Recharge 100

Andrew May on the TODAY Show, Channel 9, Sydney


go slow
Our modern way of living teaches us that faster is better. Speed is the new king and our lives are measured in bits and bytes, dissected into milliseconds and micro-detail. Is it any wonder our health, relationships, sex lives and performance begin to suffer?

We are not designed to go flat out, around the clock. Life is meant to be a series of sprints interspersed with periods of rest and recovery. It is impossible to be ‘on’ 24/7. While we regularly need to boost the throttle into turbo drive and plough through those To Do lists, it is equally – and vitally – important to spend time in cruise mode, or time going slow. The challenge is our culture has conditioned us to think that slow is evil; slow is seen to be the enemy of achievement. Slow is perceived as weak, passive, soft. Nothing could be further from the truth.

the slow movement
As humans are becoming more and more disconnected from the things that really matter, the slow movement offers a return to a connected lifestyle. The slow movement? Yes, really. It’s a loosely connected international movement that’s aimed at providing an alternative to today’s fractured, fast-paced, and increasingly unhappy, overworked and burnt out world. It’s all about slowing down life’s pace, and taking time to enjoy the things that give us pleasure. It’s about reconnecting with food, with people, with place, with life: these are the things that offer us meaning.

hapa hapa
Hapa Hapa is Swahili for ‘slowly, slowly’, and this concept is much more part of the African culture. When I was a middle distance runner, every summer the Kenyans would come out and train with us for a few months. Looking back, I failed to heed the lessons they were teaching us. Train hard and recover hard. The Kenyans use to do 3 things – run, eat and sleep! In contrast, whenever I felt really tired I’d keep ploughing ahead (as do so many athletes) thinking that all I needed was to get some more miles in the bank and then everything would come good. In retrospect, I really do believe I would have run much faster if I had taken more notice of the Kenyans and rested more when I felt tired. In other words, adding some Hapa Hapa and going SLOW in order to go FAST.

recovery in sport
My good friend, David Misson, introduced a recovery system with the Sydney Swans a few years back where players accumulate 100 points each week to ensure they are recovering properly for the upcoming game. An elite AFL player can cover more than 20 km in a game, and the majority of this at high intensity. With so much energy being expended on game day, the primary focus in between games is managing injuries and getting the players ready to peak again, ready to perform. Each week the players tally their recovery activities, different tasks are weighted according to their ability to facilitate recovery for the upcoming game. An ice bath or a massage might be twenty points, yoga scores twenty-five points, an easy stretch ten points and so on. During the pointy end of the season, Misso gets the players to double their weekly targets and aims for 200 recovery points each week.

the recovery toolbox
The Recovery Toolbox is based on a format similar to Misso’s point system. In the business world we try and play a five-day test match every week, a Grand Slam every fortnight, and an AFL Grand Final every day. Is it any wonder we are continually tired?

The Recovery Toolbox combines both indoor and outdoor activities, with the total goal being 100 points a week. Add Indoor activities plus outdoor activities for the previous week and tally your score. How did you go?

cross-recovering
So rather than getting 100 points by dancing four times a week (or choosing any of the other activities where you score 25 points four times a week!), I’d like you to accumulate points from a range of activities. You’ll notice these activities are predominantly ‘slow’ tasks. Fitness enthusiasts often feel ripped off when they first see this scale. Fitness junkies do everything hard and fast – but the simple fact is that going to the gym and belting out a Pump Class, or riding your bike up a mountain for four hours, while great for strength and cardiovascular fitness, doesn’t really help you recover and press the ‘re’ button.
30 weeks of 100 recovery points

Why don’t you give it a go? Set yourself a four week period and see how your scores add up.

For thirty weeks of the year I want you to flip the switch and make sure you focus on recovering properly. Think back to the Recovery Toolbox. Each week your goal is to get 100 recovery points. Why not buy a notebook and fill out your recovery points every week so you ensure that you make it up to your goal of 100 points, thirty weeks a year?

And what about the other twenty-two weeks of the year? You’re not entirely off the hook. The remainder of the time, your goal is to get a minimum of 70 points each week. So aim to get 100 points when you can, and when it’s just not possible, make it a 70-point week.

Happy recovering!