In my coaching and instructor role, I have found that our athletes can feel increasingly overwhelmed with the volume of information circulating about “all the things” we are “supposed” to do. In this technology driven fast paced world, sorting through the latest fitness suggestions can be daunting. Thus, the team at Ripple Effect decided to put together a list of suggestions of where to focus based upon our personal experiences as athletes, instructors and coaches. Ideally, we hope to help simplify the process for you.
You can’t do it all. Health and wellness advice is well intentioned. However, it needs to be dialed in to each athlete’s specific needs and goals, relative to age, gender, injuries, sports, and time and resources available. We recommend implementing the simplest changes first, and simply one new strategy each month until it’s a habit.
And finally, do not get sucked into the advertising world’s market of the quick fix stuff to buy. A solid base of the following practices will work more miracles than a pill or a gimmick. If you are on top of your game that’s when to tweak the process with scientifically proven techniques, supplements, and protocols. Please feel free to contact us at anytime to help dial in your training plans.
The Top 10:
1) Self care/you time: what is it and how do we make time for it?
Regular practice goes a long way. Here are some suggestions: quiet time/meditation, phone off/screens off, mobility work, time not working and spent with family and friends, massage/acupuncture/yoga or another healing art. Making time for this and settling work/life boundaries can allow you to then show up for yourself, which makes it easier to show up for others.
2) Sleep: This is a big one! Again, small changes go a long way. Aim for 8 hours minimum. Turn screens off, finish dinner two or more hours before, and avoid Rx or alcohol for sleep if possible. Also, try to not check email in the evening because if there is a work related message or something that causes stress, your brain may kick back into over drive and you end up awake with the gerbil wheel going. Again, personal boundaries go a long way here.
3) Fueling: Proper fueling is a must!
Keep the following in mind:
Skipping meals depletes energy and causes stress
Pushing through hunger when exercising to lose a pound backfires
Eating out is costly on many levels.
So, where do we start?
Eat multiple small meals through out the day with snacks. Each meal should be comprised of carbs/protein/healthy fats. 1.8 – 2.4 g of protein a day for kg of body weight for active adults and especially adults over 50 and women in menopause. Eat enough food and protein after physical efforts to promote recovery.
To dial this in, make time to meal plan on the weekend, grocery shop and cook ahead. Leave the house with food for the day or at least a reasonable plan you can stick to. If you need support, reach out to one of our valley’s amazing dietitians. It will make a huge difference.
4) Hydration: Getting enough water/fluids in during the day is super important. But why? And how much? The amount is variable based on activity level, age, and living at altitude in a dry environment. How much water you need and the why behind hydration can be found in this book: Your Body’s Many Cries for Water byDr. Fereydoon Batmanghelidj. Once you know how much water/electrolyte you need roughly daily, planning ahead for the day helps. Here’s a handy calculator. https://www.gigacalculator.com/calculators/water-intake-calculator.php
5) Mobility: as a practice.
This is not necessarily yoga, but a separate practice involving the movement of joints to maintain healthy posture and alignment. Statistics show that individuals will lose 10% of their natural mobility per decade after the age of 35 if they do nothing about it. Daily mobility work is ideal, which often doesn’t feel feasible for many. Practice will help develop habits. This can be a 10-15 min a day thing. Maybe one longer session a week. Mix it in with strength training. if you do evening TV time stretch in front of the TV if you have to. We specialize in mobility and strength at Ripple Effect to support healthy active lifestyles and mountain play time. Kelly and Juliet Starrett’s booksBuilt to Move and How to Become a Supple Leopard are the RE Teams go to resources.
6) Strength training is not only important for performance and injury prevention, it increases and maintains bone density and muscle mass, and can improve balance, mood, and posture. This all becomes especially critical as one ages. The over 50 population really needs to get focused strength training in 2x a week, most weeks. Again, the over age 35 statistic is we lose 10% of our muscle was per decade if we do nothing about it. Come visit Ripple Effect for more support and guidance.
7) Core engagement to reverse the evils of sitting! And other negative impacts on the core. Many of you have heard it by now “sitting is the new smoking”. At Ripple Effect we begin many workouts with a quick series of core specific movements. These are not heavy, weighted, or hard, but rather subtle work to remind your deepest core to do it’s job.These muscles, the pelvic floor, transverse abdominus, multifidus, and diaphragm are the key to a healthy core, can improve low back pain, posture, balance, and require a bit of extra work if one has a sedentary job, works at a desk or computer, drives or commutes a significant distance. This work can be wrapped into a strength WO or be a stand alone but it need focused attention none-the-less.
8) Recovery weeks – remember to recover. Even doing fun activities is a stress to the system. If you are training for an event, recovery weeks are paramount. Within your training plan, try to drop volume of work by 50% every third or fourth week. If life has been overly stressful (see next note), including training stress, you may need to forego weekend plans and just take time to dial it back so you can then succeed and stay injury free! Even if you aren’t event focused, you need recovery. In fact people who play hard all the time without a frame work to the why and when may need recovery time even more. (coaching with CP link)
9) Stress management and acknowledgment – You may have noticed that stress has been mentioned in many of these top 10. Lack of sleep, skipping meals, training hard, work and family demands all can trigger stress responses in the system. Managing stress is critical to our long term health. The first step to stress management is stress acknowledgement. Identify stressors, look for ways to reduce stress/. Setting boundaries, fueling, hydrating, sleeping, self care, and mobility work can all reduce stress. Focus energy on the things you can control and makes changes.
10) Breath work – this falls in to many of our categories, self care, strength training, stress management, it’s important enough to highlight as a stand alone as well. Breathing is something we all take for granted, and thankfully it happens without thought. However, we can reduce stress, blood pressure, fight or flight responses, and numerous other potential health issues by taking time to acknowledge our breathing habits and identify how we can improve.
(Davis link)
Reach out to any of our instructors at Ripple Effect for more customized ideas for support in any of these areas. Cell 970-773-3317, email info@rippleffectraining.com