Relax, unwind

By Sgt Rob Orr
Well, the festive season is fast approaching as, once again, the year has flashed past with the speed of a thousand startled gazelles.

Ironically, the time when most people want to look their physical best (summer and swimwear), they are consuming too many calories and doing too little exercise.

Furthermore on leave, you finally have time to train, when you want, as often as you want and for as long as you want – yet many would rather sit on the couch and watch the same television shows as last year or exercise their trigger fingers on the latest computer game.

You want to relax you say, enough of training and work, “I just want to veg out!”.

How about using this period as part of what is called a transition phase in a periodised planning programming.

The aim of the transition phase is to recover from the rigours of training during the training year in such a way so as to allow repair and recovery of the body (and mind) while ensuring that there is a minimal period of de-training or reversibility.

With this in mind there are two areas that can be manipulated to ensure an effective training transition from one year to the next, these are maintaining a body focus and maintaining an active lifestyle.

Maintaining a body focus
This involves helping the physical body to relax and recuperate with activities designed to stimulate the body in one way or other (eg increasing muscle relaxation, increasing blood flow etc).

It is important to note that this is an active approach as opposed to one passive in nature (like sitting doing nothing).

Some suggestions:

• Get a massage.
• Lie in a flotation tank.
• Try yoga or meditation.
• Have a spa or sauna.
• Float in a swimming pool.

An active lifestyle
Keeping an active lifestyle involves doing activities that require a degree of physical performance.

Some activities will require only marginal effort while others may be a little more taxing.

Some suggestions:

• Go for a trail ride on a horse.
• Bushwalk.
• Hike.
• Hire a mountain bike,
• Roller blade along a promenade.
• Walk the dogs.
• Go to the park.
• Kick a ball or play backyard cricket.
• Try waterskiing or para-sailing.
• Build a sandcastle.

You may even be pleasantly surprised that when combining these two approaches you feel more relaxed and physically regenerated than you would doing nothing.

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