Friday, April 6, 2012

16 Ways to Master Your Derby-Life Balance
 let go of fear

So I ran across "Ask The Entrepreneurs: 16 Ways to Master Your Work-Life Balance as an Entrepreneur" on Lifehacker and it mainly struck me that all of it could easily apply to playing derby. So I rewrote it!

1. Let Go of Fear

“Many entrepreneurs struggle with fear that if they’re not working every minute that they could possibly be working, their business will fail and they will regret not having put in more time. However, in my own experience and in observing other successful entrepreneurs, letting go of this fear not only leads to work-life balance but also more meaningful productivity and accomplishment.” -Elizabeth Saunders, Real Life E®
I mean, right? Many derby girls struggle with fear that if they're not practicing every minute that they could possibly be practicing, they will fail at derby and they will regret not having put in more time. However, in my own experience and in observing other successful derby girls, letting go of this fear not only leads to derby-life balance but also more meaningful productivity and accomplishment.

Now you know that there's girls who mostly want to be derby girls, and there's girls who want to play derby, and all of the former just read the above and thought to themselves, that's sooo right, and went right back to picking out fun socks on Sock Dreams, and all of the latter stopped reading at "will regret not having put in more time" and said to themselves, that's sooo right and went off to practice. Because not working every minute that you can possibly work basically means whatever you want it to mean.

So let me tell you straight out that there actually is a set optimal number of practices for athletes, and it is no more than four per week. And three, actually, is better than four. That is, three high intensity key workouts per week and one or two low intensity recovery workouts per week. High means that 10-20% of those workouts is above your anaerobic threshold, actually only a small portion but at your highest intensity for realz. Which you have to be honest about and not hold back! And low means low, like not break a sweat low. And the rest of the week for, hey, rest!

The worst possible thing you can do to yourself is work out as hard as you can six to seven days a week, because nobody can work out at their highest intensity for six to seven days a week. So you end up working at something short of highest intensity and also you end up not recovering ever, which is pretty much the opposite of the recipe for success.

Believe me I know, it's hard to get off that speeding train. It is a leap of faith. Not off an actual speeding train, that would not end well at all. This is not an actual train, though. Is my point.

Ha well, I meant to get through all sixteen points in one post. I should have known that wasn't going to happen. Sixteen points in sixteen posts, shall we then?