I played in our 2nd practice game yesterday against a team that plays in a higher league then ours, were more skilled and much bigger bodies then we're used to.
Suffice to say this post couldn't come at a better time for me!
I spent all day in the hospital with the wife Friday on a day that I was already tired and we ended up there all day and didn't get home til 6:30pm.
My HRV registered a 7.5 (medium for me - I'd like to be at 8, or closer to, on game days) with a resting heart rate of 62 which is 7 - 10 beats more then normal. This indicated that before I even got out of my bed that my body was working a lot harder then normal to offset the stresses of the preceding day/s.
That being said I still felt alright during the warm up.
The ground looked pristine but was harder then it looked in getting dumped twice in a tackle after the whistle had been blown didn't help either.
By half time I had blown up and was functioning at no more then 70% the rest of the game which looking back at my readings - made perfect sense.
A few blokes even asked if I was injured so it must been evident I wasn't moving as well as I normally do.
Normally after the last practice game you'd have a week off then start round 1 but with Easter being earlier this year we go straight into round 1 next weekend so essentially this week was round 1.
Pulling up wise yesterday I was dog tired throughout the day watching the 1's with a little bit of lower back stiffness (from the hard ground + tired body I suspect) and my usual leg weariness I get after every game and always have.
As soon as I finish a game I have head straight to my bag for my protein drink. I showered and followed that up with a roast beef and gravy roll and a Gatorade drink (blue if you're interested). During the day I consumed 2 bottles of water.
Once I got home I had 6 weetbix, about 400ml milk and a table spoon of sugar (my usual breakfast) and jumped in a hot bath with some Epsom salts which worked a treat for the short term.
For dinner I had 4 eggs, 2 pieces of bread, 2 pieces of bacon and a bowl of veggies and another huge glass of water.
I was asleep by just after midnight after Saving Private Ryan got the better of me on the TV (still a top 5 movie of all time).
I got up just after 9am which puts me at 8hrs of pretty good sleep with daylight savings ticking over last night where my back stiffness was still present and a sore neck had moved in which came from another front on tackle and post whistle dumping where the back head slammed into the ground so I have a whiplash type pain down the front of my neck.
So far I've had my usual breakfast as above and we're heading out for a family walk after I finish this up where I will go through some easy core stuff on the grass while I'm there before settling in for the footy from 3:20.
When you play an actual game you enter what is called the sympathetic nervous system which is the "fight' in the fight or flight response. Heart rate elevates, breathing becomes shallower and alertness increases which is what is meant to happen in times of stress.
What also needs to happen post game is to get yourself back into the parasympathetic nervous system which is the "flight" portion which is where you rest, recover and regenerate.
If you don't get into this nervous system state, then recovery will be compromised. My HRV was a 6.3 today (image above) which is very low so imagine if I went our on the piss last night and got in at 3am. I wouldn't be right to do an intense training session until the weekend which means I'll have missed an entire week of training essentially.
If you did head out and continued to train like normal on Tuesday and Thursday, then I can guarantee you'll have a less then poor outing during round 1 next week as you wouldn't even have fully recovered from your previous game before playing the next one.
Eventually something has to give which is soft tissue injury or sickness, both resulting in you missing games which doesn't help anyone and shouldn't happen when you have total control over this.
Granted I'm 37 and a half and don't recover like some of you young bucks do but the principles are still the same.
Buddy to kick 7 today against the much improved Blues!
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