Credit gets a bad rap sometimes. Sure, when improperly managed, credit can be a source of financial demise; but properly utilized, it’s a tool that allows you to have more purchasing power than your liquid assets alone allow. It’s a powerful resource with enormous potential upside and downside.
Your body operates a lot like a credit card. Stressors are charges on your credit account. Hard conditioning? Swipe. Heavy lifting? Swipe. Stressful day at work? Swipe. Long night out? Lost sleep? Poor diet? Sitting all day? Charge it all to the card.
On the other hand, our recovery efforts are payments. Good night of sleep? Payment. High quality food and ample quantity? Payment. Sufficient hydration, regular low intensity movement, soft tissue work, meditation? Pay off all the charges.
And just as using your credit and paying off the charges allows you to increase your credit limit and improve your credit score, exposure to stressors and adequate recovery allows your body to physically change to be more capable. This, in essence, is how the body improves its physical condition: stress, recover, adapt.
Note that our charges and payments are more than just physical training and physical recovery efforts. We have to remember that our system doesn’t really know the difference between the stress of a hard workout and the stress of being late for your flight or being overworked -- the autonomic nervous system responds the same. This makes it entirely possible to become overly fatigued (fatigued beyond the body’s ability to adapt) with very minimal physical stress, and this doesn’t bode well for health or fitness. Ever felt completely burnt out from an exercise workload that normally wouldn’t be all that challenging? Your account had a considerable debt built up, and you neglected to pay it off.
The key here is to recognize what acts as a charge and what acts as a payment, and to balance the two. This is how we progress. Too much stress with not enough recovery? This is where we find injury, burnout, stagnation, and diminished performance. We accrue debt but don’t have the means to pay it off. Too much recovery without enough stress? This is generally called a sedentary lifestyle, and doesn’t do much in the way of providing stimulus to improve. Because everyone’s body is different, and because our physical and mental stressors and recoveries can’t be as easily quantified as a dollar balance on a credit card, we’re in for some trial and error. Have you been neglecting to pay off your balance? Spending too much? Or perhaps you haven’t been using your credit enough? Listen up, your body’s trying to let you know.
- PS
Spend 15 minutes working on front levers
3 min AMRAP
10 hand release push-ups
5 pull-ups
Rest 1 min
3 min AMRAP
10 hand release push-ups
5 pull-ups
Rest 1 min
3 min AMRAP
10 hand release push-ups
5 pull-ups
Posted on 04/14/2017 at 12:00 AM
