Newton was a pretty smart guy. Cast your minds back to 1687, and you will no doubt recall that our D.J. Isaac laid down his nifty little ear-worm ‘Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica’. I can’t exactly remember how the last verse goes, but the chorus goes something like this:
A body at rest tends to stay at rest. A body in motion tends to stay in motion.
See? It’s so catchy that I can hear you humming along with it!
But you wait for the verse:
When a body is acted upon by a force, the time rate of change of its momentum equals the force.
Let’s do a bit of digging and see how this applies to us.
Apart form being hit in the face by the tennis ball during a ‘friendly’ game of Swing Ball with your annoyingly talented nephew, we can also use this idea and apply it to our lives.
If we are spending most evenings in front of the T.V., drinking 7 pints and 2 bottles of wine and going to bed a 3am, we can pretty much safely say we are an object at rest, especially the next morning with a stonking headache!
And Newton’s law says that it is pretty difficult to get out of that habit. An object (that’s us) at rest tends to stay at rest. We spend our time consuming, buying things we don’t really need off the internet, filling our lives with stuff we think will make us happy and generally focusing on INPUTS.
However, Newton’s verse also says that an object (again, that’s us) in motion, tends to stay in motion. This is where we have focused on our OUTPUTS, rather than inputs.
Once we gain traction, the momentum we build helps us to stay in motion. We get into the habit of writing 500 words the first day. Then it easier to write 500 words the next day. And the next, without fail.
We bust out the ‘Quechua In Three Months’ CD and within a week you can confidently purchase a shower curtain the next time you find yourself in the rocky highlands of Peru!
So, how do we go from one state to the other? From rest to motion? I refer the honourable gentleperson to the second law – that you need to apply a force.
Notice that this second law also mentions the amount of force you put in. The more force you exert, the greater the change in momentum.
So picking up your French Horn for 5 minutes tonight, before leaving it in its case for a week will not get you the momentum if you religiously practiced 30 minutes every night for a month. It’s not rocket science!
And talking of rocket science…here’s some rocket science!
The Space Shuttle.
The famous (and infamous) Space Shuttle was man’s attempt to build a reusable space transportation system. It sports 2 solid rocket motors and 3 LH2 and LOX-burning engines, providing a combined thrust of the 1.2 million pounds at sea level needed to life the 184 feet tall, 2000 tonnes of grisly, space muscle.
However, 90% of that firepower is used getting the Shuttle into the stratosphere. The rest is used for manoeuvring and maintaining speed once it reaches the inky blackness of outer space.
That’s a lot of energy just to get it off the ground. The whole mission usually takes between 10 and 13 days. Getting the thing out of Earth’s atmosphere takes just over 8 minutes. This means that slightly less than 0.05% of it’s journey uses 90% of the fuel.
That’s one heck of a standing start!
Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.
For some reason, the Boat Race has been indelibly inked into the psyche of the British and we come together one wet and drizzly Sunday every March, to watch 18 duck-egg blue rowers challenge 18 royal blue-clad rowers to who can travel the 4.25 miles of tidal River Thames the fastest.
These dedicated men and women devote their lives to this one 17-minute race. Their training schedule is carefully worked out and they eat three whole cows a day, so I’m told.
But their training regime includes, what is called, a racing start. To get the boat with its 8 rowers and cox from a dead stop to full speed as quickly as possible, the teams employ the racing start. This is a well-practiced series of movements that have been designed to accelerate the boat as efficiently as possible to ‘race pace’, whilst minimising the risk of errors made by the crew.
It involves a shortened stroke sequence which is imperative if you are going to thrash the other team! Essentially it encompasses five strokes, a ¾ stoke, a ½ stroke, 2x ¾ strokes followed by the full stroke.
Although the specifics may not interest you greatly, the point is that this start is practised thousands of times and for 2 very important reasons. It ensures that the team are well versed in how to start – the pace, the pull, the timing, so that no-one mis-times a stroke, but also because on race day, adrenaline is pumping and nerves are a-fluttering, it stops rowers from losing control in the ‘heat of battle’.
Now, while no-one is expecting you to apply the same stroke ratio to your learning the bagpipes, it is useful to know that going off too hard from the outset, can have its disadvantages.
Many people who start their own business, find that at the beginning, they have to invest massive amounts of time and energy into setting up their new Delicatessens, stocking it with the most delicious looking cheeses and cold meats and working all the hours god sends, just to get their first customer.
Going from a cold start to working 7x 16 hour days is pretty brutal and obviously has an effect on the people around them as well as on the owner themselves. And it isn’t sustainable in the long term.
So the rowers’ racing start tells us to try to employ the most efficient method for getting up to ‘race pace’. What that looks like in your goal setting will be different to other’s experiences so get some advice from people who have been there and got the T-shirt. How can you start a venture without risking burn out?
The World’s Strongest Man
One event that seems to get lots of media attention, is the plane pull on the World’s Strongest Man show. It involves some crazy-muscled individual pulling a jumbo-jet along a runway. One event even had a man pull the plane with his teeth! Look it up on YouTube!
However, this iconic event is one mad, all-body workout that has us glued to our seats every time it hits the T.V.
Watching a giant of a human strain to get the slightest bit of movement from the 44,000-pound military plane for 25 meters is both terrifying and mesmerising in equal measure.
The harness they wear, the specially designed shoes and the muscles they have to have is incredible. It is a properly impressive feat of strength and endurance. And it is this that makes the event such a spectacle. Not only are the competitors pulling a Hercules Transported plane from a dead stop, but the amount of lactic acid that builds up in their bodies over the course is phenomenal. It takes hours of conditioning and dedicated gym work to pull something that heavy and sometimes, contestants need to be given oxygen at the end, so depleted are their O2 levels!
However, once they get the ‘immovable’ object going, it is all about aerobic conditioning and strength-endurance. A good squat posture allows the most efficient transition of energy and the prowler push helps maintain the speed. But you notice that once the plane stops, the contestant is unable to get it going again, such is the effort required to overcome friction.
The lesson from Kevin Fast, the world record holder known for pulling the 189-tonne CC-177 Globemaster 8.8m back in 2009 is that you must keep the momentum going in order to benefit. Because once that sucker has come to a stop, you will be in no state to get it going again.
So what have these 3 lessons in momentum given us?
1. It often takes enormous amounts of effort to achieve lift-off, but once in motion, keeping that momentum is relatively efficient.
2. Pacing yourself when you start a project is important as overexertion leads to burn out.
3. Don’t let the momentum drop for a moment because once that pane grinds to a halt, you may not have the energy to get the ball rolling again.
We now know that starting a project is often the most difficult part of the process. Once you are up and running, you develop systems and habits that keep the hamster wheel spinning with less effort.
Here at Next Few Steps, we have a comprehensive set of resources to help you go from standing start and into action.
Check out our article on crushing your goals.
Or read more about the importance of habit tracking.
What are some of your own best traveling hacks? Share them with us below!