What do you mean 'Rest'!?!
Ok, so when I started working at FPT* I had no idea that I should have been prioritising recovery work. I had my first ever sports massage after 10+ years of strength training and general bodily neglect, and it was LIFE CHANGING. I didn’t know that my traps (upper shoulder/lower neck muscles) could move. They’d been so tight and completely rock solid for so long that I genuinely didn’t know it was possible to make them move, I thought they were MEANT to be monolithic meat slabs that made you look like you should live in a belltower in 15th century Paris.
Here’s the thing, I’d always felt silly doing recovery work. Going to the sauna, foam rolling, low intensity mobility sessions, cold plunges, and (let’s face it) proper stretching after a workout were things that PROPER athletes do after they train. How embarrassing was it for little old me to go to the gym and pretend to be the same as them. I felt like I was playing dress up in gym clothes, and everyone would see me attempting to work a handheld massage gun and they’d KNOW I was a total and complete fraud. Can you imagine anything more mortifying than being very confidently wrong about how to move my own body?
No thank you, not today friends.
This all falls into the greater ‘gym complex’ that so many people suffer from – admitting you don’t know what you’re doing is scary, and asking for help opens you up to being mocked or ridiculed. I’ve got friends who would literally rather not train when they’re feeling a bit under the weather than go to the gym and do a low intensity workout, because they’re worried that if they’re not pushing themselves to perform their absolute best, they’ll be judged by other people in the gym. (These friends don't train at FPT. OUR community isn't the judging type, but alas, commuting from London to come to Elevate is apparently 'not cost effective' and 'a ridiculous suggestion').
Let’s face it, unless you’re training at an ultra-professional level, 90% of your results come from what you’re doing outside the gym; is your nutrition balanced, is your hydration sufficient, are you getting enough sleep, enough steps, are you standing up from your desk regularly enough, are you fundamentally treating your body kindly…?
Whether you deadlift or squat or do walking lunges on leg day is much less impactful than the decisions you make during the other 167 hours of the week.
And now, after a decade of demanding so much from my body I’m feeling the repercussions. I’m always carrying some injury or another, I’m taping 90% of my joints whenever I’m training, I’m going to physio monthly, my sports massages HURT, and I feel like I’m phoning in every workout because I’ve just got nothing left to give. I just feel tired. The fact is, that even though I’ve not necessarily been ‘overtraining’, I’ve been ‘under-recovering’, which amounts to the same thing: a decline in performance.
So what’s your homework this month (everyone loves homework)?
Take care of your body. Speak to your coaches and ask what they recommend specifically, but a good place to start is doing just a few minutes of stretching before bed, getting some heat patches or hot water bottles on your sore spots, or lying on the living room floor with a 2-minute timer doing some deep breathing (in for the count of 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4). Recovery doesn’t HAVE to look like ice baths and acupuncture (though a bit of stabby stabby brrrr really makes you feel like you’re taking it seriously), sometimes it just means going to bed on time and getting some proper sleep.
Remember:
If you don’t schedule regular maintenance, your body will schedule it for you.
*You’ll have to guess which member of staff is writing this because I’ll never tell!
