"Three Tips Every Athlete Needs to Hear": For the Everyday Human

Marcellus Bowman III, Head Strength Coach for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (CFL) shared a post on Linkedin recently. It was quick and to the point. I thought it would be fun to use his tips, but to put them into context for the everyday human. Whether you consider yourself an athlete or not, the principles are similar.

Marcellus' Tip 1: Do Only What Is Necessary

This can sway into the "All or Nothing" conversation pretty easily. In 25-years working in health, wellness and fitness you see ALOT! I've seen it in action where people become OBSESSED with their fitness, nutrition etc to the point where REAL LIFE is secondary. I've seen relationships fall apart due to excessive, instense and specific training for an event / competition. To each their own. However, MOST of us don't WANT or NEED that. As Marcellus points out to athletes, we ONLY need to do what is necessary.

When I spent a little over a decade with athletes, it was about approaching their training with the mindset of "what's the LEAST we can do, for the MAXIMUM results". In life and training for health and wellbeing, we can utilize the SAME approach; We DON'T need to do SO MUCH that we impact REAL LIFE. We CAN find our balance and do ONLY the habits we NEED, for how WE choose to live.

Marcellus' Tip 2: Incorporate Maintenance

I love how he puts this: "You don't stay healthy and in the game at your best on accident. It's a purposeful challenge you have to accept every day." We can take this tip in TWO directions.

1- When he says "incorporate maintenance" it's that reminder that sometimes it's IMPORTANT to ALLOW OURSELVES to just BE as we are. NOT striving for change, but rather allow ourselves to practice being HAPPY with our body and our health routines as they are RIGHT NOW.

2- It's also a reminder that sometimes we PUSH ourselves to change and improve, sometimes we ALLOW ourselves time to RECOVER and sometimes we ALLOW ourselves to maintain the changes we've created. THAT is a natural eb and flow that we can take our physiology through in our health efforts. It's important to NOT get caught up in the trap of modern mindsets of feeling the need to ALWAYS push yourself. NATURE does NOT work like that.

Marcellus' tip here though reminds us that it's about CONCIOUS choices to create healthy habits for ourselves. It doesn't "just happen" - We NEED to actively be a part of our practices in order to create positive change and energy.

Marcellus' Tip 3: Nutrition

We all KNOW that our nutrition is a major component of health and wellbeing, but we DON'T actively and progressively LEARN how to build our OWN nutrition habits. We focus on EVERYONE else's suggestions, diets, successes/failures... and we ignore our OWN physiology.

Athletes need nutrition to aid their physical recovery, arguably a touch more than their mental recovery. For us every day folks, I would argue it's reversed with mental recovery having the slight edge over physical recovery for us. Regardless, our nutrition habits and choices will positively or negatively impact our deep health. Once again though, please refer to Tip #1: "Do only what is necessary"

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Every single one of these tips can be applied to our lifestyle routines in a way that is REALISTIC, SIMPLE for us and SUSTAINABLE. STRESS does NOT need to be part of this equation. This is where Health & Wellness Coaching can help you stay the course, get out of your own way and lend that supportive voice to your efforts.