHT. Stress and anxiety are two of the main causes of overeating. The actual loss of weight is a byproduct. So you would do yourself a big favor if you simply accept the fact that it will happen... as a result of other things you do.
4. DO. Yup, simply do. Stop talking about it, stop planning, stop preparing and act on your desire to make a change. Action is the key word. When you eat - that's action too, and a very important one at that. Eating more than you need is an action that creates your problem. Some people choose to run (action) others choose to eat (action) in order to dissipate the energy that builds up during the day that needs to be released. If you can't run, you should find another action to do so you don't end up eating when you're not hungry.

DO:
1. Get out of your house. Do it more often, do it regularly. It will help you keep your mind off eating and will give you other options of things to do. Plus there is no comfy sofa around with a TV in front of it.
2. Walk barefoot. It will help you in more ways than you can imagine right now, so just do it.
3. Find what holds your interest. Have you ever heard someone say before: "Oh, I was so into it, I forgot to eat, time just flew by!" When we are mentally involved, for example when we really get into a project at work that is very interesting to us - that's what becomes the primary focus.
4. Start exercising. Very lightly, as much as you can, but do it. Flexibility exercises are among the best exercises to start with and you can do it at home on the floor. No need to prepare, no need for sports attire, no need to worry.
5. Have a cup of hot/warm green or mint tea before eating. This simple action will help you to determine how hungry you are and if you're hungry at all.
6. Take your time eating. Get everything out of food, not just the energy. Eating right doesn't equal suffering and awful taste of food. Take your time, enjoy the flavor, enjoy the experience. You will notice that enjoying the process without rushing makes you eat less.

DON'T:
1. Set a goal to loose so many pounds by such and such date - are you playing a game or are you looking to make a real and lasting change?
2. Set a goal to loose weight in general - that's a dead end. Haven't you done that already? Did it work? If yes, how long did it last?
3. Abruptly change your diet - that could be considered physical, psychological and emotional torture with disastrous results.
4. Abruptly start intense physical training - that would be physical and emotional torture with disastrous results.
5. Count calories or proteins or anything like that - unless you're looking to entertain yourself, don't waste your time.
6. Create a plan and try to stick to it - small changes done every day and implemented without force will take you further. When you create the goal - in your mind there is an anti-goal created immediately: yin and yang, dark and light, positive and negative. This polarity is part of everything we know. So instead of making plans of grand proportions and then suffering disappointment of equal size, or attempting herculean feats, take small steps, but do it consistently and allow room for error.

It's all about finding a fundamental balance. Nobody can give it to you - you have to find it, and changing your understanding and concept of food will help you do it. Easy access to food enables bad habits. If you had to go chase it or gather it before eating - you would not have the opportunity to stuff your face for pleasure. Have some self-restraint, you do have free will, you know.

We eat to live, we don't live to eat. Food is our source of energy. Your body will process it and take what it needs and get rid of the rest. Understanding that, sends the carbo-loading and hydration out of the common-sense-window. Carbo-loading for endurance events, for example, is as effective as high knee drill for speed in running, i.e. there is more of an illusion going on. There are other things that you can eat that are 100 times more effective for endurance events.

As an athlete or an active person one of the most important things to understand is that your body is an open system (so to say), there is a constant and ongoing exchange of information with the outside world. What we need to do is sort out the fundamentals of eating and leave the rest to our bodies. We need to learn to listen to what our organism is telling us. We need to develop our perception.

What is balance in eating? How do we find it? How do we learn to maintain it? None of those questions are easy or simple, and all require an understanding of things on deeper levels. The answer lies in developing our perception.

The amount of food you need, and types of food that you need do not depend on your athletic regimen and load. Everything depends strictly on you individually.

Gels, powerbars, vitamin drinks or sports drinks are all a trap. A mental and a financial trap. Excluding these from your diet should be one of your first steps. Feel free to wait for scientific studies 5 years from now showing the negative impact of such substances on your body's operation, or simply use your mind now. There are plenty of real foods that can give you exactly what you need without any added chemicals. Real food also costs less and tastes better.

What should you drink and eat instead to help yourself recover after training? Subscribers of our newsletter will find out. (Click here to sign up to receive our articles by email). To find out how to eat before training, read this article.

Hydration is a much discussed topic. Hydration and prehydration are nonsense. Lots of trends in health and fitness industry stem from the absence of a conceptual understanding of the subject. Drinking more water than you need sends your kidneys in overdrive and flushes out everything. So if you packed yourself with vitamins (another questionable trend), hooray! you just washed it all out and your kidneys will pay the price. Now what?

Just like some other unfounded trends, the hydration trend is about money, not about you. FYI, as WebMD states, "drinking excessive amounts of water can cause a rare, life-threatening condition called hyponatremia." On a smaller scale - you'll get an upset stomach.

Bad choice in food we eat affects the entire body, it's no secret. Certain allergic reactions to foods express themselves through joint inflammation, other reactions to food show up as gain of weight, headaches, etc... so improving your diet you're literally affecting and ensuring the well-being of every part of your body. As diverse and able as we are on many levels, our inside operates in a very delicate and fine-tuned balance. A minor deviation from that delicate balance could cause serious damage or even a complete shut down of all systems.

A good start would be learning to distinguish between empty stomach and hunger. Your stomach is not supposed to be stuffed with something at all times. Minimize the amount of food that you take in. Notice how each product that you eat makes you feel. So maybe instead of reaching for TUMS you should simply stop eating pizza. Instead of suffering stomach indigestion simply stop eating that which causes it. Eating simpler foods and simpler combination of foods is also a smart move in the right direction.

Another good thing you will notice is that reducing the amount of food you eat will lead you to the desire to eat less. It will bring the balance to your food cravings. Starvation doesn't work, but seeking balance does. In time you should find what works for you and what doesn't, how much to eat of what and when.

In nature, there are no breakfasts, brunches, lunches or dinners - there is a need to eat or a lack of that need. A hungry lion is a dangerous predator, however the one that just ate is a pussycat .... until he is hungry again.

You are in charge of your well-being. You will find the balance as long as you start looking for it.

• Eat smaller portions
• Eat only when hungry
• Eat to satisfy hunger and not more
• Eat breakfast or not, but have a good lunch and a light and early dinner
• Introduce more fruits and veggies into your daily menu, snack on those all you want
• Tea or water are much better than any juice full of sugar (unless you squeezed it yourself of course)
• Drink less not more water. You only need so much