Hello Ben
I love watching the Tour de France.
Elite athletes demonstrating incredible levels of endurance, resilience and strategy – day after day – in the most stunning of landscapes.
What’s not to love!
For the three weeks it’s on in July, I look forward to watching the highlights every evening. Even better if I can steal a couple of hours in the afternoon snoozing in front of the live race.
It’s my non-guilty pleasure.
I noticed when they finish racing each day they go straight onto stationary bikes to keep cycling. You’d think after 3-4 hours pedalling hundreds of miles, up and down mountains at crazy speeds that they’d have done enough.
But it’s important that they do.
They’ve been pushing at such crazy intensities that they need to cool down gradually. Slowly bringing their heart rates down and kick starting their recovery ready to again the next day.
Of course they’ll have complete rest for the remainder of the day.
But before that, this ‘active recovery’ is important to transition into that rest. To help them get more from it.
It’s kind of preparing them to rest.
I found a quote from an article online where a team performance director named Keith Flory explained,
"In addition to the physical recovery, cooling down provides an opportunity to mentally relax from the stresses of racing and to personally reflect on the race."
This is really interesting. The need to mentally come down from the race as well as physically.
Perhaps this ‘cooling down’ and preparing to rest is something we could all benefit from. I can’t be the only one who often struggles to switch off from work at weekends or on holiday.
Typically you end up working harder than ever before you take time off, so the contrast can feel even greater. It can take 3-4 days of a holiday to properly relax.
Something I’ve started doing recently which has really helped is going for a run on a Friday evening to mentally ‘put the working week down’.
It’s my version of spinning the legs on the stationary bike, it’s preparing me to rest and switch off for the weekend.
Given we’re right in amongst holiday season, applying the same approach might be helpful.
Thinking about what will help you put the stress of work down and transition into holiday mode more able to relax from the off.
So that you get more from your rest too.
Robbie
Health & Performance Coach
Life is now!
Ps. we were shown this video last weekend as part of a Psychotherapy workshop I was attending and I think it’s brilliant. I found it really moving.
All that we share
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I’m Robbie, a Health & Performance Coach and I work with busy, high performing people both online and in-person, building clear minds and healthy bodies.
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