Real Life Athlete Situations (and How to Handle Them)

So the first thing, and let's just set the context here, is this individual has been traveling a lot.

Like a lot, a lot.

Like there's been a wedding or a bachelor party or a work trip.

Like there's been a lot of things going on in this person's life on top of just normal like work stress and projects going on there that have been shifted and flipped and whatever.

just being a human being while, while trying to like be married to someone, right? Like there's just a lot of stuff that this person is handling from a day-to-day basis that I'm not sure that this person gives themselves enough credit for.

And so essentially the question was, Hey, I know that you have me on a deload week after a competition, because typically what I will do is I try to give people something a little bit easier, especially if it was a big weekend where they did a ton of volume.

And the question was like, hey, I feel like I haven't really been able to dial in my training a lot because I have been taking some lighter weeks just due to the travel and hoping that this would sort of give me a little bit of an off season and recharge before I go and take on some of these bigger qualifying races.

But like right now, I feel like taking the deload is hurting me more than it might be helping me.

So do I deload or do I actually like continue to chug along and start to find that intensity again so that I can build my fitness back up? And this is a really good question.

And quite honestly, I think that it depends.

I really think that it does.

And so in this moment, I didn't have the exact, I wouldn't even say I won't ever have the perfect answer for this individual.

But it was tough for me to answer this because it quite honestly could go either way.

But here's what I've come to know just from my personal experience of not just working with other athletes, but working with myself and knowing what I'm currently going through.

is that the body doesn't know the difference between strain that's happening while you're working out and strain that's happening in your personal life.

All it knows is just stress is stress.

And so if you are constantly on the go, constantly making decisions, going from one thing to the other, feeling like you're super busy, and then also trying to put in this really intense training block or very high voluminous training block, your body is taking on more strain than you probably realize.

And then pair that with maybe your recovery protocols, the lack thereof, the sleep, the nutrition.

And a lot of that could shake out to your body's just actually freaking tired.

And my gut reaction to this is like, I really do think that this individual is being stretched really thin in their life.

And that I do think that the deload is a smarter option of just taking an easier week.

But I think the beautiful thing about the deload is if you get into it and you notice that like on a specific day that your body is thriving, well then maybe add an extra 5, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever or so of volume.

Maybe do an extra set of a lift because you're in that space and you're feeling good.

There's also the part of it of just like freaking enjoying it, right? Like not thinking too much about like, am I going to go overboard or is this too much? Guys, we do this because we love it.

And sometimes we have to go back and remember that, that we just need to find that love again.