Doing That Thing You Do

I am referring to rest. You know – that thing that you do (sounds like an oxymoron) when you do almost nothing physical.

Athletes need rest when they are not training; this excludes actual rest days in a week. The older the athlete, the more rest they require as their recovery and recuperative abilities diminishes with age. In your 20’s, you can probably recover reasonably well within 24 hours. In your 30’s, it is about 24-48 hours; in your 40’s and beyond, about 48-72 hours after an intense workout or race.

Rest is not defined as complete inactivity. It may mean spending a few days off from the actual cause of the soreness and fatigue. A long season of training can take its toll on your body through neural and physical fatigue. Physical fatigue stems from muscular stress and depletion of energy stores (over-arching), whereas neural fatigue is about the boredom and fatigue that stems from repetitive action and being adaptive to one type of sport. Cramping has also been attributed to neural fatigue due to overuse of the same muscle groups.

It is about two weeks away from Ironman Western Australia 2011, and the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2011. Some runners are still doing their long runs of up to 30K, which do not leave much room for full recovery. If our recovery experience and injuries can teach us: it is better to rest more, than bludgeon the body more. That is why a tapering period was designed prior to a race. It is a systematic way of reducing mileage but retaining the intensity of the activity. Just before the race, you can do short, sprints to activate the muscles lest the passive recovery and rest reduces muscle tone. You want to taper yet keep your muscles attuned to racing conditions. I tend to spin on the stationary-bike for about 20 minutes and do a 10-minute treadmill run, focused on my gait and landing. This is a pre-race rehearsal that prepares my muscles for the run about 12 hours before the race; I applied this approach over my previous two 3:30 marathons.

To ward off delayed muscle recovery, consider the formula for exercise known as FITT: frequency, intensity, type and time. This systemic approach to designing exercise programs can also be transferred to leadership and workplace processes such meetings, giving feedback, coaching, and measuring performance.

Leadership Lessons: How FITT are you as a manager? How often do you make time for proper rest? When do you know when to engage in argument and then ‘give it a rest’? How often do you call for a ‘timeout’ when things do not go well within your team?