Pac-Man and Bob the Builder

I first heard this analogy from a sports doctor, and it's since been a story I've passed on to many athletes...and it's one they all remember!!!

Do you remember the Pac-Man video arcade game? (Do you remember video arcades??) Basically, Pac-Man was game where the objective was to guide the Pac-Man around a maze and gobble up pac-dots while trying not to be caught by a ghost. It was exciting stuff back in 1980 and became an icon of 80's pop-culture. But for the purpose of this story just think of Pac-Man as the thing that gobbles up anything in its way.

If you don't remember Pac-Man, you'll surely know of Bob the Builder. Bob is a building contractor with his colleague Wendy, various neighbours and friends, and their gang of work-vehicles and equipment. Bob's catchphrase is "Can we fix it?", to which the other characters always respond with "Yes we can!". Bob is basically a can-do, good guy who makes things better.

But what do Pac-Man and Bob the Builder have to do with anything?? Well, they're metaphors for what happens inside your body when you're training, when you're injured and lots of other circumstances. Inside your body is an on-going battle between these characters...one trying to break you down, and the other fixing you up. Let me explain some more...

When you train (hard) it wears your body down bit by bit. The overload fatigues and damages your muscles little by little. Eventually, without adequate rest, you'll get run down and fatigued, and possibly injured. I'm sure we've all seen or experienced this and it feels awful, when the overload has gone too far. This is akin to Pac-Man gobbling up your energy beans and leaving behind just empty husks. Sometimes, when you're really tired, you can feel him gnawing away at you. Life stress also adds fuel to Pac-Man's fire.

But when you rest and recover, you slowly feel the life coming back into your mind, body and limbs. Your muscles feel better and stronger, like you can jump tall buildings in a single bound!! It's an amazing feeling, like being on top of the world where you can do anything. This is Bob the Builder who tails along behind Pac-Man to patch things up and make them better and stronger. He's such a good worker that he often leaves things in a better, stronger state than before Pac-came along.

The tricky thing is making sure Pac-Man never gets too far ahead of Bob the Builder. To keep him in sight so the gap between damage Pac-Man does via way of training too much / hard is never more than Bob the Builder can handle via way of rest and recovery. It's an on-going balance you need to maintain in order to improve fitness and performance by means of overload, then recovery and adaptation.

The same analogy applies to injuries, and associated rehabilitation. Continuing to aggravate an injury by training is like Pac-Man gobbling you up, giving no chance for Bob the Builder to fix your injury, let alone help you recover from the additional training. You really need to give Bob a chance by resting so that all Bob's energies can go towards repairing your injury. Give him - and yourself - a chance so you can get back on an even playing field sooner.

So there's a little analogy to keep in mind every time you go out to train...or neglect to rest sufficiently. Are you giving Bob the Builder an even chance to do his job, and making it a fair battle with Pac-Man? It's your body and your choice.