Thank you for attending the session on Wednesday and we hope you found it helpful, insightful and enjoyable. It was very helpful that you participated so well in the breakout sessions. I promised to include a video of a routine Nathan uses early in his season to build all rebound fitness...try it out! The routine lasts for 6 minutes but you can then rest for 2 minutes and go again...and again! I have got up to 4 sets so that's my challenge to you :)
The subject of resilience and wellbeing is a complex one that is continually evolving with more research and opinion. Our present position is probably best described as "if it's not broken don't try and fix it". In other words, if you feel you are responding well to life's stressors, sleeping well and have good levels of enjoyment from life and work then perhaps it's best to not change too much. If, however, some of the stressors overwhelm you from time-to-time, or work/life balance feels out of kilter, or sleep quality is not great then maybe it's worth tweaking something. Our objective is to provide you with a framework, robustly researched and tested, within which you can explore your own self-awareness, habits and personal development. The framework is grounded in the neurophysiology of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) which, when functioning well, provides us with the self-regulating mechanisms to adapt through stress to become more resilient. The chronic accumulation of stress, or traumatic incidents/episodes of stress, can cause the ANS to become dysregulated. In simple terms we lose our capacity to not only manage stress but also adapt and grow/become more resilient. This can be experienced in many complex and subtle ways. Today's environmental stressors often cause a relentless sense of being on the go...so even if our stressors are not too bad we can find ourselves unconsciously in the sympathetic branch for too long which results in unnecessarily levels of fatigue. So, even at the mild end of the spectrum we need to be aware of the wellbeing risks of prolonged fatigue and not enjoying sufficient rest, sleep and recovery.
If anyone wants signposting to more in depth reading on any aspect of what you have listened to please don't hesitate to ask. there's not one book which pulls all our content together but there are some great specialists out there on parts of it. We have compiled our own resources to try and help and these are explained further below together with links you can use to access them.
resilience slide presentation - this is the slide deck for the 3 hour workshop which has been delivered in the past two years to the Alliance and formed the basis of the original work with Mike and Ian at the start of the Alliance. We have included it as a reminder for those who participated and as a prompt for those who did not to ask for further explanation on anything....we didn't get through all of the slides because of your great questions! Most are reasonably self explanatory from the discussions we had but if you need any further clarification please email me, mark@7futures.com.
a 90- second read on resilience which attempts to fill in some of the commentary that is delivered with the slide deck - again to help those who didn't attend the 3 hour workshop
a slightly longer read which goes into more depth about the nervous system and why it is important to understand from both a performance and wellbeing perspective - it's important to sustain performance (in all areas of our lives) in the long term and not burn out or become ill...or worse.
a short read about an important feature of the nervous system which we talked about - the social engagement system - this is what Nathan had inadvertently neglected when pushing himself hard to overcome the disappointment of failing to win a medal at the World Championships. So despite ticking all the normal wellbeing boxes (sleep, nutrition etc.) he developed chronic fatigue which plagued him for 3 years.
a slide which attempts to visually pull together all 3 documents - a bit ambitious and possibly a bit complex. BUT essentially it's helpful to remind yourself that whatever is going on in our heads we can only be engaged in certain systems in the body and these can be categorised according to their energetic state - relaxed (energy conserving/replenishing); aroused or activated (fight/flight) when we are burning energy - linked to fatigue; frozen - when we are burning excessive energy but are not moving - Nathan may have experienced this after he had failed to qualify and found himself unable to leave the stadium.
Click the buttons below to view each resource:
Click the thumbnail below to watch the Olympic HIIT routine. Please remember this is quite advanced training and you must properly warm up. If you are a beginner to exercise this is not the right place to start....please ask us for other routines you can safely do at home.
Please feel free to ask for more information on any of the attachments or any other aspects of resilience and wellbeing. All requests are treated in the strictest confidence.
best wishes
Mark
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to email me mark@7futures.com or jo@7futures.com.
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© 2012 7Futures Ltd. Please note that at 7Futures, our role is to help educate and encourage our clients to take positive responsibility for their wellbeing. We are not medical doctors and are not able to offer individual medical advice. We always recommend you should discuss with your GP or other medical professional before making any changes you hope will impact your wellbeing, or that of your current/future family. 7Futures Ltd offers generic information which is for educational purposes only. The information we provided is not a prescription system and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. As such our materials, videos products and communications are for general information purposes only and should not be read as a personal recommendation for specific changes in lifestyle behaviour, nutrition, or exercise. Please click here for a clear description of our services and the relationship with you as a client. You should not participate in any of our services until you have studied this link...it is for your benefit.