Not everybody wants to be a professional athlete so why train like one? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying to jump on Mo Fahra's running training plan starting tomorrow! Mostly because the majority of us would be hospitalised even after attempting his recovery day routine. When I say train like an athlete I mainly refer to consistency, structure, precision and mentality, but not necessarily specificity. Professional sportspeople follow very specific training programmes that focus on developing a certain skill, top speed or endurance. Someone who is looking to improve their health and fitness could follow a more diverse plan. Varied workout routines can promote multiple adaptations simultaneously while keeping training more enjoyable.
If you want to improve your physical fitness you need to put in the work. However doing it every once in a while won't cut it. This is where consistency comes into play. Athletes have to train regularly to become the best in their sports and should too. With consistent training the body receives enough stimuli to adapt thus becoming stronger, faster and more agile. In other words if you train once a week with questionable effort you're wasting your time. I understand that people have busy lives and introducing regular training into the lifestyle might not be as easy as it sounds but you don't have to train every day (however being active every day would be much recommended) and workouts don't have to last for hours. My recommendation (based on my experience and scientific literature) is three to four sessions a week lasting between 30-45 minutes at 60-80% intensity.
Having a certain number of sessions each week provides some structure to the training already but to get the best out of your efforts and allow proper recovery, you need to look into the arrangement of your workouts and the exercises within each of those workouts. Let me give you an example!
Let's say that Cindy wants to improve her overall fitness, has no injuries and happy to do any type of exercise except rowing because she genuinely hates the rower and makes her gag just looking at it. She can train four times a week up to one hour maximum. I would recommend her to do two strength training sessions and two cardio sessions.
Day 1 Lower body strength - focusing on power and strength exercises for the legs,
Day 2 Rest/recovery,
Day 3 Cardio interval training,
Day 4 Upper body strength - working with power and strength exercises to target the back, chest and shoulders,
Day 5 Rest/recovery,
Day 6 Steady state cardio such as running, cycling or swimming and
Day 7 Rest/recovery.
Structuring the week like that would allow Cindy to train at the desired intensity during each of her sessions also providing adequate time to rest and recover.
Earlier in the article I mentioned precision. When I say precision I mean selecting the correct exercises and perform them with the best possible form, at the right intensity as well as determining sufficient training volume (volume refers to the amount of weight lifted or distance covered for example 4x100m sprint or 2x10km bike ride). Being precise when developing a plan for someone or for ourselves is crucial in order to prevent injuries and overtraining, and to maximise training results. Often times training programmes look like a bunch of random exercises especially if we're talking about a plan utilising the cross training approach (each day can present a completely different workout) however if the programme was written correctly we would discover certain patterns, meaning that a number of different protocols were used during the planning.
Perhaps I should have started to whole article by expanding on training mentality as probably this is the most important component when it comes to long term physical training. Pro athletes are able to train consistently because they're on a mission and they're competitive. The big picture always levitates in front of their eyes therefore they're willing to do whatever it takes to get to the top. It's actually the exact same mentality that a successful professional would have, a person who's determined to climb the ladder to become the boss one day. It takes some grinding but as soon as we accept the fact that hard work has to be put in, the whole situation becomes a lot less intimidating. In other words, if you brace yourself for a difficult ride you'll less likely be overwhelmed, panicky or discouraged. Approaching tasks and challenges with a "hoping that everything will turn out just fine even though I've made minimal effort" type of attitude won't get you too far neither in your professional life nor in your fitness journey. As I said it earlier, competitiveness is an important element of long term training. However trying to beat the 200m swimming world record on your first swimming lesson shouldn't be your priority. I believe it's critical to understand that your number one competitor is yourself. You need to first compare your current and past results to see if you're improving or not and then analyse your data against other individual's (maybe pro athletes) results.
Another powerful strategy many professional athletes apply in order to perform better and keep going day after day is self- motivation. It's nice to have someone by your side to give you a little extra boost when needed but that unfortunately isn't always the case. Self-motivation is a skill that you might have already but if not, you can definitely learn it. There are a number of self-motivation tools such as pep talk and imagery. The power of positive words and phrases can't be underestimated. You can (but you don't have to) scream the cheesy "I CAN DO IT!" or "LET'S GO!" while slapping the crap out of yourself, or you could rather go through and reinforce (by using positive words) your tactics, movements, pacing and breathing.
Imagery is another extremely effective method used by athletes in virtually every sport. It involves the person picturing him or herself executing a specific movement or grinding through the session(s). It isn't only about the images though. Trying to imagine what the exercises would feel like (the sensations in the muscles under load, lactic acid build up during intense work, etc...) when performing them can massively contribute to improved performance and will help to avoid being overwhelmed. Just as an example for imagery, when I'm out cycling and I see a hill appearing on the horizon I travel forward in time (only in my imagination of course) and put myself already to the bottom of the hill, picturing as I'm changing gears and body position, loosing speed and start feeling the burn in my legs. Thanks to this process I'm well prepared - I did the hill in my head already so I just have to replicate it in the real environment. I know what gear to be in and what to expect/do when the lactate build up kicks in. No surprises, except if a deer jumps out from the bush and knocks me right across the road. That would be definitely a massive surprise.
Comentarios