Busting the Blahs: What To Do When The Training Blahs Come!
One tool I’ve used successfully is the three A’s.
Acceptance, Analysis, and Action.
By Malvey of
http://couchtocompetition.blogspot.com
The Blahs. If it has happened already, maybe more than once, you know how
frustrating it can be. Reading the forums on this site, it is clear there
are lots of folks that have experienced it. If it hasn’t happened yet, it
will!
The blahs. Sometimes the blahs sneak up on you — slithering
their slimy little way into your happy training routine. Other times they
come on like a tornado. Things have been humming right along and then one
day out of nowhere they jump on you like a
crow on a June
bug.
However it happens, it stinks. A bad case of the blahs rips the energy out
of your spirit. I encountered this “blah” stuff just as it was time to get
serious with the first event of my tri season. If my wife had walked in
during the worst of it and said, “Honey, did you hear that they just blew up
the entire world?” My answer would have been something like, “Yeah… well…
maybe they’ll find another one… no big deal.”
That's scary stuff for me. I
know too well the guy who used to live in me. That old couch potato guy with
the pizza, beer, and remote is hiding in the weeds waiting to pounce in a
weak moment.
So what do you do when the blahs show up? One tool I’ve used
successfully is the
three A’s.
Acceptance, Analysis, and
Action
Acceptance
You first need to accept the fact that this blah thing comes knocking at
everyone’s life. It is normal. As we will soon see, there are different
kinds of blahs, but the fact you experience resistance to training is no new
thing. Mark this down as one of the barriers that will show up when you
begin to turn yourself from the couch to competition. There are physical
barriers and there are emotional / psychological barriers. In fact the
“head” stuff can sometimes be more difficult than the “body” stuff.
Now - when you accept the fact that the blahs are normal (not nice, mind
you, but normal, you are in a place to apply a bit of tough love to
yourself. Here’s a conversation I had with myself, “Okay Malvey – so you are
in the grip of something that stinks. You don’t feel like doing anything
today – just like you didn’t yesterday. AND your knee hurts, and you
miss cheddar cheese like crazy, and it takes an awful lot of time to do this
stuff, and, and, and…” Training isn’t all sweetness and light, you’re
going to hit times like this. Get over it, get a grip, and let’s figure out
what’s going on. No way in hell you’re really going back to the couch
– right? When you have a talk with yourself along this line (sooner is
better than later), you are ready for the next step.
Analyze
Blahs are sneaky. And there are different kinds.
There are the
occasional
blahs. They come every now and then. After a couple of years, you know these
times will come and you have a way to deal with the problem. The occasional
blahs are not a critical issue. It’s a pain when they come, but they do not
knock you out – you work through them, gut it out, and know it will get
better.
The second kind is the
situational blahs. Anything from
economic worries to grief, family trouble, or a major injury can bring
discouragement that winds its way through your training routines. Your
energy is drained by the circumstance and it will feel like there just isn’t
anything left for your workouts. These are tougher, but you can overcome
them.
The last kind is the
persistent blah. You resist
training or workouts frequently. It comes round like a stray dog that won’t
leave. Nag, nag, nag. It can get to be oppressive and the ugly thought will
weave its way into your thinking. “Is this all worth it?”
The blahs are the psychological equivalent of
“saddle soreness” – a pain in the butt. They go from mild to severe, but
once you do an analysis you can move on.
Act
When encounter the
occasional blahs, you need to check
a couple of things:
·
Rest days — are you taking the right amount. If
your resting heart rate and blood pressure are just a bit higher than
normal, you may need some recovery time. You may be over training. We don’t
mean taking two rides on your bike instead of one this week.
·
Stretch Yourself — you may need to challenge
yourself a little bit more. With my own occasional funky times, I pick one
of my workouts (usually running) and push a little harder on the days I most
don’t want to do it. That will sometimes bust the blah.
·
Change routine — It sounds like an oxymoron but
a change in my regular workout schedule sometimes works. A walk with my wife
instead of a run by myself, a ride with my daughter at a really easy pace
instead of my “take it to the limit” ride. Then there’s gardening instead of
lifting weights or checking out a parachute drop (haven’t used this one yet)
instead of the evening news.
Situational blahs
are more difficult and the difficulty is proportional to the circumstances
you are going through.
·
Push a little harder.
·
Rely on your routines when situational distress
comes and trust the good outcomes that are there for those who persist. — On
a personal note, when my father died it took a huge chunk out of my energy.
We were very close and I wasn’t ready to let him go at all. I remember
clearly at one very intense time in the first days (I was a runner back
then) – I put on my running gear and headed out on the road – didn’t have a
clue for how long. As I ran, I remembered, wept, laughed and eventually was
able to “let it be”. I was running into a sunset and ran ‘til the sun went
down and something about the sunset and the promise of a sunrise connected.
By the time I got home, I had run my first half marathon and while the grief
wasn’t over by any means, it was better. Running was my good friend – it was
there for me.
·
Physical injury? Then focus on the routines you
can keep instead of the ones you can’t. Don’t push past physical limits that
need to be respected. When injured, “less is more,” for the interim.
·
Persistent
blahs requires going back to the basics.
·
When your blahs are persistent – on you like
yucky sticky stuff – you need to make sure you have absolutely habituated
your routines.
·
If you have never really made the routines a
habit — go back and set up your schedule again and gut it out for six to
eight weeks.
·
If your routines aren’t the problem, you may
need to shake up your routine in a major way.
·
Take a vacation to Hawaii and ship your bike,
ride Honolulu and run the beach. For the remaining 99.5% of us who can’t do
that it might be checking out a new sport.
·
Grab a kayak, check out parasailing, try out
archery, or go fly a kite. (Really!) There is an emotional equivalent to
what we can experience physically in the gym. My weight training coach said
to me early on during a time when I had hit a plateau, “You’ve got to shock
the muscles – change up your routine.” Now I’ve built three or four versions
of my basic training program to fend off the boredom blues.
·
Check your nutrition. Are you getting enough
carbs? Is there too much refined sugar in your diet are you consistently
hydrating — a minimum of eight glasses of water a day?
Hang tight friend. Physical fitness and the
goals we embrace to keep ourselves tuned up physically have intellectual,
social, emotional, and spiritual benefits. And – of course you have this
rapidly growing number of fellow travelers at Beginner Triathlon who are
standing on your personal sideline cheering you on!
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