Weekend Warrior

After watching the inspirational football movie “Invincible” this weekend my father-in-law and I started talking sports. He was a college football player so he played sports at very high level in his younger years and after college switched to soccer. As a result of his high physical conditioning he was able to easily pick up a new sport without causing a lot of stress to his body. He's continued to play off and on over the years but at this point in time currently isn’t doing anything. He, like many of us, feels a bit overwhelmed by the busyness of daily life and the thought of adding another thing to do to his daily routine isn’t at the top of his priority list. We continued talking fitness and what he said to me really stood out. "I don't want to go push weights in the gym, that's not going to happen. I want to do something I enjoy." Read that last sentence again, "I don't want to go push weights in the gym, that's not going to happen. I want to do something I enjoy." Can you relate to this statement? What do you enjoy? This resonates with me for more reasons that just "doing what I enjoy" because I know what can happen when people only do what they enjoy.

Finding an activity that you love to do is the best thing you can do because, let‘s be honest, how long will you really stick with it if you don’t actually enjoy it? If you've found what you love to do and do it consistently, Great!! The reality for many people though is that they fall into what I like to call “the weekend warrior routine.” They abuse their body all week with lousy nutrition, poor hydration, little rest and no movement and then expect their bodies to perform at a high level on the weekend in the form of sports, strenuous yard work, etc. Though what is the result? Injury!!!

My dad was this guy until my brother and I were able to show him what he was doing to his body. Not only were we able to show him why he was hurting but also what was happening inside his body as a result of no exercise outside of playing hockey. We were also able to explain to him that your body does different things when you exercise at different intensities and so that he could see for himself we had him wear a heart rate monitor during hockey. Each shift as he came off the ice we monitored his heart rate. What we found was that his heart rate was VERY high when he came off the ice. What really caught our attention though was that when it came time to go back on the ice his heart rate hadn’t lowered all that much, which means his body wasn’t getting a chance to recover. So what was happening was that he was playing for over an hour at an intensity that should only be done for minutes. What does this mean? Every time he went to hockey he thought he was doing his body good, getting exercise doing what he loved. However, my dad was actually doing more harm than good because his body wasn't conditioned to be able to recover in time for his next shift. Does this mean that we can't do what we love because it can hurt our body? Absolutely not. What we need to do is take care ourselves the other 6 days in the week so that our bodies are properly conditioned and we won't hurt ourselves. That's what we got dad doing. He now cross-trains during the week so his body can physically handle playing hockey every weekend. The result ... more energy and less injury!!

For me personally I love playing any sport whenever I get a chance! In order to be able to so without any negative results during or after the fact, I do full-body cross training every week. As a result when I do any activities, whether it be sports, helping someone move, cleaning out a garage, cleaning the house or playing with my nieces and nephews, my body is easily able to adapt and I'm not sore for the rest of the week. That's a normal response from a healthy body. It has nothing to do with age or gender, it all depends on whether or not you move your body like it's created to.

Health and Fitness is a process. When you make small changes here and there they add up and in a short space of time you'll have made some great positive changes. If you currently don't do any type of exercise or even if you fall into the category of "Weekend Warrior" you are in the perfect position to make some great changes but remember - be careful not to do too much too fast! What tends to happen for many people is that they get motivated to start being more active again (which is great!) but do too much too soon when their body isn’t ready and they end up falling off track or getting hurt. Don’t let that be you! Now is the time to set some attainable goals and get your health back!! If you have any questions or need help making a plan let me know. Email me at createdtomove@gmail.com and I'll coach you.