Learning to Listen to Your Body
How many times have you heard this from a trainer or coach? “Listen to your body!” We all say it, but I wonder if we think about the recipient when we say it. Will an athlete know how to listen to her body on her third week of CrossFit after 29 years of inactivity ? I say “NO!”. So how do we teach our athletes to listen to their bodies? By learning to listen to our athletes.
When we listen to our athletes, over time we’ll start to recognize patterns and behaviors that correlate to events. For instance, if an athlete has poor performance on Mondays, we can assume rest and nutrition are less-than-stellar on the weekends. When an athlete comes in tired during evening workouts, but is very energetic during morning workouts, we can probably assume a couple things about their schedule. This athlete is probably not getting proper sleep for our level of activity. What about an athlete who drops off half-way through a WOD? How much fat are they eating? Is the macro balance of this athletes foods might be out of whack? Afternoon and evening crashes are dips in our circadian rhythm. The deeper the dip, the sleepier we get. If we see this occurring, we can talk to the athlete, figure out what is out of whack, and correct it for next time.
Image courtesy CrossFit Invictus
So, again, how do we teach them to listen to their bodies? First and foremost, the obvious factors should be discussed. Is the athlete keeping track of what and when they eat, how much sleep they are getting, and recording all their workouts? This information can be invaluable when trying to show an athlete why they feel how they do, or why it’s time to rest, etc. When we recognize changes in performance or mood, we can sit down with the athlete, discuss the last few days in their lives, and show them how’s and why’s. This, in turn, will give them cues to recognize next time. I find it very easy to be excited for a workout during a time of day when my energy level is the highest. It’s at this point that I go back and look at what I’ve eaten, how I slept, etc. and try to remember the pattern for next time. This can help us prepare for an important WOD (competition) or just for that really hard WOD like Murph. The “constantly varied” component of CrossFit suggests we try to vary the time of day we workout as well. When was the last time you woke up early and did your WOD before work? Or, if you are already a morning Wodder (new word, I just invented it), how about doing it in the evening? This varied stimuli will aid in the learning process, and help our athletes recognize what their bodies are telling them day to day.
How about injury and soreness? When is it OK to workout with pain? This is harder to teach, as it requires a length of time in training to adequately build the mental database of “aches and pains” to determine what is soreness and what is injury. You can workout sore. No problem there at all. If the soreness limits your range of motion, then stretching and foam rolling/massage might be in order before the workout, but increased blood flow will help the soreness. If the pain is acute, then we start to wonder about injury, and it’s never a good idea to work an injured body part. Modify the workout to protect the injury, or eliminate the body part all together.
Stiffness and inflexibility can be very uncomfortable, and many inexperienced athletes confuse this discomfort with injury pain. There are many CrossFit Journal articles devoted to re-hab (or pre-hab if I may) to help athletes become more flexible. It’s important for us to impart the ability to recognize the difference in these types of aches and pains, otherwise out athletes cannot properly listen to their bodies and may continue to workout when they should be resting. Kelly Starrett from SFCF has quite a number of videos in the Journal that explain common problems, and suggests methods to correct them. These are great references for us to use in helping an athlete understand their aches and pains.
If we can properly identify and communicate these things in ourselves and our athletes, then they will be better able to listen to their bodies. We’re better trainers for it, and they’re better athletes. It might seem a simple concept, but one that is rarely taught, and most probably take for granted. Hopefully this will lead to athlete’s that can come in and say, “Coach, today I think I need to just take it easy. I feel a bit worn down and it’s been a couple weeks since I took more than one days of rest.” Instead of getting an email or phone call from an athlete who says, “I am so sore today, I can’t even lift my arms. I knew I should have taken a day of rest yesterday.”
