Does your Training Imitate that of a Professional Athlete?

We all have a body history.

We’ve grown up playing different sports, had different injuries and illnesses. We have different circumstances, come from different environments and with different resources. All of these factors need to be considered when choosing our fitness goals and how to go about training, eat and recovering to meet these goals and to also live our best lives.

I fell into the trap of training like an athlete but missed the boat on sufficient recovery and I paid the price. I hit a wall of adrenal depletion and hormonal chaos. The descent won’t look the same for everyone, brain fog, immune dysregulation, incessant weight gain, inability to gain muscle, insatiable cravings, digestive upset, anxiety and depression are a few complaints that regularly surface for my clients. I naively thought that my dedicated nutrition would override my meager five and a half hours of nightly sleep and that it was enough for both my physical and mental recovery. How wrong I was.

Yes, I do agree that a person who has been training consistently for years will have a far better ability to tolerate training and will, therefore, be able to handle more mileage and more intensity without breaking down. But only with sufficient recovery in place.

I see so many, training daily or even a few times a day, ending their sessions on the floor, exhausted. Part of this exhaustion comes from the actual effort in that particular session but I would argue that for many, that much of that exhaustion stems from the battle and push to get to their workout. Between work, family life, meal preparation, shopping, house commitments, pets et cetera it can be enormous to fit fitness into a person's life conveniently. Especially if you have chosen to train under a professional athletes’ regime.

I think today, time is the key thing. I don’t think it is wise to put your body through an athletes regime unless you have the time. Athletes, have and need to dedicated a phase of their life to training. They make sure they have all the time in the world to train, and most importantly, they have loads of time to recover. Although peak of their season is often where their body gets hammered. But for the most part they structure their lives to have loads of recovery strategies and tools and nutritionists and people helping them, tools that not everybody has financial or timely access to. And yet as weekend warriors or whip into the gym, kick your body to the curb and dash back to life athletes, we wonder why we fall.

This is why I don't think it's useful for the majority of people to aim to emulate a professional athlete in their training. And to attempt to do so when you've got little children, teenagers, a high stress job, relationships you need to maintain, sleep patterns you need to look after and everything else going on is a possible trap for an unhappy life. For the large majority of us, this will look and aim towards doing what is possible to do in regard to movement and training within your lifework/lifestyle boundaries. This is a movement framework that includes weight resistance modalities alongside short cardiovascular work and an inter-weaving with mental and physical recoveries.

For the large majority of us, this is going to be an exercise regime that has the optimum amount of benefit for the least amount of time, so that we can focus on the very beneficial, therapeutic and enjoyable recovery strategies.

If you want my guide on “Three Key Tips to know if you have Recovered Mentally and Physically from Your Workouts” - comment “Me” below .