středa 23. července 2014

How to overcome tiredness which blocks your training

Hello again :)

I was thinking about publishing short post highlighting one life-hack and I can't come up with anything else than my very recent experience around physical training activities connected to regular working day.

(Before you start reading this post, note that the key point is at the very end.)

Things were easier when I was student and/or working part time. You can adjust your schedule pretty dynamically with respect to your body needs and except examination period there is (generally) pretty much "free time" -- so you can sleep well = regenerate well and you also don't perform too much psychical work at once so you don't feel such "drained".

Almost every single day is the same. After more than 9 hours at work (lunch, commuting included) you feel like used sponge thrown in a thrash can. Literally. Exhausted -- that's the right word.

And there is a training ahead of you. It's always better when you already "signed" your training attendance. It usually happens when you play team sport and you said -- yes I will attend. So you will attend, case closed.

But! What if you have planned just individual training session? Swimming or running. Who will force you to really do it? No one. That's true, no one.

Now you will have to fight yourself. Brace yourself -- excuses are coming!

The problem is that you are tired from work and the best thing you want to do is fall on your bed and sleep.

And this is how it usually ends. You arrive at home, take a snack (or dinner) and you feel tired and go sleep. There are SO MANY BAD things here!! Let me elaborate.

1) It is around 5 or 6 PM now and that's your body's performance peak time. Ideal time for training and you are wasting it.

2) You cook and eat food (maybe not very healthy food) and now you have a food coma, again. This will kill you together with work tiredness.

3) As you fall asleep, without setting up your alarm clock for 20 minutes nap, you will probably woke up in your deep sleeping phase (hello Murphy's law). There will be some kind of interruption, trust me... and now, you feel even worse than before it. 

4) Any training is not possible now and you will waste your time in front of a computer, again.

So, as a conclusion -- I will not go for a training session. Damn!

How to do it better? 

1) If it is possible eat light snack in your work 1 hour before you are leaving. You will be ready for training in sense of food consumption and stomach fullness/emptiness.

2) If you are really tired, take a nap before your training. It works like a charm somewhere around 5 PM. Make sure you set up your alarm clock properly for 20 minutes.

And now THE BIGGEST AND THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT EVER!!!

Visualize and imagine your feeling after your last training when you were exhausted before it. 

How did you feel after that? YES! Full of energy, satisfied, strong again, full of endorphins, positive, unstoppable... now you know this is worth and rewarding enough to take it. Now you have very strong logical argument which should help you fight your laziness/tiredness.

And that's it. When everything seems to play against you, just recall that brilliant feeling you have after training which shouldn't be done, but it was. Fortunately.

Cheers,
Tomas :) 

2 komentáře:

  1. nice post, i know what you are talking about. I did little "life hack" and brought dumbells directly to work. When some task is taking a really lot of time, e.g. some jenkins job or whatever, I do some series for biceps and arms. At least something ... and probably better then doing nothing spending your time aimlessly on the net ...

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  2. Hi stewe, thanks for your input! Yes, that's a brilliant way how to work your a*s out without any "transaction time". You don't need to go anywhere to a gym/fitness so you are ready to do your workout right now, right here. It works for me as well. I'm doing push-ups this way or strengthening my quads during sitting and doing stuff I don't need to be fully focused on. Happy workout!

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