How to accommodate the changes in our bodies over the long run.
I am a former college football player, and for the first few years after I stopped playing, I worked out like one. I’d spent so many years with my training program centered around strength training and plyometrics, that when it came time to make the change to a different form of fitness, I fell back on what I knew. Power circuits, pyramid sets, plyometric workouts, and many other types of workouts formed the center of my work at the gym for a few years after that. There was the occasional exercise class or dive into distance running or cycling, though it was half-hearted. I gravitated toward what was comfortable, but the results were far from the results I’d hoped. I gained weight, experienced chronic injuries, and eventually backed off of the fitness effort all together out of frustration. Looking back, this is the information that I wish I’d been given back then.
The most basic element of transitioning to life after competition is coming to grips with the inevitable physical changes. Competitive athletes spend much of their early lives focused on developing their bodies in ways that give them an edge in competition. We become self-conscious and self-aware as a bi-product of the type of training required of our participation. We learn to work out a certain way, and with a definite purpose. Strength training develops musculature that gives us an edge in the requirements of our sport, and prevents injury. Endurance training builds stamina, and skill-specific training develops our coordination as well as our conditioning. There are many more elements specific to sport and level of competition. All of the workout elements compliment the demands of our sport.
Once our competitive days are over though, we find ourselves with a host of new challenges and goals. We want to stay active, in shape, and healthy. The problem is that we have a whole new series of demands on our time in ‘real life’ after we’re done. We can also be forgiven if we bend to vanity a little bit. Who doesn’t want to look good, after all? The intended outcomes of our efforts change, and yet sometimes the workouts don’t. Too often, that means we fall back on the routines and we know so well – the ones designed for our sport. While that can work to a degree, there is a point at which different goals require different workouts.
Thinking from the perspective of long-term physical health and fitness, there are some specific areas in which a former athlete needs to accommodate both the physical advantages and the physical damage that come with competition. We come away with strength and stamina that are not typical, but we also come away with injuries and wear on our bodies that often continue to grow and challenge us as we age. While the best time to prevent this kind of degradation is right after we retire, the second best time is today.
Where to begin? There are three key considerations to bear in mind for athletes designing a long-term fitness plan post-competition. While there is more to designing workouts than this, it is crucial that we all include the following:
- Retain Your Flexibility and Cardiovascular Fitness.
While cardio is on many people’s plan for long-term fitness, often times flexibility is not. Maintaining pliable muscles and connective tissue is a key to long term activity and pain management, and gives us an edge in enjoying a broad range of physical activities throughout the course of our lives. Flexibility work takes many forms, starting with basic stretching, and extending into activities such as yoga, Tai Chi, pilates, or any number of movement forms that require slow, low impact extension and flexion.
- Rest, recovery, and rehabilitation.
Recovery is generally built into a lot of well-designed training programs in competition, though it gets a short look in the larger scope of lifetime litness. We still need to recover and rebuild, even if we are already moving on to a recreational sport. Building in appropriate amounts of time to heal after intense workouts is often a given as well, though things like appropriate daily sleep and recovery days between regular workouts are as important. Your recovery time will vary based upon the activity, and change as you age. Ignore this element, and your body will tell you when you’re overextending.
- Build your Workouts around your circumstances
Consider your competitive history when deciding on the best types of fitness activities for you. It’s not necessarily related directly to the sport in which you compete, and in fact it can actually be quite different. Did you compete in a strength sport, with lots of wear and tear on your leg joints? Running may be a bad idea, but swimming or cycling put less force on the knees and ankles. Did your sport require repetitive motion to one specific muscle or joint? Look to a different or more balanced activity to get moving, and even ones that rely on different body parts, to minimize wear and tear. Any athlete who has been out of competition for some time will tell you that those chronic, wear-and-tear injuries do heal, but they also lead to things like arthritis and joint degeneration. Build your workouts around the idea that you’ll have to take care of your body differently if you want it to serve you over the long haul. Because you will.
Naturally, those athletes who have ended their competitive careers due to either traumatic or chronic injuries have a much different focus, and factors to include therapy and avoidance of future re-injury. Their choices are obviously far narrower, and yet at the same time predetermined by their capacities. Still, the process is the same, in that all three elements come into play. They’re just limited in the scope of offerings. Traumatic injuries do heal for the most part, and a key to staying active and fit is strengthening the connected joints and limbs under careful consultation with your doctor.
In the final analysis, most former competitors will benefit from having a workout plan that we have designed as a way to remain healthy and fit for years after they are finished. That workout plan may look dramatically different than our regular training routine, and should take into account our personal needs and circumstances. Our competitive nature will always be a part of who we are, and we can feed it more successfully by maintaining a level of fitness. After all, it is much easier to STAY in shape than it is to GET in shape. We can stay healthy and active for a very long time, as long as we are thoughtful in the ways in which we go about it.
Do you have any factors to add in? Did I miss anything? Feel free to weigh in below.