A thought-provoking article contributed by my friend Mike Rutherford: During the hay day of Eastern Bloc sport domination, geographically small countries like East Germany had more sport scientists than the United States. The job was simple. Sports scientists worked to create the greatest athletes in the world. Unfortunately, the end justified the means and horrible things happened to young athletes.
The use and abuse of anabolic steroids turned young men into old men quickly. Young girls became err men! Resolution Some of the scientific information learned was valuable. It was information that all athletes could benefit from knowing. It was unfortunate that lots of youngsters sacrificed their health and or their lives so that other athletes might benefit. When cutting to the chase, ALL athletes are looking for a way to maximize training returns. It is important to hit all scheduled training and in most cases to work at sports specific levels of intensity as frequently as possible (the S.A.I.D. principle). How often one should train (frequency) how hard one should train (intensity) and for how long one should train (duration) determines the training affect. What all athletes know is if you miss enough you don""t make improvements. The East Germans discovered that when the athlete became over stressed, hormonal levels of cortisol (a.k.a. hydrocortisone) were more pronounced in the blood stream. The scientists concluded that when cortisol (stress hormones) were on the rise, the athletes were more likely to become injured, overt rained or a measurable decrease in physical and psychological performance occurred. Additionally, they noted that resting heart rate changed, bodyweight dropped, and sleep patterns became erratic. The desire to train was lower, mood swings occurred and appetite was reduced. Of course, they needed to validate their theories so the trained the hell out of youngsters until they had enough data to prove their point. (I won""t elaborate on the gross misconduct in proving their point but if you are interested in further knowledge I would recommend Steven Ungerleider""s Faust""s Gold: Inside the East German Doping Machine.) The conclusion demonstrated that a nice correlation existed between these baseline variables and the increased serum levels of stress hormones. A blood test was not necessary. Stress monitoring of the athlete could simply log their resting heart rate, morning bodyweight, sleep quantity, desire to train (work) and their appetite. Today world class athletes are critically aware of their training state. They know their baseline values for sleep, bodyweight, (sometimes pre and post training) resting heart rate, desire to train and appetite. Dramatic changes in these variables give them a forecast of potential pitfalls in training. If they ignore a trend and miss critical training phases they are likely to miss important competitions. As corporate athletes we can take a page from this knowledge base. Make it a habit to become aware of your baseline values. This information can be stored in your SUCCESS JOURNAL you are recording. Make note of how you are dealing with your stress scenarios and make it a point to improve your recovery via improved nutrition, hydration, sleep habits and whenever possible take a vacation. Enjoy a spring break this year. LIVE STRONG! Michael Rutherford