Discussion of progress in injury rehabilitation, sporting competition,
physique sculpting and general fitness focuses almost entirely on training
methods, periodisation, plyometrics, nutrition, ergogenic aids (like
performance enhancing drugs) and sometimes restoration, but very rarely
addresses apparently peripheral stressors in one's life.
Thus, while we spend an inordinate amount of time on these factors, we tend
to ignore the impact of daily events such as loss of a loved one, loss of a
job, change of occupation, affairs of the heart, illness of a loved one,
upheaval in your nation, financial problems and other stresses in one's life
which are seldom or never factored into a bodybuilding training card, a
computerised periodisation scheme, a personal training diary or a
rehabilitation protocol. Yet, we all know how these factors can halt or
reverse one's progress.
Science does not pay much attention to these factors in laboratory studies on
the fitness or performance of subjects in a laboratory study, doctors and
other therapists are advised not to become involved in private emotional
matters like these, personal trainers try to avoid this territory because it
can have profound effects on their level of professionalism, athletes in
so-called "manly" sports seem to think that one must just grin and bear it
whatever ... and so on.
I doubt if there is anyone on this list who has not had to cope with a
demanding training program under conditions of debilitating or distracting
daily life stresses, so you all must possess some expertise in coping with
these circumstances. It would be both interesting and valuable if some of
you would care to identify some great stressors which accompanied
rehabilitation programmes and how you or your clients actually managed to
deal with those stressors to still be able to make definite progress in your
sporting lives.
Even if you or your client did not manage to cope adequately at the time,
your feedback on how the non-training stresses affected your rehabilitation
or that of your clients would also be very helpful to others, especially if
you learned some lessons from previous coping inadequacies.
We might find that ideas emerging from such a discussion will enable some of
us to make more progress than changing to a new conditioning or
rehabilitation program, ingesting the latest performance enhancing drugs,
using new technology, invoking alternative miracle aids, bathing in goat
whey, or obtaining help from one of the world's greatest rehab gurus.
Over to all of you to learn some REAL secrets of rehabilitating or training
under the most stressful conditions!
Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Supertraining/ (more discussion on similar
topics)
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