You only get ONE

Lots of things in life we get to experience multiple times, we live in different houses, drive different cars and work a range of various jobs but we only get one body. For most things in life you have a choice to change to something new if what you currently have is withered or broken but if your body has become damaged it’s entirely up to you to fix it (or not). How does recognising the fact you will have only one body for your entire life change the way you look at training?

MORE IS NOT MORE

Firstly it is easy to fall into the trap of more is more. Many think that more volume and more intensity leads to more results. The more likely outcome will be more problems because there are two key components that are not being focused on, recovery and quality of movement. The most typical situation is that a person will start doing more but not increase their recovery to combat the effects of training on the body. If training volume goes up so must recovery, at the very least in equal amounts. This is relevant to yesterday’s blog post about playing the long game. The one body you have can be shaped and changed, made better or worse but that is entirely up to you.

LISTEN TO YOUR BODY

You must listen to your body, daily. When you feel pain, STOP. Don’t continue on thinking that it’s a life changing moment if you miss this training stimulus. Pain is your bodies way of saying “hold up, something is wrong” and if you ignore that you are only welcoming more problems. Stop and think about how you feel every day, not only the ones where you feel stiff and it’s overly apparent that you can feel those squats two days ago. If you are feeling down or like you are not coping take a step back from the training volume and focus on some recovery work.

It pays to acknowledge you only get one body and treating it poorly will result in pain and limitations as you age. Look after the body you have, do what you can to make it healthier and stronger and never forget, you ain’t buying another one.