By Ash Cox – 5S Coach / Redwood Performance.
So, you’ve been on a program for weeks, possibly months on end. There has been ups and downs PBs set and records broken. The programme has been followed to the letter! So you test, adjust and start the whole process again. This time round you start picking up little niggles, your weights and performance start dropping and you become disheartened. You used to love training. You used to enjoy the 0500 starts, the late nights and the relentless pursuit of athletic dominance. What’s happened!?
It happens to the best of us and it boils down to the fact that throughout your programme you have not taken a minute out to just enjoy the physicality of life. Just to enjoy and appreciate how your body moves. As a powerlifter I only have to perform three lifts: squat, bench and deadlift. Apart from the obvious assistance movements that are performed alongside the main three lifts, why do anything else? It’s my duty as a lifter just to do the three lifts, throw in a couple of accessory movements to aid development and that’s it, as simple as that! Or is it?
I see so many people come through my doors as an exercise rehabilitation specialist with mechanical overuse injuries so much so that I’ve lost count. Whether its shin splints in a keen runner or shoulder impingement in a lifter, they all have one thing in common, overuse in one aspect of their physical development. Now I understand that we have to develop our attributes within our field or passion but I think that we have lost the ability to just play!
When I talk about “play” I’m not talking about GPP or general physical preparedness. I’m talking about actual, no plan in place, play! I like to use the word play as it stays away from any rigid form of forced fun that can sometimes be linked with the term GPP. I’m a powerlifter and sometimes I will just go out and run across the hills wearing 25kg, because it’s fun! I enjoy the physicality of life and the challenges that are put before me on a daily basis. I’m in a very lucky position in where one week I’ll be in clinic but the next will be spent mountain biking or kayaking. Now kayaking has very minimal carry over to powerlifting I get that. But there are certainly elements that will build on the strong strength based foundations I have already developed. Let’s stay with kayaking, my grip is tested maximally. I’ve actually lost count of all the times I’ve lost a paddle downstream, obviously that’s through fatigue and not flapping when I’m upside down, honest! My shoulders are also pushed like nothing I can experience in the gym. In my eyes the Turkish get up is the ultimate shoulder stability exercise, second to paddling a kayak up stream in North Wales!!
Now before you all rush out buying kayaks and running rivers… just consider my point. The point I’m making is you need a break from training and sometimes you just need to have fun. Whether that be prowler pushes, kayaking or ping pong, take a break! Trust me, once you take a week out and wallow in your physical prowess you will return to your regular programming with a fresh and positive approach. You will also return having a week away from the grind of programming, you will reduce your risk of injury by virtue of opening the body up through different planes of movement. You will unload parts of the body that may have been approaching breaking point. As a lifter you might even create some friends that are real and are not rubber or metal! You will develop new skills that may have a transfer over into your chosen sport or method of exercise. But for me, the best bit, is its fun!! Now go out, play and develop!!!!
Motivate the mind and the body will follow.