PODCAST - I didn’t stretch for 3 months (here’s what happened)
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[00:00:00] Welcome to The Athlete with Asthma Show. I'm your host, Johnny Havey, an ultra runner, endurance athlete, and yes, a guy who's had an inhaler prescribed since birth. Despite doctors telling me I could never play soccer nor run a marathon, let alone 100K ultra, I proved them all wrong. This show is where I share everything I've learned, from breathing techniques to mindset shifts, to help you become the athlete and the person you truly want to be.
So if you're ready to achieve your goals despite limitations, let's get started.
I know between working out and rest and everything you need to do when you're training for an event, the last thing that we tend to focus on is stretching. I personally haven't stretched for 90 days. For the past three months, I haven't stretched, and I've been in [00:01:00] a very i- intensive cycle of my HYROX training.
And this isn't the first time this has happened. I've done this in intense ultra cycles as well. Now, what do I mean I haven't stretched in three months? Well, what I mean is I've stretched a little bit here and there. We stretch for about five to 10 minutes after run club every week, and I stretch a little bit before I work out.
I do dynamic stretching, but I don't always do it and I probably only do it once or twice a week. And yet again, that's probably only for, like, three to five minutes. So when I'm saying I haven't stretched for 90 days, it doesn't mean that I haven't completely stopped stretching. I just, like you, I just fell behind drastically.
Have you ever felt this way, where you try to get it in, and you'll get it in here or there, and you just continue to be tight? Well, today's episode is for you. So here's what has really happened without having a consistent [00:02:00] stretching practice of more than 10 minutes per week over the past 90 days. First My right hip flexor/groin is extremely tight, and this is probably because HYROX is running lunges with a lot of weight, wall balls, and even the burpees, even the rows , even the, the skiers.
There's so many things that just put a lot of pressure on our legs, and specifically the lunges and sprinting on the treadmill and training at a really fast pace has really caused my legs to tighten up, and I haven't been giving them the stretching support that they need. What does this look like for you?
Maybe you have triceps that are really tight. Maybe you are feeling your knees hurt. This could actually be because of tight [00:03:00] hamstrings, tight glutes, and tight quads. Could even be tight calves causing that. There are so many different things that when we fail to stretch, they get tight and they make us feel like things like our knees.
Plantar fasciitis is from tight calves all the way up to tight hips. Your tight hips and lower back can feed into that. There's so many different things that when we don't stretch, they're going to cause a problem somewhere that you may think is a problem when it's really everything else being tight.
So that's the first thing. And by the way, after I share kinda here's what happened, I'm gonna tell you right now what I'm doing to correct it, 'cause I have about three and a half weeks before my HYROX event and I am making some pretty significant changes to correct it so that when I get to my HYROX event, I'm ready and I feel fresh, and I'm gonna be able to perform at a high level and perform safely.
Then after that, [00:04:00] I'm gonna tell you what I should have been doing and what my goal moving forward with training is to do. But let's see what else has really happened. My peroneus is really tight and has sharp pain now. This isn't good. What is the peroneus? Well, by the way, hip flexor, that's, there's some amazing stretches like runner's lunge, can do frog pose, could even...
I mean, runner's lunge is the absolute best in my opinion for a hip flexor stretch. Can also roll out with a roller your hip flexor and groin if that's the issue you're having. And then what I'm also doing is I'm getting massages to actually open things up. And like I said, there's so many other things that are tight, so I'm stretching everything in my legs.
I'm using a roller on everything in my legs to work on that. Peroneus, on the other hand, the peroneus [00:05:00] is really the top of the shin, the top outside of the shin. It can feel like knee pain sometimes. Well, the peroneus is really tightness is caused by tight calves, tight shins, tight hamstrings. It could even be tight hips, tight glutes, and tight back.
It- it's kind of everything starts pulling on the peroneus. And this really, when this starts happening, I know that I need to stretch and I am behind and I need to catch up. But just started feeling this in the past couple days, and this has really been what's pushed me over the top of like, "I need to do something now.
Why haven't I been doing this?" Um, I've just also felt extremely stiff. It also has just been taking me a long time to warm up and actually do my workouts. So long warmups, which aren't a bad thing. Like doing a longer warmup isn't bad. But I can just tell that running, for example, I went in, I was in Chicago last week [00:06:00] and I ran 10 miles along Lake Shore Drive and I was cranking.
You know, I live at a mile above sea level, so when I get to sea level, I can go even faster and I can hold that pace for a long time. So I was holding like a 6:15, 6:30 mile for like six miles in the middle of this 10-mile block. Well, it took me like two miles in order to warm up to be able to do this 'cause I was feeling some peroneus pain, some hip flexor pain, and I was really stiff.
Then I did six miles, and then once I started slowing down, the adrenaline went back down and I started jogging again and I started feeling this again. Well, this isn't normal and this is another reason why we need to stretch. And then really the last thing I've really been thinking about is I've been working my butt off to cut my HYROX time and yeah, I cut about two to three minutes in the past eight weeks off.
HYROX time. This is great. I'm excited about this. And [00:07:00] I think that in order to cut more time, being less stiff, being more mobile, and having my body not need these long warm-ups is gonna be advantageous to me. So I think that I am leaving time on the table, not in a good way. I think I can cut even more time by getting my mobility and stretching, and I think you can, too.
This is a common thing that happens to us. We push really hard, we train really hard, we get some success, and then at some point you may find that you hit a roadblock. You plateau. Sometimes it's because we need to mix up our workouts. Other times it means that we need to stretch, we need to rest more.
Well, I'm a big David Goggins fan, and he has shared that there was a time in his life where he wasn't stretching. He was pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, and he got to the point where his body got so tight and was under so much stress from all [00:08:00] these races, all these things he was putting his body through, that for I believe six months, maybe even for a year, he had to stretch for hours.
Hours upon hours upon hours every single day in order to loosen his body up and get himself back to functioning in society. He shares this very in-depth in his first book, Can't Hurt Me, and I highly recommend you check out the book. It does get pretty intense. But this is just, just shows you that when we put all this pressure on ourselves, and I know David Goggins is one of those athletes where you look at him as he's as hardcore as someone could be.
He went from not ever running an ultra to running a 100-mile ultra overnight, basically. What this shows is when you put all this stress on your body and you don't give it the rest and the stretching and care that it needs, it's gonna shut down at some point. That's what happened to him, and that's, it's not exactly what's happening to me right now 'cause we're talking, like, three months versus a matter of [00:09:00] years for David.
But here's my six months of intensive stretching and recovery that I'm doing to get myself ready for HYROX, to really turn this around. I think I caught it early enough. Here's what I'm doing. First, I've made this mistake before. This is just so important, but I just tend to make this mistake. Really, it's 'cause I love working out.
But I also, along with not stretching, I only took one rest day in the past month, and that's really how it's been. When I'm in the off-season not training for something, that's how I do it, is I really, I'll take a rest day whenever I feel like it, which ends up being every two to four weeks. Which is probably fine when I'm not training for something 'cause I'm not putting as much pressure on my body.
But when I'm training for something, I take one Full rest day a week. This doesn't mean what I share sometimes where you run one day, you lift one day, you run one day, you lift one day. You're, you're basically healing what you're not doing [00:10:00] every other day. No, you need a full rest day. And I did this for the first time about a week ago and I'm doing it again this week, and every week leading up to HYROX.
In addition to, I'm going to do a taper after week three, and I'm gonna do a taper starting a week out from HYROX. But you need to do a full rest day, and do it today. If you haven't done one in the past seven days, do it today. That is the first thing. And I felt a lot of relief just by doing this. Next, I am stretching twice per day for 15 to 30 minutes each time.
So yeah, we're talking about 30 minutes to an hour of stretching a day right now. Now I'm doing it twice a day, 'cause this is really important. Stretching and then living your life, and then stretching again to loosen things up again is extremely powerful. So highly recommend that if you haven't stretched in a long time, you can't remember the last time you stretched, [00:11:00] and you wanna catch up, at least one full day of rest immediately, and then stretching twice a day for at least 15 to 30 minutes.
It's really, I'm starting to really feel the benefits. I've been doing this for a couple days now. This is really turning things around for me. And I'm also icing daily. I specifically am icing my hip flexor. I'm icing my legs. I'm just really starting to help my body even more. I am using Arnica or, and/or CBD cream daily.
Really all over my legs, 'cause that's where I'm having the issues. My upper body's been fine. Now I'm still doing a lot of workout with my upper body, but I'm not running 30 miles with my upper body and supporting all the HYROX exercises. So I'm stretching a little bit upper body, but my main focus is on lower body and that's where I'm feeling everything.
And then I'm just doing more of a typical what I should be doing with stretching and maintaining upper body. Then the last [00:12:00] thing is I'm getting massages every 10 to 14 days. I'm gonna move this to every week starting this week. So this is what I'm doing to catch up right now. Now, I think this is gonna get me w- to where I need to be for High Rocks.
If in a week I start feeling that I'm still extra tight, then I'm probably gonna change my stretching to 30 to 60 minutes twice a day. I'm probably, I already told you, that gonna go to every-week massages just proactively. And I may throw another rest day in, so I might go to one to two full rest days.
So that's where I'm headed if this initially doesn't help me, and that is what I recommend for you, too, is you could really even throw more rest days in. Go up to two rest days a week if you haven't taken a rest day, and that could really solve a lot of things for you. And the rest days are [00:13:00] really where I think I'm gonna unlock potentially another couple minutes of cutting on my High Rocks time.
This is what allows our bodies to flourish in our events. And now this is what I should have done, and what my plans are moving forward, and what I highly recommend you do as a baseline moving forward with your training cycles when it comes to stretching, rest, and recovery. First, every training program I've ever seen, every athlete I've talked to that performs at a high level, e- even athletes like Michael Phelps who say that they don't take very much time off, almost everyone says you need to take one rest day per week.
You just, you, you need it. And I- I'm telling myself this probably even more than I'm telling you this, 'cause whenever I do this, I have so much success. The challenge for me is the day that I do this my body feels restless, but when I get back to it my [00:14:00] body feels amazing. And when I get to race day my body feels amazing.
You need to take one rest day per week at least. Some people need more. And you may say, "Well, Johnny, I take three or four rest days per week. I only work out three days a week, four days a week." I'm not saying that you need to up that to six. I'm just saying that I know that there's someone out there just like me who doesn't take rest days, works out all the time, and you needed to hear this
This is for you, 'cause it, it can be hard. It can be hard to understand that this is what's really gonna help. Then really stretching daily. Now, you can stretch a couple times a day if you want, but for me, stretching daily, and it's, you know, five to 15 minutes. Really ideally, I do yoga once per week. Then lastly, ice, arnica, CBD.
This is what works for me. Always talk to your healthcare professional on what is best for you. When needed. Doesn't have to be daily [00:15:00] or anything, this is just when needed. Like, I should have started icing when I first started the pain coming on. Probably should have been putting arnica and CBD cream on proactively.
So this is very doable. I mean, think about it. You take a full rest day every week. Stretching. You can stretch for five minutes. You can stretch for 15 minutes. And then adding yoga or really just a stretch class every week. We all need that. It feels so much better. When I'm doing yoga once a week or more, I feel so much better, so much younger, so much more mobile.
So I highly recommend that for you. And we just gotta treat ourselves better. When we feel something, let's take care of it. Let's give our bodies what it needs to recover. Now I wanna hear from you, so leave me a comment, if you're watching this on YouTube or if the podcasting program you're using allows comments.
I wanna hear what your rest and recovery routine is, and I wanna hear what you want it to be so that you can avoid [00:16:00] burning out, you can increase your performance, and really overall live happier and healthier in your athletic and just life pursuits. Leave a comment. If you can't leave a comment, then I invite you to send me an email, [email protected], and I'll see you in the next episode.
Thanks for tuning in to The Athlete With Asthma show. I hope today's episode inspired you to overcome any perceived limitations you may have. Remember, your health and wellness journey isn't about perfection, it's about progress. So I invite you to take a small step right now towards your goals. And if you found something helpful here, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with others on a similar path.
Until next time, keep challenging yourself and redefining [00:17:00] what's possible
