By Pauric Grimes

WE’RE approaching the business end of the club championship season, and without kicking men while they’re down, there will be some of the boys who togged out over the last week or two for their final time.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. In fact, as any of the men on our Reignite programme would tell you, now you get to play for your own personal championship.

There’s a broad range of reasons why we’ve seen people put their hands up to work with us over the last number of months.

From being frustrated about how unfit they’ve got to the weight they’ve put on since they’ve stopped playing.

For some there’s no physical driver behind getting on board, it’s more so that they noticed that without having any real structure to their training they were low on energy and pretty flat compared to how they used to feel.

And there are a fair chunk of the boys who said they just reached out because they didn’t know what else to be at with themselves, but once they took part in that first challenge day they knew it was the craic and the connection that they’d really missed since stopping playing ball.

Everyone will have a different ‘why’, but if you do think that you’ve pulled on your club jersey for the last time I’d encourage you to sit with that decision for a bit. Think about why you’re saying you’re done. Is it because you’re getting ‘too old’? Are you not enjoying it anymore? Is the thought of not having to start all over again more appealing than that of doing it?

Then once you’ve come to the conclusion as to why you’re done ask yourself what you’re doing to replace it.

I read a study earlier in the week about screentime. Quick test for you – Would you consider yourself a busy person? Now check your screen time.

The average screen time of an adult in the western world is creeping up year on year and they’ve found that the only way to reduce that number with any real success is to replace mindless scrolling by filling it with meaningful or purposeful actions.

If you don’t have something to do with that extra hour of your day you’ve just wrestled back off your phone, you’ll inevitably go back to scrolling.

And for me retirement sits in the same ballpark. If you don’t have something lined up to replace what it gave you – focus, connection, goals, exercise, routine – eventually that time will be consumed by something much less productive.

So whether you’ve just decided you’re retiring from playing or you’ve been out of the game for a few years, this is your “screen time” check aka what am I going to do with the time and energy I’ve gotten back without having sports commitments.

Whatever it is, just make sure it isn’t mindless scrolling.