Training for LIFE! Now this is a foundational concept for us Lifetime Athletes. Exercising, playing, and competing through the lifespan. Doing those things in order to maximize our vitality and participation in all of life. Keeping the training habit alive, in whatever forms that requires, all the way through the journey. Lots of ways to think about how to accomplish this, but here are 5 things to avoid when you’re playing the long game.
Using exercises that irritate your joints. Just don’t do it. If you find any exercise to create discomfort, grinding, excessive clicking (beyond the first rep or two), or sensations of instability/apprehension…stop immediately and assess the situation. Try to slightly alter your technique, body position, and range of motion. Does this alleviate the problem? If so, carry on. But if that’s not the case, you probably have one or both of two things going on.
First, you may have some inherent movement dysfunction in the form of mobility, strength, or motor control deficits. This is normal and nothing to feel bad about. Most of the time it’s a transient situation and you can employ some corrective exercises to restore your movement variability/competency and remedy the problem. Being facetious here, it’s not so much that the exercise sucks…it’s just that you suck (temporarily) at performing it. If you deem the movement necessary and valuable, you can work on it and improve your comfort, safety, and effectiveness.
Second, in other circumstances, you may have inadvertently selected an exercise that is simply not ideal for your unique anatomy. Your genetically determined structure may not work well with a certain movement pattern, and no amount of coaxing or forcing will change that. Back to the humorous side of things and not taking ourselves too seriously, this is the case where the chosen exercise sucks – at least for you. Here we apply science and creativity to find the exercise variation which really fits your body well. You get results without compromising the longevity of your joints.
Experiencing chronically high levels of inflammation. “Fire in the hole!” You’ll recognize the expression. Inflammation is supposed to be sporadic, episodic, and moderate (at most) when it comes to the training-induced variety.
In ideal circumstances, we periodically apply just enough training stress to drive adaptation, then we recover fully before the next major exposure. However, we’re human and we occasionally make errors in program design and execution. We might overtrain (or play or compete excessively) and we certainly can under-recover. Often, a hectic modern lifestyle combines with high motivation and we end up burning the old candle (our body) at both ends.
We need a little inflammation. It’s a natural process for the Lifetime Athlete. We just don’t want exceedingly high amounts, particularly on a frequent or constant basis. Chronic inflammation leads to hormonal imbalances, metabolic dysregulation, and substantially increased disease risk. Plus, it feels awful.
If you’re experiencing more inflammation than you think you should, objectively examine your training and recovery practices. Make adjustments as necessary and find your low-inflammation sweet spot. Training for LIFE should be a feel-great experience, not an exhausting (dying faster) struggle.
Failing to work on your weaknesses. One of the widely accepted axioms in training is to shore up your weaknesses in the offseason, then lean on your strengths in the pre/peak seasons. This is classic, intelligent training. However, we can easily fall into the trap of ignoring our weaknesses and living (perhaps too much) in our strengths.
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Our strengths are those attributes that make us good at certain sports and exercises. In these conditions we perform at a high level, things feel relatively easy or natural, and we get reinforcing results. These are our “go-to’s.” Weaknesses are on the other side of the spectrum. We aren’t as good at them, we generally don’t like them as much, and consequently there is a temptation to simply avoid them.
Your individual training bias, or the amount of time and energy you spend on strengths versus weaknesses, is unique to you. It should also fluctuate as the seasons change, your interests evolve, and your body matures. My message to every athlete I coach is to be pragmatic and focus on weaknesses somewhat strategically. Emphasize your strengths as much as you want and can get away with (so to speak), but avoid allowing your weaknesses to become problematic. I feel like I should explain this process.
Identify your attributes (strengths) and deficiencies (weaknesses). At TLA we use the Athletic Capacity Rating System (ACRS) which allows us to rate (0 = absent, 1 = low, 2 = moderate, 3 = maximum) your ability in the 5 Capacities of Athleticism. Those are strength, speed, power, agility, and endurance. Once you know your ranking, you can then adjust your training to better fit the demands of your chosen sport(s). This ensures peak performance. As life progresses, you’ll find that you need to spend less time working on your strengths while giving slightly (in most cases) more attention to your weaknesses.
Examples are many but we can highlight a few very common scenarios. Endurance athletes like runners and cyclists benefit from (safely) adding in some agility and explosive mutil-directional training as they age. This keeps them from becoming slow, stiff, straight-line (only) critters. Yogis need to lift some weights and build functional strength to complement their ample mobility. Lifters need to embrace the dreaded cardio so their fitness is not one-dimensional. Sometimes these messages piss people off because they think I’m insulting their religion. That’s not the case at all. These practices help to prevent catastrophic breakdown (which invariably occurs if you only do one thing all the time) and thus allows them to keep doing what they love…for life.
Neglecting adequate balance in your training. I’m not talking about balance training where you practice righting reactions while maintaining your center of mass over the base of support – although that’s quite valuable. I’m speaking about striking a personal balance among the 5 capacities of human performance: strength, speed, power, agility, and endurance. This mixology is different for every person, and it is also dynamic within the individual from year to year.
Balanced training is nuanced. It is related to the aforementioned concept of addressing weaknesses, but it goes beyond that essential level. I’m not saying that you should do equal amounts of each capacity in training, i.e. 20% of total training time in each area of strength, speed, power, agility, and endurance. I’m suggesting that each of those elements should be present, to some extent, most of the time. In reality, that’s 60-90% in your preferred category, which is supported by a collective 10-40% in the other 4 areas to make up your total.
There are infinite possibilities in putting together a balanced training plan. The main premise is that human performance, as well as longevity, benefits immensely from all-around athletic function. This does not connote being great at everything. Instead, it looks like being good to exceptional at one or a couple things and being adequate or decent at most of the rest.
Within reason, we never want to get to the point when we have to say “I just don’t do that anymore.” Most of the time, it’s not that you “don’t because you can’t,” it’s that you “can’t because you don’t.” Or you “didn’t do” for so long, said capacity became a non-possibility. Keeping the beast within you in a highly capable state requires thoughtful application.
People have the natural tendency to wrap their identity around their sport. They’ll say “I’m a blank (insert golfer, swimmer, skier, runner, etc.) and therefore I don’t need to be able to blank (insert throw, catch, jump, land, carry, etc.). That’s true only in the context of specific sports but not in the totality of life. There invariably comes a time when you want or need to do something, and it’s hellagood when that ability is still there.
Balanced training also prevents injury…big time. Keeping your body multifunctional across all capacities optimizes movement and health. You tactically avoid the rut of overuse injury. And, a body that is familiar with most demands will respond, perform, adapt, and recover in predictable fashion. One that is shocked by a seemingly foreign physical challenge will balk or break.
Not having enough fun. The most negative of people will say “life sucks…and then you die.” But that’s certainly not the perspective you and I share. We’re not delusional, but we’re committed to extracting, sharing, and giving as much joy as possible in this journey. Training (including competition and play), really should be a joyous event. A spirited celebration of (relative) able-bodiedness. Sure, there can be a little suffrage here and there, but only when dedicated effort (intensity, duration, etc.) is a self-applied driver towards our goals. That should be embraced as long as its presence is strategic. But fitness and athletic participation doesn’t need – nor should it have – much in the way of suck.
It’s important to put your personal signature on what enjoyable training looks like to you. There are those who play their sport such as tennis, golf, basketball, etc. a lot. They do just enough of all this other stuff to keep some balance and manage weakness. All good. But for many of us, it’s finding ways to keep the element of play alive in our Training for Life journey. Creative program design, gamification, competition with self and others, and other practices become essential. When fitness becomes fun it moves away from feeling like work or drudgery. Find ways to occasionally, if not regularly, dance, sing, laugh, and SMILE your way through your workout. Animals and kids do it naturally. We adults don’t need to take everything, and ourselves, too seriously.
One of the many slogans we’ve used at TLA over the years, with respect to training, is “Get Results, Don’t Get Hurt, and Have Fun!” That statement speaks well to the 5 things we just discussed, which we all should avoid when we’re training for LIFE!