Here’s how playing a first game of the year of baseball or rounders in the park can either sharpen you up, or accept you may as well buy one of those “comfortable chairs” and watch instead from the sidelines.
I was playing lunch time with the kids, when a lady who trains with us at the gym shouted at me if there “was something wrong with me”. I hit the ball and ran around the bases as quickly as I could but obviously I was much slower than she expected!
The kids are MUCH faster than me at the best of times, but there was more.I then realised I was stiffer than normal, I had done a heavy live 45 minutes flat out core and cardio session earlier on, plus a pretty full on run at around 630am, so that explained the stiffness, and I was still suffering the day before, from another heavy live weights session, a run up the lookout and a weights session, plus football with the kids afterwards.
But then I realised I was making excuses to myself. It was the nature of the movement I was putting myself through that made all the difference.I hadn’t done flat out sprints for a good while, which are needed to run from base to base, once you hit the ball.
The stop starting too requires deceleration, which needs strong control from your tendons and ligaments to slow down in a hurry, again which I wasn’t used to on that level, especially as we were in teams of 2 and we were trying to win!So you can see doing different forms of training is vital, even when you want to still play recreational sport, and makes the difference between taking part, or buying “the chair” and arriving with a cooler box of food and drink rather than taking part!!!
Every kid wants their parent to take part with them in sport, every kid would have their grandparents taking part if they could, the question is how much you are willing to put INTO staying in the game by working on your fitness, what will you put into the ENJOYMENT and FULFILMENT of still playing, and the inspiration your kids/grandkids get from you still playing a full and active part of their lives.
The answer is we all have to work on it, to exercise at least 3 days week, put a range of movements in our training that mimic everyday life, and the fun stuff too like games.
This way we get the fun and satisfaction of still taking part, and never ever utter the defeatist words “my best days are behind me”, which sends a terrible message to your body and your mind that you needn’t even bother anymore. This was the first baseball game of the year and I can only get better, I had better step my training up!!
