Morning all! Not really a newbie here, but I thought this might be the best place to put this thread, so here goes... How do those of you who do a variety of sports, with conflicting requirements, plan and prioritise your training? I'm at a point in my life where I am doing a variety of sports for fun. I'll never be brilliant at any of them (and don't really care about this), but I do want to get the most out of my participation in them. The problem is that there is conflict between the energy and strength requirements for some of them. For example, I've started bouldering again, which requires a relatively low body weight to maximise progress and this conflicts with my power lifting. I also want to get back into BJJ at some point and perhaps, eventually, do a triathlon. I'm also horse riding occasionally and running (hamstring allowing) and cycling. I will be getting back to snowboarding again, later in the year. I have a general plan of activity/training, but am interested to see how folks manage their training/activity participation. I also have to be careful that I don't overdo upper body work as my shoulders are not the best!
Do you competitively compete in any of the below 1) powerlifting 2) bjj 3) bouldering 4) running 5) cycling Is so which ones or which ones will you be looking at competing in in the future?
I have no real plans to compete at the moment. I might consider doing a powerlifting meet at some point in the future, once my lifts are back up to a decent level. I'm currently just training/participating for fun and general health.
Then honestly it's a question that doesn't need too much considering there's really no conflict of interest because there's nothing to compete or get ready for. Train for fun, plan two days of rest a week, follow the high/low approach to training and juar accept that by doing multiple things you won't really improve greatly on any of them but if you aren't competing that really isn't an issue.
Ride a horse to the snowboarding place. Lift weights as you go down the slope. Tackle the first adult you see at the bottom of the slope and try to tap them out. Then run away when the police are called. Horse riding, snowboarding, lifting, BJJ and running all in one session!
When I was training regularly I tried to front load the week with the hardest, most important or most enjoyable session/s (they aren't always the same thing). So the week got progressively easier as it went on leading up to some down time at the weekend. And also that way they got priority and it didn't matter so much if tiredness, soreness or apathy made me skip other sessions or activities later in the week (as I'd already done the good ones). That wasn't always possible of course. BJJ ended up being 2 hours of large people sat on my head on a Saturday morning which generally destroyed me for most of Saturday. So basically I bet you could rank your activities in order of importance, enjoyability, effort needed, etc and come up with a rough hierarchy from which to prioritise? Horse riding is maybe high up the enjoyability (which it keeps insisting is spelled wrong!?) scale but low on the energy requirements? Put that at the end of the week rather than the start because it will be easier to be motivated for that? Lifting is maybe the opposite of that (lots of effort but not as enjoyable perhaps?) so put that at the start (or not..it's up to you)? Or divide the activities into fun/fitness/fullfilment and try to fit one of each type in each week to get a balance? So one week's "fun" is horse riding and the next week's "fun" is snowboarding?
Oh and you can count a week starting whenever...doesn't have to be Monday-Sunday if you can only fit all the hard/taxing stuff over the weekend.
When I was younger, I always thought horse riding was easy, with little effort, but that was when I was doing a class lesson. Now I'm doing private, I'm knackered after them! Actually, at the moment, riding is more of an occasional treat rather than a regular activity, and the core work I'm doing for lifting and climbing will help with that. I'm currently running a rolling plan, with certain activities at certain points, but others fitting in round them. So I boulder on Sunday evenings for 1.5 hrs. I do some bike cardio Saturday and Sunday mornings and an interval run/walk on Saturday evening. Lifting I fit in round that, doing 2 or 3 sessions a week. Friday is a day off and Indian takeaway night! I'll re-thing things when I eventually get back to BJJ and snowboarding. What I really need to work on is my sleep - I don't get anywhere near enough. I'm a night owl, so struggle to go to bed early, even though I have to get up for work, and I know I am sleep deprived and it is affecting my health. I'm trying to gradually bring down my lights out time.
[QUOTE="Frodocious, post: 1075058905, member: 10491".] What I really need to work on is my sleep - I don't get anywhere near enough. I'm a night owl, so struggle to go to bed early, even though I have to get up for work, and I know I am sleep deprived and it is affecting my health. I'm trying to gradually bring down my lights out time.[/QUOTE] Sort your sleep out asap, lack of sleep effects everything negatively from blood pressure, to weight, to injuries and serious illness . Add in 30min naps if you can, darken the room, make your meal times consistent etc
I suspect some of my health issues at the moment are sleep related (but work stress isn't helping). I'm trying to sort my sleep out, but keep getting derailed - my own fault absolutely. I can't nap. It's not a skill I've ever had.
It's an acquired skill but a useful one, try setting 30mins aside after work just lay down in a dark room, you will be surprised how easy it is one you try, and as long as you don't sleep too long to enter rem state it does help. And I know it's hard to change habits so good luck!
I've found that 20-25 mins, horizontal in a darkened room, going through problems and trying to find good solutions (in a healthy way rather than worrying way), mentally planning nice events and activities, practicing some mindfulness or even visualising martial arts patterns or kata (if that's your thing) is helpful even if I don't actually fall asleep. Although often I don't think I've fallen asleep but the 20 minutes has gone by suspiciously quickly when the alarm goes off. We have a kids play house in the garden I built from scratch that was largely designed during lunch time visualisation sessions I was doing while dealing with some mental health issues. It was a productive use of thought rather than the destructive thoughts I was having.
Icefield recently linked a video talking about how to train BJJ & Powerlifting at the same time, and the different tradeoffs you can make to focus on one or the other. E.g., a scale from "super important BJJ, and only lifting to support that" to "dabble in BJJ for fun, super important power lifting". (See thread here: Weights and bjj it's always a trade off). I think it is going to come down to tradeoffs for you. If you list out the various physical requirements & good-to-haves for each of the sports, and rank the sports in order of importance to you, you can maybe use that to figure out how to make those trade-offs.
The day nap is definitely an underrated skill. I started doing this to cope with working after being kept awake by a newborn. It helps a lot with recovery. If you're doing it all for fun then that's great, no need to stress about targets for a specific activity. The only time I've set plans was to work towards a lift test, fight or a race, which was easy to do as they were all spaced well apart. I always found that winter was the easiest time to work on strength due to the extra food being eaten, and the cold meant outdoor activities were not as easy to do, vice versa for summer.
So it looks like my power lifting plans might need to be placed on hold. I had an endoscopy the other day and have been diagnosed with a hiatus hernia. Next step is to see the GP for treatment options. At least it explains a lot of my stomach problems.
Oh no Frodo...hope things go well. I had an endo a couple of years back (horrible process!) and one up t'other end recently (also a horrible process!). It's good to get some sort of diagnosis though.
I've had more pleasant afternoons! Actually, it's my second one. I had the 1st about a year and a half ago, when my stomach problems had gotten really bad. It only picked up inflammation. I suspect the hernia was there already, but too small to see. Last week the GP decided to send me for another one as the gastritis medication hadn't cleared up the symptoms. I need to see her now to decide how to go forward. This will be my second hernia! I was born with a congenital one and had surgery a few days after birth, which may complicate treatment options, but we'll see.
I've never had a hernia but have several friends who have--they sound pretty awful. I'm glad to hear yours is relatively small--I hope you get that cleared up soon & it doesn't impact your training too much.
