Making marginal gains in your health & wellbeing

Cycling’s premier event, the Tour de France, is now in full swing with riders from around the world putting their bodies through three weeks of hell in order to claim the fabled Maillot Jaune – the yellow jersey.

The first part of the race has been dominated by Team Sky who have become the dominant force in world cycling under the stewardship of Sir Dave Brailsford, the former head of British Cycling and the brains behind the unprecedented success Team GB have seen in the sport over the past decade. Brailsford has used radical methods and something he describes as the aggregation of marginal gains to achieve this success.

The aggregation of marginal gains is, according to Brailsford: “The idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by one per cent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”

The principle behind it is that if you improve in every variable underpinning or influencing your performance by just 1% then cumulatively you get a significant performance improvement.  This strategy has seen an enormous amount of success for Team Sky with victory in the 2012 edition of Tour de France for Sir Bradley Wiggins, followed by success for Chris Froome in 2013 who is also in firm control of this year’s race.

It’s huge success has seen the methodology adopted by many business and it’s also something we can apply to our everyday health and wellbeing.

Making a collective difference

You might set yourself the goal of wanting to eat healthier, lose weight, do more exercise or have a better lifestyle but looking at it all in one go can seem intimidating and daunting. Just like trying to win the Tour de France with a British rider looked when Dave Brailsford set out that mission statement in 2010.

However, small improvements across many areas add up to a big collective difference. Every element of our lifestyle ties into our health and wellbeing. See if there are small ways you can improve your diet, the amount of exercise you do, the quality of your sleep, how you spend your free time and how you take care of yourself. Having a goal when doing this also helps immensely.

We can help you do this at Putney Chiropractic, and we can also find those marginal gains within your own body. The body is self-healing and chiropractic optimises the way the body heals. Our aim is for you to achieve true health and this is only possible when the whole body is taken into account.

Any pain, discomfort or reduced mobility you suffer from can be identified through small adjustment to return your body back to its normal function.

So if you’re looking to improve your body’s performance, whether it’s for an elite sporting event like the Tour de France or for simply to improve your wellbeing, get in touch and we’ll see how we can help.