Daylight savings time just happened, which always affects me more than I think it should.
I appreciate that it’s light when I get done at the gym now.
I even took advantage of it yesterday and went on a short run with Teddy.
But it also takes me a couple weeks until I stop saying “Oh shit… it’s almost 8pm and I haven’t even thought about dinner yet…”
Which leads me getting in bed late…
Which leads to less sleep.
So while I’m glad I was able to go for a nice sunny run with Ted last night, I’m also a little tired and behind schedule this morning.
So let’s get to it…
I was listening to a professional athlete talk about their training the other day and something occurred to me.
“Most people shouldn’t be focusing on any of this…”
The person talked for over an hour about all the things they were doing to get the most of our their training – from ketones to heat training to red light therapy to a long list of supplements they ingest.
And all I could think was “99% of people don’t need any of this…”
I mean, I find it interesting and love that someone’s talking about these things.
But it just shouldn’t be the focus for most people.
Of the hundreds of people I’ve coached, most of these things would provide nothing more than a distraction from the things that truly matter.
They’d just be something else that could get in the way and take more time out of the schedule.
I mean, when we’re looking at professional athletes, we’re almost always looking at people who have some sort of genetic gift and who are close to maximizing their actual training.
In order for them to find that extra 1% improvement that can make the difference in terms of getting on the podium, they might need to target some additional training methods.
But most of the people I coach are barely able to complete their weekly training runs.
They have struggles with things like childcare or they get held late at their job…
They get surprised with a class project or learn their kid’s baseball schedule got changed at the last minute…
As a result, they get to make hard choices between sleep and training.
Or training and spending time with their family.
And there isn’t an easy answer to those questions.
You just have to do what you can do, shuffle the week around, and try to get in as much as you can without shirking all of your other responsibilities.
This is why I get irritated when I hear professionals at the top of their game spend so much time talking about these “extraneous” training methods.
Does heat training work?
Abso-fucking-lutely.
It works incredibly well.
But for someone who’s a busy parent who can barely finish their training runs and struggles to find consistent childcare, it just shouldn’t be a priority.
I mean, if you have a sauna or a hot tub in your house, then yea.
Use that thing.
Clearly.
But as someone who has a sauna at my job, I barely use it.
With my work schedule, I get to choose between an extra 15 minutes of running/hiking or 15 minutes in the sauna.
Or I get to choose between the sauna and having enough time to shovel food in my face between clients.
At my current training volumes, the choice is clear.
More running and food.
It’s not even a question.
As much as we know saunas help, they won’t even hold a candle to me getting an extra couple miles in or actually eating a meal.
The same is true for most people.
When we hear professional athletes talk, we should just remember that they’re trying to eke out an extra 1% on performances that are already impressive.
For those of us not winning big races, we largely need to focus on the basics.
Lots of running.
Heavy strength training.
Food.
Hydration.
Sleep.
Stress relief.
If we aren’t doing those things and doing them well, then finding a sauna really shouldn’t be a priority – whether it works or not.
Which again, it does.
The basics will always be the basics.
They can be a little boring, but if we all did better at just nailing the basics, week after week, month after month, then I’d bet we’d all be surprised at how consistently we started to see progress.