Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Stay injury free so you can keep training

Just remember, more is not better. In fact, more can lead you to injury, and guess what happens when you are injured, training will suffer. Yes, you do need a training stimulus to get results, but too much stress and the body will breakdown, which can lead to injury and disrupted training. This is a tricky concept to grasp as an athlete. Here are a few tips to consider:
1. Do the little stuff: tissue work, mobility, flexibility, daily mini band walks/hip work. This work I consider "hygiene" and needs daily attention.
2. If you are training more than 5 sessions in a week, you should not make all of those sessions massively hard. Again, this could lead to breakdown and injury. Just like I said in yesterday's post, build and plan your training schedule to be successful.
3. Sleep is key to recovery and regeneration. Pretty simple here, try your best to get at least 6 hours of sleep every night. This is where your body fully recovers. Take a 20 minute nap if needed during the day.
4. Listen to your body. Your body will tell you when its mentally and physically fatigued, but you must listen and pay attention. Do a light training session or take the day (or 2 or 3 days) off. Your body will thank you, and you will keep moving in a positive direction. 
5. Nutrition and hydration matters.  Yes, what and how you eat is a critical component to staying injury free and assisting the body recover from hard bouts of training.  Keep to a minimum: processed foods, sugar dense foods, high amounts of alcohol, white flower products.  Add to your plan: All vegetables and fruits especially dark greens, broccoli, blueberries, cherries and bananas, lean proteins (chicken, turkey, lean red meat, eggs), healthy fats (fish, nut butters, avocados, healthy oils) and slow releasing carbohydrates (oatmeal, brown rice, whole grain breads).  Your water intake should be approximately half your weight in ounces of water.  Make this a habit.    
6. Active recovery weeks. I add these in my training every 4-8 weeks. I basically take a full week and do lighter, lower volume workouts. I keep some intensity in these weeks to stay sharp but instead of an hour workout, I may just do 30-45 minutes. Or instead of 5 rounds of strength work, I may just do 3. These are the weeks where your body responds and adapts to all of your hard work and comes back stronger and better!

Results ultimately happen to the individuals who stay injury free and who can keep training in a smart and effective manner.

**If you have specific questions, please let me know. 

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