Every human being has a capacity for how much stress or “load” their system can endure in a given day before something bad (like injury or illness) happens.
Take out a piece of paper and draw a horizontal dotted line across the page about three-quarters of the way up.
This is your capacity.
Starting at the bottom of the page, there are boxes of stress or “load” that we stack one on top of the other. These include things like:
Anatomical Dysfunction
Parts of your body that don’t work quite the way you’d like or need them to in a way that interferes with your physical activities.
Stress/Sleep/Diet
Things you can definitely control and improve with practice.
Functional Diagnosis
These could be movement limitations, for example, maybe you can’t squat to depth without pain, or it hurts to do lunges.)
And not to mention another box – sitting in a car and/or at a desk for 8-10 hours a day.
Finally, after all those boxes are stacked one on top of another, you get to your workout.
The goal each day should not be to feel crushed by your workout. It should feel awesome when you’ve finished your workout and still be below your capacity.
If you’ve ever been injured doing a workout, chances are it wasn’t that last deadlift or kettlebell swing that did it. It was everything leading up to it that pushed you over the edge.
Now, most of us can’t control how long we need to sit at a desk, but you can shrink that box a bit by getting up every 60 minutes or so and doing some walking or stretching.
By working with a qualified coach, you can reduce anatomical dysfunction with corrective exercises targeting the trouble area.
By going to sleep an hour earlier, using healthy strategies to manage stress, and getting lean protein and colourful veggies with every meal, you can significantly reduce the size of that box, too.
And, rather than “training through pain,” you can shrink the functional diagnosis box by executing the movements in your workout that are pain-free.
This way, when you walk into the gym for your workout, you have plenty of room beneath your dotted line so that you don’t go over capacity and hurt yourself.
Continue pushing yourself, using a “no pain, no gain” mentality or viewing your workout as punishment for your weekend eating binge will only lead to injury, illness and frustration.
Stay healthy and strong!
Your coach
Michał
B3&FIT