Who here works hard?
Cool, cool. That is , of course, assuming you haven’t worked so hard you cant raise your hand anymore, anyway…
Okay… How hard? At what? How often? For how long? Why?...
You know what’s weird? As a novelty, and even though I asked those questions, I don’t really care what the answers are. Rude, right?...
That’s a lie. I DO care, but not just yet. Wait a few paragraphs.
Regardless of if we are talking about our desk job, the scaff we put up this week bro, or the epic leg day that made sure that stairs were temporarily viewed by you as crimes against humanity, recovery is kind of a big deal. A big enough deal that doing something at a stupidly high level is only able to be done if you are recovering enough.
And I don’t just mean the physical training stuff or the manual labour stuff either. The dude at the office needs recovery time too, it just seems less obvious. The body may not look like the rig that dude wishes he had, but the brain takes a bludgeoning from the gig regardless.
Before we go any further though, a couple of topics might need bringing up. They mostly relate to physical stuff, but I think there is enough neuroscience based back up to suggest that its relevant to that glob of fat we have between the ears too.
First, there’s the idea of overtraining. If you’ve never heard of it, lucky duck. Its not fun. I mean, the training lets you do awesome stuff, but the body feels like its been in a fight with the weights/ball/track/bag/sparring partners face if it was made of cement. Progressive or flighty niggling injuries, fatigue and the feeling like you are actually going backwards in your training is usually what it boils down too. Push that for long enough, and burnout or more significant injuries are yours for the asking. Congrats!!!
Next idea is minimum effective dose. Which describes the amount of stress (acute stress like training and jogging and reading and learning, not chronic stress like the boss is a dick all day every day or the husband is just too stupid to live… that chronic stuff sucks…) necessary to compel the body to adapt to the super fun stimulus you’re throwing at it. But that’s it. Cut-off anything beyond what is absolutely barely going to get you progressively cooler/bigger/better/faster/hotter.
Whereas, maximum recoverable effort is the opposite. Sort of. This is where overtraining typically becomes a thing. The amount of work done is acutely and chronically exceeding your ability to recover and continue to function as a cohesive and coherent human. You slowly partially break, until you properly break. Maximum recoverable effort is the line we cross from the thing that’s going to force all those amazing adaptations, to fucked. Fucked now, double fucked later.
“So,” you may be asking, Millicent, “why does this stuff eve remotely matter to me?”
Well, get this!
You don’t get those cool better things your body and brain can do without some rest. Sleep and food (or supplements if you are so inclined, but you still need actual food. Promise) and days off and relatively stress-free days and all that stuff. Otherwise, your system has no basis for comparison and thinks that this ever-increasing load of un-fun is your new normal and just battens down the hatches for the stress induced, cortisol shit storm that doesn’t allow for adaptation.
If you are trying to learn something cool through diligent and dedicated study, but don’t get enough sleep, your brain can’t consolidate that new information properly while in REM sleep. So it doesn’t get cemented in… And that’s true of crap sleep the night before your bookish nerd lessons too. Priming the brain with rest AND soothing the brain with rest are very imperative to actually learning something in a permanent way. Law of diminishing returns applies pretty hard with this stuff.
The same is true of trying to get stronger. The brain does as much, if not more, adaptation as the muscles when trying to specifically improve strength, as we are effectively trying to improve the efficiency and neuron volume when it comes to recruiting more of the muscle you already have to lifting something stupid.
Obviously, having more muscle to throw at a heavy thing helps too. So, we need food and rest in order for the body to absorb and use that energy to repair stimulated muscle fibre’s so they have a reason and the fuel for the rig to get swole bro.
And that’s just lifting heavy stuff.
What if you’re an athlete learning a new play with new movements that require physical and mental coordination far beyond mere mortal prowess? Same thing, but more.
What if you want to lose weight and be cut like diamond? Well, that food and sleep needs to be enough to convince your body that you aren’t dying and under constant threat and needs to be “stocking up for the winter” to survive whatever is coming your way. Otherwise, it cracks the shits and does the opposite of what you want. I mean, it’s a little more complicated than that, but talking about insulin resistance and the multitude of ways that’s a thing can probably wait for another post. Suffice to say, to be not fat is to convince the brain and body it doesn’t need to be fat.
What if you just achieved grand master status at your chess club which means you have now achieved a level of fame and notoriety well beyond your wildest chess dreams? Well, you need sleep and peace to assimilate and realign your emotional state to deal with this new sense of self you have achieved. (No, I am not taking the piss there. Sleep is extremely effective in giving the human you are space to process new information and challenging emotional states in order to wake up not driving yourself slowly insane with overthinking or delusions of egotistical grandeur. Yes, we are awesomely sophisticated and freaking weird, in a cool way, at the same time…)
Finding the balance that suits you and lifestyle for exertion to rest is the key though. Figuring out how much effort you need to achieve your wanted state of buffness or geekiness, seeing if that aligns with your current state of effort, and if that’s is supported by your current or suggested amount of recovery is the tricky balancing act of variables that will see you get to your lofty peak, or crash and burn like an Icarian comet riddled with fugue state and injuries.
As always, The Questions™…
What do you want?
How hard do you need to work to get there?
Does what you do outside of that work support you getting to that want in one solid and capable piece?
Is your sleep long and restful enough?
Is your food sufficiently supportive and nourishing enough?
Is your lifestyle compatible with the time frame and goals you have in mind?
Or does stuff need to change so you can hit the sweet spot between minimum effective dose and maximal recoverable effort?
What do you want, and what are you prepared to do to have it?
Have a day off to think about that. Then have a good night’s sleep to process that. I’ll write you a note, if you need one, for the boss/spouse/kids/mean jerk in your head trying to shame you into not taking some rest. It’ll be all signed and stamped and authentic and everything!
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“A single day is enough to make us a little larger or, another time, a little smaller.” Paul Klee
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