Energy Drains & Glide Ratio

You may have noticed there was no newsletter last week and not much SocMed activity from me over the last week.

That is due to a few things going sideways and time being very short supply.

However, I think we're though that and can get back to normal service.

And with my own struggles this last few weeks, it seems right that today's newsletter deals with Jacks question, which is relevant to where I have been:

"How do you navigate training whilst sick with things such as a common cold? When can it help? When can it hinder? What are some guidelines to look out for? What are the guidelines from returning from illness?

Context:

I have 4 "larger" "things" which cause a drain on my energy:

1) work,

2) parenting,

3) study,

4) gym.

I was sick end of last week (sat-wed). So gym got bumped (and always will over the other 3) and I decided to skip my last session for the week. Then this week, being the eager beaver I thought I was right to train yesterday - maybe felt 75=80% recovered....Low and behold by yesterday evening i felt pretty run down and sick again - almost perhaps back at square one. Its not a terribly bad illness, sore throat and sinuses - just feel run down.

Interested to hear your thoughts?

Cheers Jack"

So what happened to Jack?

Why did he feel like he relapsed after just one session back?

Exercise and training will over time make you stronger and more resilient, this includes your immune system. Fitter people tend to be sick less.

However, in the post training window, our immune system can be somewhat dampened, and that can open the door to whatever pathogens you have been fighting and let them run riot once more!

Long story short, you only have a limited amount of resources available to run the body. And if you've just had a hard workout, your resources are being redirected towards replacing the gylcogen used in the muscles and liver, repairing any muscle damage and hopefully building more muscle, growing some new cells, developing some more mitochondria and so on and so forth.

So if you are coming back from illness, please start back slowly. Cut back on volume especially.

A short and intense session may be fine, but the more you let that fatigue build with volume, the harder it becomes to recover from.

And just as the body has limited resources, so do we as human animals.

So we must manage our priorities and our expectations accordingly.

Times where this management really kicks in:

Kids are currently sitting GCSE's or A-Levels or your country equivalent for 16 & 18 year olds, so priority has to go there.

Jobs/Careers, especially if new, or looking a promotion

Family, new kids are a huge drain on resources, delightful, but hard work.

Gym.

That last one can be confusing.

The gym is both a drain on resources and a potential tool for increasing resources.

It increases resources by increasing our "Glide Ratio" which is an aviation analogy I was told by my old friend Wolfgang Brolley.

Wolf was on a plane travelling somewhere when he was talking to his companion about how planes have a thing called Glide Ratio.

Essentially that is should the engines fail, for every meter of forward motion you will loose a certain amount of height.

A house brick has a very poor glide ratio, it drops significantly more than it will travel forward.

A 737, a common passenger plane has a glide ratio of 15:1, so for every 1 meter loss in altitude, it travels 15 meters forward.

If we train well, and train in conjunction with our life's demands, consistently for many years, we become like that 737.

Not only are we able to fly higher, but also for longer.

This is the resilience we want to have, the baseline we want to build that will springboard us to higher level performance should we find a challenge we want to undertake.

Or simply keep us flying along until it's time to land.

Keeping with the 737, it will need to refuel, it will need parts serviced and repaired, it needs to change the crew, clean it inside and out.

It can't just go and go.

Neither can you.

So when life throws you a curve ball and you don't have the energy to get to the gym. Don't sweat it.

Refuelling, changing the oil, pumping up the tyres, are all part of building resilience.

You'll be back up in the air soon.

Rush the service, and you may just take off too early and that is when planes crash.

So for Jack, take the foot off a little bit. Start back slower, less volume, see how you recover.

Maybe instead of 3 sessions this week, just do 2.

Then as you feel good, increase it gradually until you are back where you were, and potentially even better.

For myself, it's just a case of refuelling and organising my flight plan.

What about you?

Do you need to step back and review, or are you cruising along just fine?

Hit reply and let me know.

And please send in your questions, they get added to my list and will be covered in future emails

Regards

Dave Hedges

www.davehedges.net