Average guys oogle over the beasts of the NFL every Sunday. Hell, I do too. In fact, I admire everything they go through to get where they are (as I showcased in The Football Theory of Life). Their fluidity and grace combined with their speed, power, and strength is marveling. But here’s what’s interesting: guys never [...]
Average guys oogle over the beasts of the NFL every Sunday. Hell, I do too. In fact, I admire everything they go through to get where they are (as I showcased in The Football Theory of Life). Their fluidity and grace combined with their speed, power, and strength is marveling. But here’s what’s interesting: guys never gain muscle during the season (and probably most other attributes such as speed, power, and strength).
When we actually see the athletes every Sunday, they are more so on cruise control with their focus on recovering from each game. So most of these athletes get bigger than you’ll ever dream of, and they do it during a 6-7 month off season.
And here you are, training 12 months out of the year, specifically for muscle. You’re even afraid of deloading because you think a week off is suicide for your gains.
I recently finished up an article that’s being submitted to a publisher that deals with the nervous system, and specifically its “flight or fight” response.
The first time you see a black bear in the woods, you soil yourself, your heart rate skies, and you sprint away. But if you saw that bear every day, your pants wouldn’t get dirty like they did the first time you saw it. You would eventually get used to it because your escape route is planned and you start to know the bear more and more, so there is less to be worried about. With every exposure, it becomes less and less alarming.
This is what kind of what happens when you train for the same thing, at the same level, all year round.
You’ve probably heard that people that don’t normally do isolation exercises see great gains when they incorporate them into their routine. It’s a new (and more direct) stimulus that the body needs to adapt to.
There are people afraid to train in a low end rep range for a month with no isolation exercises because they think they’ll shrivel. They won’t. And when they come back, and do a little higher rep work with isolation exercises, they’ll see even better gains.
Be content with having to “just maintain” if your schedule warrants it, because once you return, you’ll probably explode. But for athletes, this comes down to not being afraid to shut it down during the season. Focus on performing and recovering from your sport. You’ll do the damage when it needs done, even if you only have six months to do it.