This is one of my favorite sayings concerning exercise programming.
You can’t just keep adding exercises, workouts, cardio, conditioning, or even just stuff to do—or remember to do!
Everything has a cost, and it all feeds into the equation of time, energy, and focus versus overwhelm.
Here’s another way of looking at it:
Everything you do or make time for writes a check from your Recovery Bank Account.
And not just the diet and exercise stuff.
All the other things you’ve got going on? Work, kids, school, arguing online?
Those all write checks too.
So it doesn’t take long before you’re deep into your overdraft—or worse, bankrupt.
Now, imagine if there was a simple TO-DO that could reduce stress, aid recovery, and function like a DEPOSIT into your Recovery Bank Account.
Well, it’s called WALKING.
And even though it expends energy, its restorative qualities are somewhat unique in that it gives back WAY more than it takes.
The only downside is that walking any meaningful distance at a modest pace is time-consuming. So it can become another thing to squeeze in and potential source of stress.
The key is to make WALKING work FOR YOU—not the other way around.
So just walk as much as you can, whenever you can… even just 5-10 minutes will work.
In other words, don’t try to operate on 5 hours of sleep so you can get up at 4 AM and walk for an hour.
SLEEP is probably the biggest “deposit” you can make to your recovery account—so that’s just, well, dumb. As @stanefferding says, that kinda tradeoff is “stepping over dollar bills to pick up nickels.”
Everything is connected and your body is way smarter than you anyway.
Trust me.
It reminds me of another quote from another great coach, Scott Abel:
“Force your body and it reacts; coax your body and it responds.”
Stop trying to boss your body around or “hack it,” and start working together as a team.
– Coach Bryan