Listening to your body 1 - change

I have just sat to write some recovery suggestions to some older athletes I coach (yes, coach; not train). 

Some are are a tad hard-of-hearing at times.

 "Listen To Your Body" is near the top of the list.

Coaches often tell athletes to listen to their bodies. Do we ever explain to them what they should listen for or listen to? 

And, what if they don't hear anything?

What if they ignore it? Well, we know the answers to that: illness, injury, over-training, staleness, burnout, plateau - to mention a few.

There are two general times in which to listen to your body. This blog deals with the first, your time in relation warming up for a session, once you've cooled down, and upon getting out of bed. The second deals with when training or during a training session - 'training by feel'

I'm not professing to a 'right-or-wrong' approach here as discovering a way that works best for you (or your athletes)  is most important. And I'm also respectful to the contexts in which many of you live, train/coach and compete. 

I'm sharin' wiff yah!

Firstly, as coaches we could and should avoid telling many athletes too much. Sure, there are times when a group of younger athletes may need to be 'told' in regards to organisation, behaviour and quality of movement, and even times when older athletes may need gentle and guided reminders. Besides, 'telling', to me, tends to contradict the notion of true coaching, and athletic development being seen as movement problem solving in context from the athlete's perspective, and 'creative coaching synergy' from the coach's perspective.

Both perspectives are about "change"; athlete's need to be able to change or alter or adapt their movement or skills to the context of training, and competition. Coaches need to ensure 'change' is built into AD, training and running programs: progression, specificity, overload, individuality etc are all about 'change'…albeit about change over time, not change all the time.  I will return to this point.

As us athletes or runners improve (and age, which isn't always about improvement) they change. As they learn and understand more, they change; as they adapt to training stimuli and loads, they change. As they become more efficient and skilful, they change. Of course, as they mature, and, later, age, they change too – their bodies, abilities, capacities, interests, motivations, performance, lifestyle.

In terms of "listen to or for" with their body, over time, I aim to coach athletes and runners to listen for change in their bodies…and then educate them with what they find or discover (and, later, measure). 

Early on I seek information about their day, school, family, friends, how they found the last session, their energy, their muscles. This of course, is a little different for each athlete, yet the process is the same: collecting information about their body's and the context of their day/s. In time, I give them a very simple measurement device or diary where they rank (scale 1-5) a number of things: training intensity; attitude to training, general energy or fatigue, specific energy or fatigue, sleep quality and quantity, diet, resting heart rate, muscle state/soreness. There is no rocket-science in these, nor are they original. 

After a few months of this simple graphing, I provide a more complex graph/table for them to complete.

Both graph forms take little more than 45 secs a day to complete!

Notably, after they've come to understand DOMS, they are encouraged (beyond an acute sprain or strain which requires RICER and, often, medical assessment) to assess/think about any sore spots in three contexts of time: 

(1) as they warm-up, 

(2) a few hours after the session, once their body temperature has dropped, and 

(3) in the morning when they get up to walk

A change (increase) in how long it takes to warm-up is not positive.

A change (increase in tenderness, stiffness) once (really) cooled-down (2-4 hours post session) is not positive.

A change (increase) in stiffness first thing in the morning – usually tendon, bursa or joint related – is not often positive.

A change in their manner, mood, form and/or body language (eg. stooping, face, a limp, extra stretching, extra resting). 

Video feedback can demonstrate this to them, especially young athletes as they are very visual now days.

In my experience, these changes are more-often-than-not indicative of (pending) injury and are warning signs of failure of their body to change or adapt (maladaptation) to their 'load' in the context of their life/style demands.

Of course, too, for serious/elite athletes…'these' are necessarily managed!

Yet, having the athletes (line) graph  them, I'm encouraging them to make some of their subjective feelings objective and, importantly, to pay attention to the contexts in which they wholistically and their bodies (more specifically) react or adapt or change over time in relation to training (load) and competition and life/style.

We sit down each week and look at the changes in their graphs: the peaks and troughs, the undulations. We talk about what happened in training and in their lives; we discuss how different things manifest themselves differently in their graphs and at different times; and, together, we learnt the factors that are best for each of them to monitor and then, if need be, change or adapt training/recovery accordingly.

It is rare that they don't hear 'anything'. No news is often good news, and silence often says much: you're improving and/or adapting, or things are too easy so let's take another step.

What do you hear?