Podcast #8 – How Much Is Too Much?

What’s going on. Y’all. Welcome to the pro day sports performance training Tulsa podcast. I’m your host, Josh Jackson. And today we’re going to be talking about an awesome topic of how much is too much. So our whole job, our whole goal is get athletes to the next level, help athletes exceed their athletic careers in this process it takes a lot of work. So how much of that work is going to be too much work? How much is too much on the body, where you’re increasing your risk of injury, where you are depleting, what could be better use time doing something that is otherwise hurting you, if that makes sense. So you have to make the decision as an athlete on what things are you going to do to accelerate your career and what things do you, are you able to recognize that something that probably won’t help accelerate your career that much so you’re not going to take the time to do it because it could deplete your energy or could lead to injury.

So very confusing topic because the answer to this is going to really be, it depends on what you do. So for each athlete, this is going to be different for each athlete. The details of this change, but I’m hoping to in this podcast give you an overview for everyone that is interested in adding sports performance training to their workout regimen that they already have and then possibly adding other sports into the mix and all that stuff. How you can navigate through that cautiously and in a safe manner. So lots of parents will ask me, um, is my kid doing too much or how do I manage doing a basketball mixed with private training for basketball and mix with sports performance training mixed with my kid loves playing football and so on. There’s so many layers to it for most athletes. So there’s a couple of categories that we need to go over and these are the main categories that we need to be sure that we have in line with our Sports Performance Training Tulsa.

So we’re going to talk a little bit about nutrition, water consumption, stuff like that. We’re also going to be talking about rest, sleep recovery. We’re going to talk about proper recovery in terms of foam rolling, compression, all that stuff. And then we’re going to talk about total workload. Okay? So with this, there’s a spectrum there is not doing nearly enough and there is doing way too much. You’ll fall somewhere on that line there. Not everyone is the same. Not everybody is like, Oh, you’re perfectly in the middle. It changes per person and per body type in all of that. So let’s jump into all of these topics. So number one, you need to have a list of everything it is that you’re trying to do with the sports you’re trying to play, the extracurricular activities you’re doing and the training you do for that. Whatever sport you’re in, that changes your age will change things as well.

But let’s get into a little bit of the details. So first off, let’s talk about what is most important. And in this scenario, the most important thing is obviously the sport itself. So if you are a gymnast, then gymnastics is the most important. If that’s your goal, if your goal is to play at the next level, then that’s going to be your most important. Second to that could be strength and conditioning, strength training, sports performance training, whatever the next stages of the thing that you see or you value as the most important and then pass that would be extracurricular activities and so on. So when I have parents come up and they say, okay, my daughter is a volleyball player, she plays sand volleyball, she also plays club volleyball, she’s going to have school volleyball, she wants to do sports performance training and she does all these extracurricular activities just for fun at our Sports Performance Training Tulsa center.

I always, my first question is what’s the most important? What is the one thing that above all else the athlete wants to do or the one thing that the athlete that will accelerate the athletes career the best. Once you’ve decided that in this case it was club volleyball club, indoor volleyball is going to be the thing that could accelerate this girl. This in particular this girl’s career into a college scholarship, a college career, maybe into a professional career. So now that we’ve decided that’s the most important that comes at the top of every list. So when I’m scheduling out my workloads for the week, anything that has to do with that is going to be the top priority. If you’re a basketball player, it might be practicing with your team, playing games with your team, whatever it may be. If your football playing games, practicing with the football team, so on.

So you pick that one category that is above all else, the most important. After you’ve decided that category, you then move into the next what is second most important and accelerating your career. So in the case of this volleyball player, it was sand volleyball. So it went from club indoor volleyball to sand volleyball on their list. So then you pick and every scenario, what is your second? Um, the second thing that is going to be the most beneficial for accelerating your career. And these are all opinion based. Some people might think differently, parents might think differently than the kids and so on. You can talk to a professional, you know, or somebody that works with recruiting and get an idea on what the quote unquote right answer is. But at the end of the day it’s going to be an opinion based answer, so you’re going to decide this tier of what’s most important, what’s second, and then this just keeps going to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing, and then it ends with what are your goals are for the best .

If you want to play in college, if you want to play just through high school, then your extracurricular activities that are just something fun to do on the side. That changes because if you’re just doing this for fun in high school, then you might as well have fun doing extracurricular activities. If you’re wanting a college career, then what level do you want that career to be? Do you want to be a professional athlete? Because if so, that changes everything that you do. Do you just want to be a moderate level college athlete? Get this some scholarship and then ride off into the sunset. Then that will change what you do. Okay, so I know this is a little bit confusing, but the first thing I would always do is put tears together. What is the most important? What’s second? What’s third? What’s fourth? So on, once you have all of put together, then it’s the testing phase.

You need to as an athlete, test out what workload you can take. Yes, the nutrition, the rest of the proper recovery will all have an effect on that one. I’m going to talk about the vast importance of that with a high workload. But the first thing we have to decide with all of this is does it work? Can I do this? So go do all of the things that you have on this list and see how you feel. If you feel exhausted, if you feel sleep deprived, if you are always drained and you’re sore and all that, then we need to assess and maybe make changes. This changes over time too. You can feel amazing on your first week of doing a billion things and then come week two, you could hit a wall or come month two, you could hit a wall. So being very heightened, aware of your body, of your feelings and of your overall.

Um, I guess exertion of energy is going to be a huge tell on if you’re overworked or not. If you’re always tired, that’s probably not a good thing. And so then once you figure out this thing and you’ve tested, you can say, okay, I found out that after two weeks my workload is too much, but I don’t want to quit doing anything, any of the things that I’m doing. And that’s when you need to jump in to the nutrition, the water, the rest of the proper recovery. Although these things should be done all the time, no matter who you are, whether you’re an athlete or not, these things are vastly important to overall health. They are of the extreme importance for an athlete with a heavy workload. So first nutrition, we’re going to go into some podcasts that really dive into nutrition and all of the details of it, things that you should eat, but for the most part, generally everyone knows what eating healthy is and what eating unhealthy is as well with a great Sports Performance Training Tulsa service.

So whenever you start looking at stuff, believe the things that you hear that are general that you’ve heard the whole life. Like, Hey, eating greens, eating vegetables is amazing. Eating green vegetables is even better. Fruits are good for you. Getting protein is good for you. All of these things are good and it’s not really a question of if they’re good or not. They are good, especially when it comes to like vegetables, especially green vegetables. They have a lot of vitamins in them that will help you to stay healthier, keep your muscles, joints, ligaments, all that stuff. Healthy and chugging along. Make sure you don’t get injured. Alright, so nutrition, huge drinking a lot of water, massive. Your body needs water. You need to be drinking a large amount of water a day. Go on to Google and say, how much water should I be drinking?

If I’m this age and this weight and find an answer? It’s all out there, but at the end of the day, you’re really not going to drink too much water, so drink as much as you can, especially when you’re very active. You need to be drinking a ton of water. Alright, so that was super brief on nutrition and water. I understand, but that gives you a little bit of an overview. Eat really healthy more than anything with this, I want you to know that this has to be an awareness for you. If you’re not thinking of nutrition and you’re not thinking of the foods you eat, what you’re drinking and all that stuff, but you have a high workload, you’re doing it wrong. You need to be thinking about these things constantly to be sure that you are not messing up anything that could be with your athletic career what makes the best Sports Performance Training Tulsa very enjoyable.

Alright, after that, the most important thing to managing a heavy workload is rest. This comes above all else, even for functioning in normal life. There’s so many studies out there that show people that are asleep, deprived, sleep deprived, perform much worse than people that have proper rest there. You’re more susceptible to injury if you’re not getting proper rest. And the list goes on. Rest is extremely important. So if you’re getting four or five hours of sleep at night, you’re doing something wrong and your risk of injury has just gone up like crazy. So we need to be sure that we are getting proper rest, which means we need to be trying to get a minimum of eight hours of sleep a night. I know you hear some stuff that’s like, okay, seven or you can do less than that if you do these things. But at the end of the day, we need to get as much sleep as we can.

That doesn’t mean go sleep for 15 hours straight, but it does mean that listen to your body and if you feel exhausted, don’t set up on your phone. Don’t set up watching TV, go to sleep. Rest. Make sure your body’s getting recovered, especially if you want a long and fruitful career. Okay, so nutrition, water, rest, all crazy important. On top of that, we need to be sure that we’re foam rolling, that if we have access to compression where at pro day sports performance training, Tulsa, we have rapid reboot compression therapy. So if you come in to get sports performance training or if you just come in and looking for compression, we can make that happen for you. That will also help with your recovery. And then like I said, foam rolling, stretching, doing all the things you need to do to be sure that your muscles are in the perfect condition to perform at their best and thus handle a heavy workload.

Okay, so let’s do a little overview real quick. With all of these podcasts, I’m wanting to get a good amount of topics out there that give you something to think about and then we’re going to go into heavier detail later on. So we’re figuring out how much is too much. Well, first I need to categorize all of the things that I want to do or should be doing from most important to least important. Once I have all those, I need a test and see where am I at right now? Can I handle all this stuff and still feel amazing because you might not have that much rigorous stuff on that list, but it could be enough to get it done. So you can do those things and then the process that you’re using currently could work just fine. So test and see through testing though, we need to be sure that we are doing everything right on the back end, which means getting proper nutrition, drinking the proper amount of water, getting plenty of rest and using the proper recovery techniques that we’ve seen to work like foam rolling, stretching, compression therapy, icing, all that stuff that we know helps with overall performance when you get the top Sports Performance Training Tulsa solution.

So create that list, test it, and then make sure you’re hitting all of these other pinpoint issues or things to work on like nutrition, wrestle that while you go at the end of the day, like I said, this is an opinion based answer completely and by opinion I guess. I mean it changes for every single person and it’s really what somebody can handle. Some people can’t handle much of a workload and they’ll get injured pretty quick. Others can really handle a heavy workload and they’re going to be just fine. Okay. So as you go through this monitor, monitor, monitor, be honest with how you feel. Don’t feel like you have to do more than you should be doing. Take care of yourself because at the end of the day, one wrong move of overworking and an injury could put you out for a year and out for a year is worse than tapering back my workload a little bit and continuing to be able to work out for that year.

All right. If you have any questions on this topic, swing by pro day sports performance training, Tulsa, and let us know. If you don’t want to do that, go to [inaudible] dot com pro day sports.com and contact us, email us, whatever it may be. If you are looking for sports performance training in Tulsa, let us know. Reach out. We can get you set up with that. If you want just more information in general, DMS, call us all that good stuff. Come in, get a free week of training. Yes, free week of training. Give us a call. Thank you for listening. We’ll see you next time. Peace.