I enjoy watching videos of the amazing feats that can be done in four wheel drive
vehicles. These muscular monsters seem to be able to climb anything, bounce over huge boulders, and come back to do it day after day. They break axles, dent the sheet metal, tear the under carriage and sometimes destroy their engines. Many of the owners work late into the nights to repair their machines so
it’s ready for the next day’s adventures. Sometimes it takes a feways to get their rock crawlers back to driving condition and back in action on the trail.
If you train in the gym, run miles and miles, ride a bike day in and day out, the mechanical parts of our bodies work much like the 4 wheel drive vehicles. If our workouts are easy, we won’t create a lot of damage and we can probably go for a lot of days in a row. If we really punish ourselves in the gy
m doing intense workouts lifting heavy weights, climbing, running or biking while training for triathlons, marathons, big climbs, stage races or enduros, we start putting dents in the sheet metal and scars on the axles of our body. Without constant repairs, our bodies stop performing optimally and even start deteriorating.
There are some things we need to know in order to continue making gains while we work out. I’ll spend time on each of these in a series of blogs for the month of May. Following are some insights of what will be included.
- Your body recovers while you sleep and the harder you work out the more sleep you need. About half of you come to the gym tired. This is a clue. Workouts over 1.5 hours can be more negative than positive in terms of gaining strength. Long workouts produce a hormone call Cortisol. Cortisol is produced when stress occurs to the body from a long workout or other stress we occur doing life. Cortisol affects the quality of sleep and the recovery of our workouts.
- Your body needs the right tools to repair the damage from workouts. You need to take in 1000’s of nutrients to make the repairs. Eating certain food or a limited variety is like repairing broken axles with duct tape. Balancing meals with a variety of proteins, vegetables and complex carbs is essential to quality repairs.
- Moving the same body part the same way month after month may cause damage and wear to joints that could take years to repair. Using a variety of exercises with slightly different movement patterns can save you a lot of rehab. Cross training can be called prehab, which is becoming a popular new word in the athletic world.
I’m look forward to helping you find ways to recover from your workouts and introduce you to some of the amazing things our bodies do to keep us running, biking, climbing, skiing, snowboarding, golfing..... basically enjoying the active Whistler lifestyle!
