In your corporate life, what’s your equivalent of throwing 120 consecutive pitches? Before you ponder that too much, let me take a step back and talk about baseball and a new player on the MLB scene in the 2014 season. Yankees’ starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, a rookie from Japan, emerged on the mound in the spring and exceeded expectations before falling victim to injury. The question is: How does he keep up the pace, intensity, and focus required of athletes at his level?
As someone who works with world-class athletes, among others, whose job requires high intensity, I study the code for elite performance. My research includes how this code is applicable to the “Corporate Athlete”—the men and women in the business world who are required to have the endurance and laser focus to perform at high levels for extended periods of time. After reading up on Tanaka, what I see as a key to his success is that he brought to the U.S. a critical piece of his culture: He is exceptionally disciplined with a “never let up” attitude and places a high value on family and social structures. Ingrained in him is dedication not only to his team, but also to his training regimen, including the sacred rest and recovery period. By “rest and recovery” in no way do I mean slacking off with his training, but rather a recapture of critical energy. There are four dimensions of energy that make up each of us: physical, mental, emotional and spiritual (the latter meaning with respect to understanding that we are part of something larger than ourselves). To perform at elite levels, all four dimensions need to be firing on all cylinders.
Schedule Recovery Time
Stress is the stimulus for growth, and growth occurs during recovery. We can push ourselves to the limit, but need to know when to back off to recover and grow. If you stress a muscle today, optimally you give it 48 hours to recover because growth occurs during this rest time. These up and down cycles of stress and recovery, called oscillations, are critical because if there is no recovery, there is no growth. What great athletes realize—and take as seriously as conditioning—is that the recovery process re-energizes all four dimensions of the human system and is an essential part of a 360-degree training program.
When many of us think of baseball training, we conjure images of spring training in Florida. And while many theories abound as to the cause of his mid-season injury, one thing is for certain. The idea of recovery played a critically important role as he attempted to re-enter the upper echelons of baseball.
For Tanaka, from his early years, his disciplined and intense baseball trainings were year round, including grueling practice sessions in shin-deep snow. He’s been conditioned to recognize that with protracted training schedules, he needs to protect his body. In order to recoup the level of energy required to keep that intensity, he needs to disengage from performance and engage in recovery. Rest and recovery requires setting boundaries. We set boundaries to protect ourselves, and an example for Tanaka is his philosophy on “Nagekomi,” the Japanese term for repetitive throwing. During Tanaka’s formative training, it was commonplace for coaches and players to have the attitude that throwing hundreds of pitches a day would strengthen the arm. As early as high school, Tanaka’s coach eschewed that philosophy. He had the foresight to ingrain in Tanaka to set boundaries and know when to stop and recover to have the strength to perform at his peak in the game. It’s tempting to keep going, thinking that one more pitch won’t hurt and might put the athlete one step ahead in the game. The reality is that engaging in recovery is what makes us stronger, so not only do athletes schedule it into their training, but they also adhere to it. Often, the Corporate Athlete might schedule it, but may not respect the need for down time and not fully disengage from the office.
Just like Tanaka’s high school coach, the CEO of a Fortune 500 consumer goods company adheres to the philosophy that disengaging in performance allows one to recoup the level of energy necessary to lead with intensity. During his first year in his job as CEO, he worked almost every weekend. He notes that after attending a two-day Corporate Athlete training program, he now works hard for an hour or 90 minutes and then takes a break that might include taking a walk or chatting with friends or family. He acknowledges that it can take up to 15 minutes to recharge, similar to the interval training of an athlete.
What’s Your Nagekomi?
Let’s go back to my original question: What’s your “Nagekomi” or equivalent of throwing hundreds of pitches? What is it in your professional life that you have trouble disengaging from, thinking that “more is better” to enhance your efficiency and be “on top of your game,” when, in fact, it’s a repetitive activity in the short term that negatively affects your performance in the long term? Maybe it’s answering e-mail at all hours of the day or working throughout the weekend. When we fail to schedule and take time for recovery and protect what is sacred and important to us—be it our personal relationships or our pitching arm—we hinder our ability to grow, get stronger, and be more effective.
Many of us have planned or are still planning for vacation time this year. This is the perfect time to train in setting a schedule—and boundaries—for rest and recovery. I understand that it can be challenging for a Corporate Athlete to completely disconnect for an extended period of time, but you can employ tactics to set realistic boundaries. For instance, when you’re away, tell your colleagues and clients that you’ll be available via e-mail from 8 to 9 in the morning or whatever discrete timeframe works for you. After that time, disengage from work and engage in hitting the beach or a golf ball, going for a hike, or tossing a baseball with your child. Just don’t repetitively throw 120 pitches.
Jack Groppel, Ph.D., is the co-founder of Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute.
