Physical Stress

Image shot by Josh Rumbold, at Double Jab Amateur Boxing Club

Physical Stress

Competing in a combat sport is probably one of the most anxiety and stress inducing activities someone could put themselves through both physically and mentally. Being able to manage the physical and mental stress of competing separates the good athletes from the great ones. In this article I will share some fundamentals to help manage the physical side of training. 

Physical Management 

The physical aspect of training can be broken down into a few key fundamental areas: 

• Sleep 

• Making weight

• Load management 

• Recovery/rest

• Stress

The physical aspect of training is in theory the easiest, having said that, it is not uncommon to see athletes, even at the top levels reject the fundamentals - it requires the right mindset, discipline and, in a lot of cases, reality checks. 

Sleep 

I am pleased to say there has been an emphasis towards the benefits of sleep for the general population as well as athletes. The ‘gym bro’ and ‘grind set’ mentality of only needing six hours sleep, training hard and working hard are gradually dying out. 

Athletes need at least eight hours of sleep to recover and perform. Sleep expert Cheri Mah studied the effects of sleep on athletes in four major American sports (NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB). Her study with collegiate level basketball players found that extending sleep from 6.5 hours to 8.5 hours increased players speed by 5%, free throws went up 9% and 3 pointers went up 9.2% - all these increases went up in only 2 months (The Effects of Sleep Extension on the Athletic Performance of Collegiate Basketball Players, Cheri D Mah, 2011).

Another study done on junior athletes in 2014 by Matthew Milewski showed that the young athletes who had only 7 hours sleep had 62% chance of getting an injury within  21 months and athletes who only had 6 hours sleep had a 75% increase of getting an injury in 21 months! 

In the book ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker, he goes on to explain how sleep increases basically every athletic quality;, speed, power, stamina, strength, decision making, information processing and risk of injury are all helped or prevented by sleep. 

Get into a good routine, avoid vigorous exercise two hours before bed, avoid caffeine six hours before trying to sleep and avoid screens in bed - aim to get at least eight hours of sleep if you’re training, ideally ten.

Making Weight

The difference between training boxing and doing boxing is making the weight. If you’re training recreationally and have only trained recreationally, then it is hard to comprehend what training competitively is like. For comparison, imagine you are studying something because you enjoy looking up and reading about that topic in your spare time, now compare that to studying something because you need to secure a job, or studying for an exam to get into university. 

Being able to train and perform as an athlete in a calorie deficit is extremely hard. I encourage anyone competing in a weight category to aim to avoid training in a deficit for long period of time, this is particularly true for the amateurs. In order to do this athletes should be on a maintenance and to be on a maintenance they should be at the weight they want to compete at… 

This sounds obvious but this is the difference between spending your time hungry, agitated and training at a sub-optimal level compared to being able to use your time in the gym optimally, as well as being much more pleasant to be around for your training partners, partner and/or friends. 

If you are at all serious about competing in a combat sport I strongly urge you to not stray too far over the weight you’re competing in so that you’re ready to take a fight at short notice. You also want to be used to being in control of your body at the weight you’re fighting at, meaning if you’re normally training at a weight that is way over your weight category, your motor patterns will be off when you suddenly suck down to the weight you’re meant to be at. Imagine you have a 3kg basketball and that’s what you’re practising with, then on game night you play with a normal basketball - the form and shots will be way off. 

Stay near your weight for your physical and mental health. 

Load Management 

This will look different for different people and it should be down to the individual to prioritise and choose the volume and intensity of their sessions.

In an ideal world we would all train like top earning athletes, sleep a lot, rest in-between sessions, have someone prep our meals, physio, massages… the lot. Alas, most of us have to go to work or school and fit training and recovery around this as well as managing our diet and rest. It is worth remembering, work is a stressor, just as stress is a stressor which we will discuss later in the article. If you have a physical job, highly cognitive job or do shift work, it will be worth coming to peace with the fact that it will take you longer to progress with your goals than someone who doesn’t have the constraints that you might have. However, it will take you longer still to progress to your goals if you are overtrained and injured.

Overtraining, in my opinion, is worse than being unfit. Especially when it comes to sparring. If you have ever sparred unfit, you will know that it is tough, but will have a clear idea at least what you need to work on, possibly pacing yourself and keeping calm… most likely fitness. When you are overtrained it is a very different feeling. Firstly I cannot say enough how much of a waste of time it is to spar if you know you are overtrained. The damage you’ll do to yourself physically over training far outweighs what you’ll get out of the session. Firstly, you will be taking a lot more unnecessary damage sparring over trained, as you won’t be as reactive andyou’ll be much more likely injure yourself or run yourself into extreme fatigue. You’d be far better off taking a couple of days off to allow your body to rest and recover, with good sleep and food, as opposed to trying to push through, most likely resulting in injury and/or illness. 

Recovery and Rest 

When we were babies, most of us would be put down to have a nap because our parents or carers knew how low our tolerance was to the stimulus of the new world we were born into. Crawling was tiring, new foods and colours were overwhelming and so on. As we get older we can handle more stressors - as long as we can recover, we can continue to adapt. In the context of training, we must seek to not only sleep to recover, but to also rest purposely. 

A common example of poor rest management is seen in recreational gym goers:ften people train and work hard in the week, they might even track their food and calorie intake if they are serious about gaining/losing weight, to then, undo all this with late nights and bad food. There is of course nothing wrong with the weekend warrior lifestyle, however for athletes it is not sustainable and is part of the many sacrifices being part of a performance athlete. 

Naps are your friend, just so long as they don’t affect your main sleep.They can be a powerful aid to recovery and feeling mentally refreshed; a 20 - 60 minute nap is plenty. Try not to have them not too late in the afternoon so you’re not wide awake at night. If you don’t enjoy napping (which is a problem I’ve never had), I recommend just taking the weight off your feet for an hour and keeping off of screens. 

Rest and naps are especially important if an athlete is training more than once in a day. In the gym between sets you take breaks for an appropriate time before you start the next set, treat your multiple sessions as if they are giant sets. Set yourself up to succeed between them with good form and maximal effort. 

Stress

Stress, just like  load management, is more acute depending on the individual and what they have going on in their life. Stress should also be taken into account with load management, and athletes should try and identify when they are indeed feeling stressed. 

It is very easy for athletes to become wrapped up in their training and not realise they are stressed. For instance, I have often seen athletes come to training sessions, looking very clearly over trained and miserable only to find out they are in the middle of moving house, or changing job or a death in the family. These are the sorts of stressors that most people, understandably cannot handle. 

Stress management should be a key part of training prep. Meditation is one of the best and most enriching ways to identify stress as well as many other feelings and emotions, it allows athletes to be more present in not only their training so they can get the most out of it, but also to be present in their jobs, relationships and with themselves. Being able to be focused, calm and present in stressful situations and identify one’s anxieties will enhance the training experience and therefore the fighters experience in competition and ultimately their career. Apps like Headspace are affordable and come highly recommended by many coaches across many different sporting backgrounds. 

Remember… 

The physical stress you put on yourself in training is not where you grow and adapt, it is what triggers growth and adaptation, but it is catabolic. It is the food, rest, stress reduction and sleep that harvests the gains you have set to make for yourself in the gym, these are just as important to turning up to training.