Times are tough right now, if you weren’t into exercise before quarantine, most likely you won’t be exercising during. We wanted to talk about how exercise isn’t the end all be all to a healthy lifestyle. It is just a piece to the whole puzzle.
Maybe you’re reading this, sitting there and thinking to yourself… I can eat whatever I want as long as I train like an animal. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Nutrition, recovery, sleep and active daily living are ultimately all that play a role in this puzzle. Realizing that fine tuning is always going to be apart of it and basing it off of how YOU feel. No one knows your body better than you and if you can’t internally tune in, then maybe that is a goal that needs to be worked on.
Exercise shouldn’t be a punishment to your body, it is how you live your life on a daily basis that enables you to train. Most of the athletes we train, we have to take it back a notch because they are being overtrained in practices. What bucket do we need to hit? Are they not recovering after training? Are they stressed out/high anxiety all day? How are they eating? As a coach/trainer you must ask these open ended question in order to best serve the client/athlete. Sometimes the client/athlete may not even know what they want/need, we need to notice these things and potentially help them realize, “hey, maybe drinking a bottle of wine 5x’s a week is hindering your recovery or maybe we need to work on your sleep.”
The point? As a coach/trainer, let’s stop focusing on strictly exercise, there are other components and buckets that we need to fill. It is our job to help the client realize that, then have them own that to start incorporating it into their daily lives. A healthy lifestyle is more than just exercise and “punishment to the body.” Take care of yourself and your body/mind will thank you.