Yes You Can & Should Train Like an Elite Athlete
Believe it or not, you are similar to elite athletes. They need to exercise. The need recovery. They need to manage stress. They need their sleep. They need to eat food, not numbers. They need to balance their energy in and energy out. Period.
Now of course, they’re also a little different. You may think the differentiator is that their careers hang on their body’s ability to perform. But that’s not it. In fact, regardless of what you do for a living, your career too hangs on your body’s ability to perform.
Think about it.If you’re sick you can’t work well (or at all). Too little sleep, too much stress, poor food choices messing with your stomach and GI (hello gas/bloating/constipation/indigestion)…When you’re body isn’t performing, you aren’t performing.
The difference between us and “them”, is the level of intensity they train and perform, and thus have to manage every other piece. The more they train, the more they need to recover.
Why You Should Train Like “Them”
In your case, the more you work, the more you need to recover. “Work” includes your job, your workout, and your juggling of life stressors and family obligations. “Recover” includes a stress-management practice, your workout cool-down, and your sleep quality and quantity.
So, how can you take what elite athletes do and apply it to your own chase for more muscle, less fat, more energy, and less stress?
Prioritize Recovery
Recovery is paramount. It’s not one of the blocks in the wellbeing pyramid, it’s the foundational block. For ease of reading, I’m housing under “recovery”: sleep, stress management, active recovery, cool-down’s, and rest days.
Stress management, and the outer-order-inner-calm approach are often the first priorities I work on with my clients.
One reason, “Economic modeling of data from five OECD countries found that individuals who sleep fewer than six hours a night on average have a 13 percent higher mortality risk than people who sleep at least seven hours,” according to the RAND Corporation.
Further, “200,000 working days in the UK are lost each year due to sleep deprivation,” according to RAND.
With too little sleep (adults 7-9 hours are recommended):
your hormones are off;
your brain isn’t as sharp; your emotions are raw;
your judgement is cloudy;
work and traffic accidents escalate; and
your cravings for more food, especially fatty and sugary foods increases.
What about stress management? Well, your sleep will suffer from chronic stress. Your hormones will be off from the extra cortisol (stress hormone). The way you carry your body fat will change (and increase). Stress hits your mind and body in many, crazy ways. If you need a refresher, check out my earlier post on how stress wrecks your health.
What About Workouts?
Active recovery days, rest days, cool-downs and warmups are as essential to achieving your goals, as the workouts themselves.
Your muscles grow by breaking down the muscle during the workout and then rebuilding them through the recovery. The latter is vital. It’s why you hear, “muscles grow with rest”.
Active recovery is gentle, low-intensity movement like walking, biking, or stretching, that promotes blood flow helping the muscles recover from the higher intensity workouts. Mix in at least one active recovery day a week, depending on your training schedule.
And of course, warm-up dynamically, and cool-down slowly then statically, before/after each workout. The warm-up moves nutrient-rich, oxygenated blood to your muscles, and gets your heart rate and breathing rate up and ready to support your efforts.
To keep this short and sweet today, we’ll leave it at: move your joints through their full range of motion and get your heart rate up.
The cool-down is meant to bring your heart and breathing back to their resting rate, and give your muscles time to recover by limiting cramps, dizziness and more.
For more on both, check out this Bridge Athletic post.
Eat Food, Not Numbers
The other week, I was fortunate enough to take part in a private workshop with a few “super coaches” led by Dan Garner, strength and nutrition coach to elite athletes.
One of the many things I loved about Garner’s approach is his focus on teaching his athletes to eat food, not numbers. So often we (and “they”) can get focused on macro counts and calorie counts that we all forget we are eating actual food. Food that is meant to be savored, communal, and even cultural.
Yes there are times when you need to really dial-in to meet a weight-class competition (or your cousin’s wedding…?). But that level of intense dieting is not sustainable and creates more mental and physical stress than is supportive of our goals.
The best thing you can do is prioritize whole foods, such as: lean proteins, unsaturated fats, whole grains if you are eating them, fruits and veggies, water, and limiting caffeine and alcohol. And to consume these mindfully, allowing your body to tell you when it actually needs (not wants) food/drink and when it is satisfied.
Here’s a handy guide for a healthy meal, using your hand as your portion control guide. This is a great starting place.
Easier Said Than Done
Of course, fitting “all this” in can be tricky. The time piece is the primary problem I help my clients solve: making time for the self-care that supports the tasks they’re busy with.
If you’re struggling to figure how to fit it all in, reach out. Happy to share a few tips. What’s your BIGGEST Struggle here?