Human Health = Human Potential/Athletic Potential (Part #2)
Human Potential: It is the capacity for humans to improve themselves through studying, training, and practice, to reach the limit of their ability to develop aptitude and skills. The question is, what are the steps necessary to achieve your human potential..? It starts with a foundation of overall health and wellbeing. Human Health = Human Potential/Athletic Potential. In the last newsletter we discussed the importance of sleep and how too often in our society it is viewed as a luxury and not a necessary component of health, longevity and performance in all aspects of life. Have you taken any particular steps to make it more of a priority? Have those modifications helped improve your recovery and performance? Continue to strive to optimize your pre-sleep routine and schedule.
This month I will outline another step to build your platform of health: Recovery!
Recovery is a very complicated component of endurance training and racing. The biggest challenge is the amount of variables that go into optimizing your recovery strategy, and for each person they can be substantially different. What is also interesting is the amount of "recovery modalities" that claim to be the answer to your recovery and how the endurance community as a whole seems to fall for a lot of the marketing. As you can see from the pyramid it starts with the foundational components: nutrition, sleep and stress management. Without a good grasp on managing those basic (but highly important) variables it won't matter how great the components that come higher up in the pyramid are optimized. Using the analogy of a foundation of a house, even without a strong structural foundation of cement, you will be able to build the upper rooms, kitchen, living room, etc.. but eventually the structure will break down and collapse. In order to build a resilient body (and mind) and have longevity in the sport of endurance racing, creating a habit of eating well, sleeping 8+ hrs most nights, and managing stress are without question the best time (rather than money) spent. (Find more info in PEAK by Dr. Marc Bubbs)
