| A while back, I wrote about how Cristiano Ronaldo walks a lot on the "pitch" (here and here) to conserve his energy for when he sprints and now the analytics people at 538, did an article on Lionel Messi arguably the co-best player in the world, who also walks a lot on the field, titled, Messi walks better than most players run. The key paragraph that relates to High Intensity Interval Training and Sprint Training in general, that relates to what I recommend for you, is this:
"Throughout his career, Messi has been criticized for walking. After an El Clasico match between Barcelona and Real Madrid in December 2017, there was widespread coverage of the fact that Messi walked 83 percent of the roughly 5 miles he covered that game. Despite this, he scored and assisted in Barca’s 3-0 trouncing."
Why does this relate?
If we can learn best by modeling the behaviors and actions of super successful people we admire in fields we want to be better at, then
- sprint training will help you to improve your health, body composition and performance faster than steady-state training,
- avoid the mediocre as often as possible when doing repeated sprints to get faster by giving near or full recovery before the next effort and
- if the two best players in the world who also have a chance to be the greatest soccer players in the history of the game (move over Pele), run sprints for 17% of the time in championship soccer matches and then walk around for 83% of the time, then there's something to be learned there.
If you want to be great, you need to work hard AND rest hard. Sprint as fast as possible AND then recovery as much as possible until you sprint again. Heart Rate Training is the big thing right now in the professional, collegiate, olympic and elite world, in which your recover to individual specific heart rates before you repeat your next maximum effort.
This helps you to avoid becoming mediocre and reduce your risk for injury.
This example shows its happening in soccer, it happens in hockey (ice shifts), it happens in baseball / softball (rest b/w pitches & inaction), football (play clock), golf (b/w swings), tennis (b/w rallies), swimming (usually 1 event), track & field (usually 1 event) and most every sport, except for maybe basketball. I'm not sure if you can walk in basketball, unless you have the ball because your opponents might take advantage of you, but it may be possible.
In any event, get moving. That's the most important thing and walking, bicycling, swimming, stretching, strength training are great places to start. As you get more fit and consistent and your resting heart rate lowers below 60 beats per minute, start introducing sprint training. It'll be harder, but the rewards will be better and faster.
Wondering how this all plays out with parenting,
Coach Mike
p.s. if you love a teacher / professor and you want to show your appreciation for their efforts, consider sponsoring them with our summer promotion and/or sharing the link with them so they can recover, get better and come back strong next fall.
p.p.s. if I can help you, reply and let me know!
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