When Pushing Harder Stops Being the Answer
I tried chewing tarmac once. It didn’t taste very nice.
It was a cold October morning in 2016, and I was less than three miles from home when I discovered that there are limits to how quickly you can take a descending corner on a road bike…. a corner I had taken hundreds of times. Unfortunately, I was travelling rather too quickly this time, to do much about that discovery.
I’d enjoyed a fantastic cycling season. Following my comeback in 2014, I’d continued rebuilding my endurance fitness, taking on demanding cycling challenges, like stages of le Tour Du France and competing increasingly regularly closer to home. By 2016, I was feeling strong, my fitness was improving, and I was enjoying myself enormously.
Perhaps a little too much.
Looking back, I should have been winding the season down. But when things are going well, when you’re feeling stronger and seeing the results of years of effort, the last thing you want to do is stop.
So I kept pushing. And on that particular October morning, I pushed a little too far, as Martin Brundle (Former F1 racing driver and commentator) would say ‘I ran out of talent’.
Three Miles From Home
I was heading out to meet my cycling club for another hundred kilometre ride. They was waiting for me, probably looking at his watch and wondering why I was late. What they didn’t know was that I was about to have a rather more eventful morning than any of us had planned.
I was descending towards a fast corner. The road was damp, I was carrying too much speed, and before I knew it, I was sliding along the tarmac. My hip took much of the initial impact, followed by my shoulder and head. My helmet cracked, doing precisely what it was designed to do, and I continued sliding down the road.
The problem was that I was heading towards an oncoming car.
I remember raising my hand towards the driver as I slid along. Not an angry gesture, I should add. More like a schoolboy putting his hand up to answer a question. Except this time, the question was whether I was about to end up underneath someone’s car. It was instinct and although the driver had seen me, I didn’t know that and instinctively held my hand up while sliding along.
Thankfully, the driver stopped.
Even now, ten years later, I recognise how fortunate I was. A slightly different speed, a different road surface or a driver reacting a moment later could have produced a very different outcome. At the time, however, I was rather more concerned about getting home.
Apparently, I Needed an Ambulance
What I hadn’t appreciated at the time was that I’d actually been unconscious for a short period following the impact. While I was out cold, somebody had already called an ambulance. When I came round, with the help of someone who’d stopped, I managed to get back on my feet.
Naturally, my first concern was the condition of my bike. Any keen cyclist will understand that instinct! I hobbled over to inspect the damage, completely unaware that I’d briefly lost consciousness or quite how badly I’d hurt myself.
Several motorists had stopped to help, and they were clearly more concerned about my condition than I was. I was apparently looking rather pale, and there were concerns about my general well-being. But I was having none of it. I kept explaining that I lived less than three miles away and could quite happily cycle home.
There were two significant problems with this suggestion. My bike wasn’t in particularly good condition, and neither was I.
Adrenaline is an extraordinary thing. Despite the blood, damaged clothing and considerable amount of missing skin, I wasn’t really registering how badly I’d injured myself. And because I hadn’t realised I’d been unconscious, I genuinely couldn’t understand why everyone was making such a fuss. Looking back, they knew considerably more about my condition than I did, and quite rightly weren’t prepared to let me get back on the bike.
The driver of the black Audi I’d almost slid into suggested I sit in his car and warm up while we waited for the ambulance. Naturally, I declined, explaining once again that I was absolutely fine. A few minutes later, having reconsidered my position and beginning to feel rather less wonderful, I sheepishly asked whether I might take him up on his offer.
When the ambulance arrived, the paramedics were outstanding. Calm, reassuring, professional and, thankfully, equipped with a sense of humour. I was still rather embarrassed about the whole situation, particularly as I’d been so insistent that an ambulance wasn’t necessary.
At one point, the female paramedic announced that she was going to cut my cycling (bib) trousers off.
“You can’t do that,” I protested.
“Why not?”
“Well, firstly, they’re very expensive. And secondly, I’m not wearing any underwear.”
That brought a laugh. Anyone who cycles seriously will appreciate the first objection. I suspect the second was rather more entertaining for everyone else.
Meanwhile, the cycling club I’d been heading out to meet still had no idea what had happened. I’d set off from home expecting to join them approximately five miles away, but I’d only made it about three miles before my morning came to an abrupt end.
As far as they knew, I simply hadn’t turned up.
In reality, I was in the back of an ambulance, on my way to Harrogate Hospital, still not fully appreciating just how much damage I’d done.
The Damage Was Worse Than I Thought
The accident had left me with cracked ribs, concussion, extensive road rash, injuries to my face and significant damage to my hand. My hip had taken a substantial impact, too.
The concussion affected me for a while, and the road rash was particularly unpleasant. Anyone who’s lost several layers of skin sliding along a road will appreciate that it’s considerably worse than an ordinary graze.
But the injury that has stayed with me physically is my left hand.
Even today, ten years later, it doesn’t close properly. My fingers don’t follow the trajectory they once did, and cold weather can bring uncomfortable reminders of that morning. I’ve learnt to live with it, but I sometimes wonder whether I should have explored surgical options or more specialist treatment.
Perhaps something could have been done. Perhaps not. I don’t know.
What I do know is that my priorities at the time were rather different. I wanted to recover, rebuild my fitness and get back on the bike. I was probably more focused on becoming physically strong again than ensuring every individual injury received the attention it deserved.
That’s something I might approach differently today.
Recovery Didn’t Mean Doing Nothing
People who know me will appreciate that I’ve never been particularly enthusiastic about sitting still. I’ve spent much of my adult life testing my limits, whether through Ironman triathlons, cycling events, marathons or climbing mountains.
You might therefore assume that being forced to stop training would have left me frustrated, miserable and desperate to get moving.
Curiously, it didn’t.
I accepted that I’d had a fairly substantial knock and that my body needed time to recover. I don’t remember spending days feeling sorry for myself. Instead, I became extremely focused on giving my body the best opportunity to repair itself.
Nutrition had always been important to me, but I doubled down on eating real food. Milk, eggs, natural Greek yoghurt, plenty of fish and chicken, some additional red meat and generous quantities of vegetables. Broccoli featured heavily. Nothing revolutionary, just good food that I enjoyed and believed would support my recovery.
I rested, worked gently on my mobility, used massage and gradually introduced stretching and strengthening as my injuries allowed. I wasn’t simply sitting around waiting to get better, but neither was I attempting to force my way back into serious training.
Interestingly, the British Journal of Sports Medicine’s UEFA expert statement on nutrition recognises the importance of maintaining adequate energy, protein and micronutrient intake during injury rehabilitation. The research doesn’t suggest that particular foods perform miracles, but it reinforces the importance of proper nutritional support during recovery.[1]
My wife, Rachel, who is a consultant anaesthetist, was outstanding throughout. She was particularly surprised at how quickly some of my visible injuries appeared to heal, especially the cuts to my face and the damaged skin elsewhere.
She started calling me Wolverine.
I rather liked that, although Wolverine probably wouldn’t have spent quite so much time worrying about the price of his cycling trousers.
When the Body Has Other Ideas
Of course, visible healing isn’t the same as complete recovery. My concussion, damaged ribs and hand required much more time than the cuts on my face. Today, the international concussion consensus published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine recommends an individualised, graduated return to physical activity rather than either prolonged inactivity or pushing through symptoms.[2]
Research on sleep and athletic performance also reinforces the role of recovery in allowing the body to adapt to demanding training.[3]
And then there’s training load itself. The International Olympic Committee’s 2016 consensus statement examined the relationship between training demands, recovery and injury risk, emphasising the importance of managing load rather than assuming that more is always better.[4]
I’m not suggesting that fatigue caused my accident. I took a corner too quickly on a damp road, and that was my mistake. But the experience made me reconsider something else: how readily I’d continued training simply because things were going well.
I’ve explored a similar pattern in my blog, The PaceTrap: Why High Achievers Lose Clarity Without Noticing. When we become accustomed to a particular pace, slowing down can feel almost unnatural, even when doing so might serve us better.
And Then Came 2017
When I eventually returned to training, I was initially surprised that I couldn’t do quite what I’d been doing before the accident. Some of the fitness had disappeared, and rebuilding required patience.
But it came back remarkably quickly.
And in 2017, I produced what I consider to be arguably the strongest cycling performances of my life. After everything that had happened the previous October, I was back taking on demanding events and feeling incredibly strong.
Now, I can’t prove that the enforced recovery caused that improvement. Years of previous training, conditioning, rehabilitation and plenty of other factors would all have contributed. It would be ridiculous to suggest that crashing a bicycle is an effective performance strategy.
But I can’t ignore the sequence of events either.
I’d been pushing hard throughout 2016. I crashed in October, spent a substantial period recovering and rebuilding, and returned the following year to deliver some of my best performances.
Would I have performed just as well without the accident? Possibly. Would I voluntarily have taken that much time away from training? Almost certainly not.
That contradiction has stayed with me.
Back in 2001, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz explored this relationship in their Harvard Business Review article, The Making of a Corporate Athlete. Their central argument was that sustained high performance requires deliberate recovery alongside effort.[5]
More recently, I’ve reflected on the same tension in Taking Time Out: Why Strategic Stillness Strengthens Leadership Performance. That experience was very different from recovering after an accident, but it involved a familiar reluctance to interrupt something that was going well.
The Rest I Would Never Have Chosen
I’ve always been good at pushing myself. In business, endurance sport and life generally, I’ve had a strong appetite for discovering what I’m capable of achieving. It’s contributed to some of my proudest experiences, and I have no intention of abandoning that characteristic.
But there’s a difference between being capable of continuing and making a wise decision to continue.
Harvard Business Review explored this distinction in Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure, challenging the assumption that resilience is simply the ability to withstand more pressure.[6] Its later relevance to me is obvious, although I certainly wasn’t thinking about academic research while sliding towards that black Audi.
The same tension appears in many of the successful professionals I work with. Doctors, lawyers, CEOs and founders can become extraordinarily good at carrying responsibility and maintaining momentum. But being good at doing more doesn’t necessarily mean that doing more is always the right answer.
It’s a theme I explored in The Mirage of Momentum: Why High Achievers Mistake Motion for Progress.
Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy also examined this issue in Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time, arguing that increasing working hours is not a sustainable substitute for managing the energy required to perform effectively.[7]
I don’t look back on my accident with gratitude. I’d much rather have avoided it altogether, kept my skin where it belonged and retained full movement in my hand. Nor did the experience transform me into someone who now has a perfectly balanced relationship with rest. I can still push too hard, become absorbed in a challenge and convince myself that just a little more effort is needed.
But that October morning gave me something I wouldn’t have chosen: a period when continuing at my normal pace simply wasn’t an option.
What followed was one of the strongest sporting years of my life.
Ten years later, I still find myself wondering how often we recognise the need to stop only when something forces us to.
And whether we might achieve more, not by continually pushing harder, but by becoming a little better at recognising when enough is enough.
References
- Collins, J., et al. (2021). UEFA Expert Group Statement on Nutrition in Elite Football: Current Evidence to Inform Practical Recommendations and Guide Future Research. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 55, 416–442.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/8/416 - Patricios, J. S., et al. (2023). Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport: The 6th International Conference on Concussion in Sport — Amsterdam, October 2022. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 57, 695–711.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/57/11/695 - Walsh, N. P., et al. (2021). Sleep and the Athlete: Narrative Review and 2021 Expert Consensus Recommendations. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 55, 356–368.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/55/7/356 - Soligard, T., et al. (2016). How Much Is Too Much? (Part 1) International Olympic Committee Consensus Statement on Load in Sport and Risk of Injury. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 50, 1030–1041.
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/17/1030 - Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2001). The Making of a Corporate Athlete. Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2001/01/the-making-of-a-corporate-athlete - Achor, S., & Gielan, M. (2016). Resilience Is About How You Recharge, Not How You Endure. Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2016/06/resilience-is-about-how-you-recharge-not-how-you-endure - Schwartz, T., & McCarthy, C. (2007). Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time. Harvard Business Review.
https://hbr.org/2007/10/manage-your-energy-not-your-time
About Laurence Loxam
I’m Laurence Loxam. I’ve pushed limits in business, on mountains and at the finish line. Now I help high achievers do the same, pushing past the point most people stop.
I coach CEOs, doctors, lawyers and founders who have achieved a lot, but still feel there is more. Together, we unlock clarity, sharpen confidence and lead with conviction.
Executive Coach | Creator of The Elevation Model™
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