Okay.
Let's touch on recovering from training with illness.
Once again, emerged kind of just with all the questions that we've gotten this week,
I've picked the three topics that were most commonly represented by all of this.
Um, the recovering from illness one once again, we're not going
to tell you how to come back from.
COVID also, there are not reliable studies that show that like athletes that get
COVID take this long to recover, and the impacts are this on their respiratory
system, this, on their circulatory system and this on their musculature.
Like there isn't anything like that.
Um, And it's honestly just, I think it's just too early to
be able to know all of this.
Uh, we, we don't know much about this.
It's evolving constantly.
So as a result to be able to carry out tests would be able to
get really exact things in terms of how COVID affects fitness.
I think we're, the science is focused on other things like saving lives with it.
So, uh, I don't want to be a little concerned about fitness because
training matters to all of us.
And when we get, you know, if you are sick in any way, then of course you
want to know how to come back from it.
So instead I think it's probably best to talk about principles, right?
Um, basic principles that we follow when we are sick.
Uh, Amber, can you kick us off in terms of what you would suggest to
athletes coming back from being.
Thereafter.
Are there any sort of rules of thumb that you follow or forgive me, I should say,
just guidelines that you tend to follow when you're coming back from training a
mindset thing right off the bat is to understand that even though you may have
missed training, this isn't really time.
This is not been recovery.
Your body has been working really, really hard to fight
off an infection of some kind.
And that takes a ton of energy.
And that alone is an effort that's worthy of some recovery in and of itself.
So just because you might feel completely recovered from whatever illness it
was, doesn't necessarily mean that you.
Fresh and rested and ready to jump into really hard training.
So think of it as a different stress.
It's a different type of stress than training, but just because you haven't
been on the bike or you haven't been training doesn't mean that this was time
off and rest because it definitely wasn't.
So you need to give your body a little bit of extra time to make sure
that you're recovering from that.
So that looks like maybe taking more time off the bike a couple more days.
Um, when you start to feel good, it doesn't hurt to take
an extra day just to be sure.
And then when you do get back to training, Um, less is more, you
know, really come back gradually.
Don't dive into, don't pick up where you left off is probably a
really good, good place to start.
Um, you want to work back up to that, so, and how quickly you can work back
up to that is really, really individual.
So that's a place where you have to be very aware and in tune with what's
going on with your body and be.
Honest with yourself about how you're feeling, just because you want to catch
up and get back to where you were really quickly doesn't mean that you should,
and you need to be very, uh, clear and honest with how you are actually feeling
and not just ignore some signs that maybe you need to back it off again.
I see Ivy nodding, so I kind of want to hear.
What she's thinking.
Yeah.
Well, being honest with yourself is my guiding principle to excuse me, and
being okay with what that looks like has been so tough for me, especially
with things like COVID and, you know, I feel like we've all experienced
this with like collarbone breaks.
For example, everyone has a different opinion about what that recovery process
looks like, how long.
Yeah, for real.
And I feel like having had been so sick, um, a few weeks ago, um, I was being
bombarded with information and opinions about, and, and when I have broken
collarbones multiple times or bones or whatever, I feel like whether there's.
Information and experiences surrounding that illness or injury,
um, or not, I everyone's input and truth and experience invalidates,
whatever you're going through.
And that's been so hard for me to be.
Not feel like myself and have for like, uh, a couple of weeks
had tried to incorporate stuff in slowly and just not feel good and
have to have check-ins all the time with myself about what I could do.
And.
To feel like I couldn't and then have other people tell me, you know,
well, you should be doing this and it shouldn't be a problem to do this.
And, well, my experience when I was sick recently, was that it felt okay
to do this and to just feel totally invalidated that it didn't feel
okay for me to do that stuff in.
I am being soft or something that's wrong with me or I'm dying.
I don't know, as, uh, being honest with myself and being okay with
the answer that I gave myself, what's my guiding principle.
And it is for injury illness, all that.
That's a great nuance principle and good guidance to be able to follow with that.
Well, one thing that I want to.
One thing I want to cover.
And I've already seen this thrown into the live chat.
I was like almost at a bet to see how long it would take for somebody to mention it.
The whole, like above the neck train below the neck.
Don't and I can't, uh, if it's under 70 degrees.
Yeah.
I disagree with that.
And, and, and I just want to make sure that we don't
like maybe us on the podcast.
I know that it's a very small portion of this world, uh, altogether,
but maybe we can help other.
Just support them in whatever approach they need to take from
coming back from illness, because.
Boy, uh, you know, who knows if it's something above the neck like
that with those sorts of rules or anything else, or if it's just a,
it's just a cough or it's just a sore throat or it's just a headache.
Well, Hey, like people need to take the time they need to.
Um, so support them in that one thing that I think is really interesting
to talk about as is with adaptive training and how this works and,
and in the future constantly.
We would love to be able to get information from the athlete in
terms of whether it's objective information they provide, whether
it's biometric feedback from different sensors, that they wear everything
else and then make those adjustments.
Nate's mentioned that perform the podcast.
That's we want to do that, but for now, a great thing that I would recommend
that you do is you can still, um, go in.
Pick an alternate for whatever workout you have scheduled when
you come back or you can just do a lower intensity workout instead.
And when you do that, make sure you fill out that survey.
Honestly, if you come back from illness and that short recovery
ride felt really hard, make sure you mentioned that because that's going
to be a signal to adapt to training.
They're like, oh, Hey, okay.
Let's not try to progress this athlete.
As we were, let's try to progress this athlete as they need.
It runs again, it trains you as an individual.
So that's a big thing that you think.
And the same goes for training camps thereafter.
Um, I use Amber one of the CR team's great features, uh, was building
out annotations and time off.
You can actually plan time off.
If you click on the calendar and have an annotation, if you have like one of
these training blocks that you put onto your calendar, and you're going to do
that after you can plan a week off and that's wonderful, you can still train.
If you want to that week, you can throw in easy workouts and make
sure you keep it nice and easy.
Um, but that's one thing that you can do.
If you have the luxury with your training, you can go about
adding in time, off thereafter sickness or something like that.
And that can help as well.
Um, but once again, just those surveys are so important.
Just be honest with them.
And a lot of people ask on the surveys, how do I answer the survey?
Don't.
We're all overthinkers except for Alex.
Alex has never over-thought anything in his life, of course,
but we're all over thinkers.
Don't overthink it.
All it's asking is how it felt and that's truly all you need to answer.
How did it feel?
And then based off how.
And we'll get the right data.
So that'll really help.
Um, when you're coming back from it, when you're coming back from illness,
one thing I would really recommend is that you double down on the other things
that support your training and wellness.
So doubling down on nutrition, uh, so offering the hydration perspective,
make sure you're getting plenty of electrolytes and plenty of fluid.
From the nutrition side, make sure you're giving your body plenty of carbohydrates.
Fighting an illness in recovering from an illness is hard and
it takes a lot of resources.
So your body needs as much good fuel as possible.
And the better quality fuel the better your body will feel.
So that's higher quality foods, Ivy.
Oh, and mental wellness.
Exactly.
It can
be so honestly depressive too.
Have such a significant part of your life and your happiness
taken away when you have to rest for an extended period of time.
Um, and just jumping back into training is not possible for many people.
So taking extra care during that injury illness time and setting
up appointments with the counselor or therapist or journaling or.
Finding other activities that you can do that feel okay.
That brings enjoy all that stuff is really important.
Yeah.
For a lot of people.
Oh, for a lot of people, training is a little bit of an escape.
Right.
And that's part of how we kind of maintain a really healthy mental outlook.
Um, and when that's gone, like Ivy said, that can be really hard.
So sometimes finding another way.
Protecting that time for yourself and doing something else.
Um, I know a lot of athletes have really found art and creative endeavors
to be surprisingly helpful when they can't train, because it's still carving
out that time because it's so easy.
Like, oh, I'm not training.
So I have this extra hour in the day.
And then just automatically devoting that to something other than that protected
time for yourself that you usually have.
Um, it's, it's hard.
It's hard to protect that time, but it is really important.
And like Ivy said, reaching out for help is a really, really great way to start.
Um, and putting that time to similar use, even if it's not in the same way,
but he else cleaned.
They're already cleaned bikes during this time.
Yes, I haven't yet on that firmware
update.
One other thing that I would recommend is if you have a race close on your
calendar, And if you can, and now there's one thing where if you lose that race,
you'll lose all motivation and that could be bad for your mental health as well.
Um, because you lose that thing that brings you to it.
But boy can races be damaging to our mental health when we have it.
And we get sick before and we're like, I have to be.
I have to be fast.
I have to be back to normal for this race.
And if you're trying to rush the whole process because of that
life will go on without the race and you can find another one.
So that's one thing I would recommend.
And I've learned that lesson the hard way.
Um, is that when I, if I am sick or I have anything like that,
I mean, that's why this year.
I have a few races in the spring and that's it on my calendar.
I'm not planning anything after we have a kid, right.
Because I know my life is going to be crazy thereafter, so I don't want to
have those races be a competing priority in any way and a race right after
you're sick is a competing priority.
Now, if it's your job, it's one thing, right?
Amber, Ivy and Alex that's different, but when the rest of us, no, I
shouldn't say the rest of us, but a lot of us listen to this.
It isn't our job.
And as a.
You know, we don't need to put that sort of pressure on
ourselves to, to heal quickly.
We just need to heal at the rate that we need to heal when we come back from it.
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