The Ups And Downs Of Training

​No training journey is ever linear. There are always countless ups and downs. In this episode I explore how they has affected my training recently, and what I recommend to overcome periods like this.

​Chapters:

0:06 Training Journey Insights
6:27 Facing Roadblocks
11:19 Finding the Middle Ground
12:06 Community and Conclusion

Episode Transcript: 

[0:00] All right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. So in today's episode, we are talking about the ups and downs of training.

[0:07] And I'm going to talk you through a bit of a personal story and personal journey that I've been going through, which I know so many hikers go through the exact same thing. And I'm just going to talk you through a few words of advice if you find yourself here. Now, one of the things we make clear to every single hiker that we work with through Summit Strength, and we say this to every single person who comes on board one of our coaching programs, is that no training journey is ever a linear process. Throughout any training journey, whether it's a six-week journey or a six-month journey or anything in between, there will be ups, there will be downs, there will be good days, there will be bad days. And one of the most crucial keys to success of any training journey is that when you go through a down period, when you have a long-term, a down day, when you have a barrier that comes up.

[1:01] Don't let it completely knock you off the wagon when you're going through these down periods we need to keep our longer term ambitions in mind keep on moving forward in one way or another pick ourself back up when we can and keep on moving forward this is crucial for training success and we ask all our hikers if they can do this when we're working with them and today i'm going to be talking how this specifically has recently affected me now over the last month, I've been getting back into my training. I talked about, you know, on previous podcasts about four or five episodes ago, you know, my reasons why I was so out of routine and reasons why it's been such a struggle to train and reasons why getting back into training has been really important for me. And I've talked about that in a previous episode and I won't dive into it too much today. But essentially coming out of a really, really low period, I was like, look, I need to get into training. And I tried for a couple of weeks. I was like, oh, this sucks. I'm just fitting things in. I needed to get back into things. So I sat down and I was like, you know what, I'm going to set myself a solid plan. And I sat down and went through my goal setting and went through my understanding of my whys. I went through like my planning session and all of that. And I set myself a plan and I had a nice selection of different sessions I wanted to do through the week. I had realistic expectations and I'd sort of chosen time commitments and sessions, which I could work around how I was feeling, my time commitments at the moment, my energy and all of that. And I sat down and I got a really, really good plan together, which I was feeling excited it about.

[2:25] And then I got into things. And I'll tell you what, the first couple of weeks, once I'd set my plan and done all the stuff and all of that, the first couple of weeks of getting into my routine was rough. It was tough. And I really, really struggled. First of all, purely just getting myself to do the sessions was a massive mental battle. And just seeing I've been out of routine for a while, it was such a mental battle. Morning sessions, the sessions that I was waking up and doing first thing in the morning.

[2:56] Previously, I was waking up. I was feeling good. I was ready to roll, just jump out of bed and happy days. Now, the last couple of weeks, I had to set multiple alarms. I had to force myself out of bed. I had to tell my wife to be like, you know what? Hustle me out of bed if I'm trying to go back to bed. I dreaded it. If I was doing afternoon sessions, and so I didn't have to wake up in the morning, but all morning, I would just have excuses in my head. I come up with every single reason under the sun about postponing those afternoon sessions and just be like, oh, I don't need to do it or I'll push it back or, oh, you know what, I'm not feeling super energetic or whatever it may be. All morning, I do that leading into my afternoon sessions. And the actual, just the act of starting any of the sessions I was doing was really, really, really, really hard for these two weeks. It was a massive mental battle. And I was kind of just pushing and forcing myself through. Now, on top of that, like any time you were returning to training, you know, after a period of break, everything just felt terrible. Even though I had reduced my expectations on my sessions, I knew I was going in with reduced fitness and reduced strength. Even though I was going in and I was only doing like 50% of the sessions I was doing before, even though I was going in, I was intentionally choosing easier sessions.

[4:07] Even with all of that, I could very blatantly tell that my strength and my fitness were severely reduced from where I was before. My mobility to start was awful. I was going into positions. I was like, oh, I feel like an old man or whatever it may be. My body just wasn't moving how I wanted. I felt incredibly weak, whether I was lifting weights, whether I was just walking around or running. I was getting super out of breath really quickly. I'd literally be going up the stairs. I'd come back from a session. I'd be like, oh my gosh, I'm huffed and puffed. I was really struggling to control my breathing. Everything just sucked. It wasn't much fun. And I'm sure you've been through that before. And the first two weeks of getting back in my training routine were a massive battle, but I got through them. I pushed through, I dealt with it, I adjusted around and I got through. And then when week three came around, week three of my return to training, and I felt like I'd turned a corner. All of a sudden in week three, my sleep routine was much, much, much better. I was actually falling asleep at a reasonable time again. I was sleeping better. And I was getting up in the mornings feeling fresh. And it wasn't me having to force myself to an alarm, but I was actually waking up in the right times again. And I was all feeling natural. It was feeling really, really good.

[5:15] I also didn't have a mental battle for my sessions. It wasn't something I was dreading all day or making excuses about, but I literally woke up, I had something in my calendar, I put it into the schedule for the day, and I was like, cool, that's what I'm going to do, and it was good. And also for that week, I was noticing the first glimmers of things returning. My mobility was coming back. I was getting back into positions, feeling good. I started to feel like my muscles were working properly in the strength sessions, and I could push myself a little bit more and do a little bit more weight. When I was doing like runs and sprints, I wasn't actually feeling like I was just shuffling along, but I felt like it was kind of getting a little bit quicker. When I was doing other cardio, my breathing was improving and I was controlling things and I was managing to pace myself a little bit better and everything was seeing improvement. And I was like, yeah, these are the first glimmerings of improvement. It was still a long, long, long, long way from where I was before, but I was feeling the first solid progress and I was starting to look forward to my sessions. I felt that momentum building up, and I was feeling really, really good. And for my fourth week of training, looking towards it, I was really looking forward to pushing things harder, stepping it up, and beginning to move things forward, and really, really just building things out, adding a little bit extra time, adding a little extra intensity, and really moving forward.

[6:28] But then, and this is the crux of the episode, I hit a roadblock. On the Sunday night, the end of my third week, I made a bit of a gamble. with some leftovers. And I lost that gamble. And on Sunday night, my stomach was a little bit out of whack and it wasn't super happy. And ultimately, I woke up on Monday morning exhausted. I hadn't slept well. My stomach was still not feeling great. And I was just not feeling amazing. And my first thought on Monday morning, I was like, well, you know what? I was really looking forward to this training this week. And I was like, you know what? Screw it. Just ignore being sick, Rowan, ignore whatever. Just push through it, deal with it. You'll get through whatever it may be. Then I was like, ah, you know what, Rowan, seriously, it's not the end of the world if you miss the sessions. You know, respect your body. Let the healing come back. Don't run yourself down. See how you go. Be aware of how you're feeling. Be nice to yourself. So I fought off that first thought. Now, the second thought was like, well, if I'm being nice to myself and I'm sick, I'm just going to do absolutely nothing. I'm just going to lie around, just recover. But then I was like, no, Rowan, come on. I fought for this routine. It was a struggle to build this routine for two weeks or for three weeks. So I need to keep it. But I also need to respect, you know, how my body's feeling. So I went to my backup plan. I was like, look, I can't do my normal sessions. I don't want to do nothing. I'm going to do a bit of a backup.

[7:53] So on Monday, I was like, you know what? Instead of going to the gym and doing weights, which I've been doing on a Monday, I was like, you know what? I'm feeling a bit rubbish. But I simply did a 15-minute stretching session. And I was like, you know what? I'm just going to stretch it out, feel good, still tick something off for the day. But obviously, that's much, much more doable. walk. Now on Tuesday, I woke up and my stomach was much better. It still wasn't 100%, but it was much better. But now I felt like I was kind of fighting something off. I think the disrupted sleep and obviously, you know, the body was a bit run down or whatever it may be. You know, I was like, oh, I really am on the verge of just getting sick, sick now. So I had to be nice to myself. So instead of going to the gym and doing a kickboxing session in the morning, which I usually do on the Tuesday, I was like, no, I'm going to get out of bed at the same time. But instead, I'm just going to do a 30 minute casual walk. And then I did another one at lunch. just casually moving around. Enough movement to say, hey, I've done something today. Enough movement to say, hey, I've ticked off a session today. Enough movement to say, hey, I got out of bed and did something, but not going to run me down. Now on Wednesday, it was very, very similar. I woke up and initially I was like, oh, I'm feeling much better. So I went for a little walk in the morning. And usually Wednesday afternoon, I go do some weights. But I got halfway through the day. I was like, oh yeah, no, I'm still not feeling amazing. I'm still like kind of battling, fighting something off. So again, I reduced things down. I was like, I'm just going to do another the walk. And now Thursday, Because I was nice to myself and because I respected things, I've woken up and I'm feeling good. I'm feeling ready to roll. I'm feeling like I'm ready to get back into my normal routine.

[9:23] And as I get into the sessions, I'm going to get back, rebuild the routine, start pushing things. And in the end, it's not the end of the world. Now, you might be like listening to this and be like, all right, Rowan, what's the point? What are you getting at here? Like, you know, you've told this whole story and dragged this along. What's the point? But I am sharing this because this is a situation that I see so many people fall themselves into. And as much as when I'm saying this, you're like, well, this is common sense what you're talking about. When we're in the moment, when this type of stuff happens, it can really, really, really be difficult. And I see so many people fall into this. They start a routine. They struggle through those initial periods, but then they get through that initial period. They start feeling good. They start feeling great. They start feeling with momentum. They start feeling really excited. And then they get sick or something comes up. And it just throws things out of whack and the two options that people often lean to are just to push through and ignore that sickness or whatever and just push through and deal with it or do nothing and just have completely rest but i strongly strongly strongly recommend if you find yourself in this situation i advocate for the middle ground yes you want to respect your recovery yes you want to give yourself the time to recover yes you want to make sure that you're not running yourself on the ground, making things worse or whatever it may be. Absolutely. But also look back at these last weeks, all the hard work you've done maintaining, building this routine. You want to maintain it. You want to make sure you're still doing something to maintain that momentum.

[10:48] So find something easy, find something gentle, work yourself around, but stick to a routine during this time if you can. It doesn't have to be much, but it can go such a long way. And this may seem like I've sort of, you know, it's such a simple thing, but I promise you so many people will get so many benefits out of this if they keep this top of mind when they're going through. So if you find yourself in this situation, ignore the first impulse to push through, ignore the second impulse to do nothing, find that middle ground. And I promise you it'll go a long, long, long way.

[11:20] So with that being said, I think I'm going to wrap up today's episode. Last thing I will sort of say is I've been talking about my training journey a little bit on this podcast. I'm also sharing much more about my journey inside the new Training for Hiking community group. Inside there, I'm keeping a running training log around what I'm doing, this and that. Also, people are obviously sharing their journeys and asking questions and answers and all of that. It's a really, really awesome community group we've got going and I would love to see some more podcast listeners in there. If you did want to check out the new group, it is completely free. I'm going to leave in a link in the show notes below. You can come join up, check it out, contribute, get involved with the community, learn some cool stuff and it really is a great place. So I'll leave a link for that in the show notes below. You can check it out and hopefully see you in there.

[12:03] So with that being said, I just want to say thank you so much for listening today. Hope you've enjoyed it. Really do hope if it helps a few people out and I'll just sort of say, if you go through this type of story in your own journey, very very common do the right things and you'll come out the other end ready to roll again so thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you very soon bye.

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