The consistent athlete: Part III, tips

CONSISTENT TRAINING TIPS

STAY FLEXIBLE
Don’t freak out if you oversleep, have to stay late at work, have an unexpected trip or event to attend or experience a niggle or ache in your body. Sure, it would be great if we could always plan for these things but we can’t. A chance for inconsistency in training (and possible injury, burnout, health issues) is trying to constantly make-up workouts,  push-through fatigue/exhaustion or squeezing too much on your daily plate. When things come up in life, adjust and be flexible. Do the best you can with the time that you do have to train or just start fresh tomorrow. Look at your week of training and remind yourself of how many key workouts you have each week that can build fitness – most of the time, missing a workout here or there will have no impact (negatively)  on your overall development in your season.
If you don't know how to adjust (or refuse to adjust), inconsistency in training can increase the risk for injuries and a plateau in fitness gains.
Be realistic with your available time so that you can experience consistency in training.

FUEL SMART
This is the most easy, yet most overlooked, component in helping your body perform well so that you can stay consistent with your training. You must make it a priority to fuel smart and to nourish your body. It is critical that you have a strong passion for healthy eating throughout the day and that you do not neglect proper sport nutrition and hydration before, during and after workouts. Plan ahead so that you are equipped to eat nourishing foods and you can snack smart throughout the day. And same goes for your gym bag or at home when it comes to sport nutrition/hydration -don’t let it be an afterthought to address the best sport nutrition for your body before, during and after workouts (to fuel, recover and to minimize GI distress). You will be surprised how much better you feel and how much better you will perform if you keep your body in good health, with the right fuels at the right time. Smart athletes focus on the daily diet AND sport nutrition regime and if they struggle, they reach out to an expert to help. 

FOLLOW THE PLAN
Time and time again we see athletes pushing too hard on an easy day or using an easy day to make up workouts. With too much adjustment in the weekly plan, athletes are unable to perform well on the days that call for hard efforts due to carrying around lingering, unplanned, fatigue. Trust your training plan as every workout counts – even the easy days. And when it comes to the important workouts, don’t let your mind call it quits just because you don't like the main set or you are getting bored. As a coach, I want to challenge my athletes with a variety of workouts so a smart training plan is key. But if my athletes are giving in mentally, every time the mind or body feels tired, the athlete may not improve. Training smart requires a special balance of intensity, volume and recovery/easy workouts. For the athlete, if you do not trust the training plan, you may find yourself struggling to keep up with the plan (or taking too many detours, delaying your fitness, by not following your plan). The road to fitness success is being able to tolerate planned fatigue with good form and a strong mindset and to use the recovery or easy days to recover and maintain fitness from the harder efforts.
And your training is only as good as your ability to prioritize good sleep, mobility and healthy eating on a daily basis. 

GOOD DAILY HABITS
In addition to supporting your training load with a healthy diet, great restful sleep and good stress management are critical to ensuring consistency in training. Working out with 10 things on your mind (like laundry, grocery shopping or what you are doing with your kids this weekend) will not help you focus on the workout you are doing. Learn how to turn your mind off from life (to the best of your ability) while you are working out. An easy strategy is to keep a to-do list by your side so that you are not thinking about what you need to do when you can’t do it, especially when you are working out. Additionally, quality sleep is the cheapest, easiest and most effective way to recover and get stronger. Rather than spending money on recovery modalities (ex. recovery boots, compression gear, trigger point/foam rolling sets, etc.), first work on your sleep habits. I suggest no less than 7 hours of restful sleep (that means not waking up throughout the night) on most days per week, with an additional 30-60 minutes of sleep on the weekends to catch up for the occasional super early morning workout or intense workouts.  

MOBILITY AND ACTIVE WARM-UPS
Many niggles turn to injuries simply because of the little time that athletes spend warming up and staying mobile throughout the day. Often times, athletes will increase the risk of injury between workouts as the body gets tight from sitting and commuting. Or, athletes will jump out of bed (early) and start working out with a tight and stiff body, hoping to warm-up before the main set. Take time every day to perform simple mobility exercises for your neck, back and hips which tend to take the biggest toll from a sedentary lifestyle (yes – even despite working out 10+ hours per week the body is still quite sedentary). Additionally, do not neglect a proper warm-up! It is critical that you make the time to perform dynamic warm-ups for at least 5-10 minutes before all of your workouts. Many times, you can turn an ok workouts into a great workouts, simply by warming up before you actually start your workout.
Also, every time you feel a niggle or ache, you do not need to rush out and get a massage, see the chiropracter or trigger point yourself until you turn black and blue. Just chill-out for 2-3 days and let the niggle/ache calm down. As an athlete, it is important to know what is a normal ache/niggle that can be healed through activity versus a niggle/ache that disrupts form and pacing and can turn into a potential injury.

Currently injured?
All of these tips, including a healthy diet, proper mobility, good sleep and effective sport nutrition fueling/hydrating are not limited to injury-free athletes. If you are injured, you must find a way to maintain fitness with activities that are pain-free as you spend extra time rehabbing and working on weaknesses that may have contributed to the injury. Yes, injured athletes must train smart even during the recovery and rehab process.

Next time you find yourself being a slave to your training plan, refusing to make modifications, feeling guilty when you miss a workout and simply going through the motions, stop and ask yourself if you are training smart.

Work with what life throws at you because if you are stubborn ,and fight with your life to-do’s just to get in a workout, you will find yourself losing enjoyment for your “hobby” which also helps to keep you in good health. 

What consistency tips will you focus on in 2016?

The consistent athlete - part I

Many athletes tell me that they want to be better, stronger or faster swimmers, cyclists or runners. And in order to make this happen, they tell me they need to train harder.

Sure, we can all improve in one area through hard work and an improvement in our sport-specific skills but many times, it is through consistent training that we experience the most significant performance gains.

In other words, it's often the accumulation of training stress, that occurs overtime, that outweighs any one sport specific block of training or hard-core, intense workouts.

And this training adaptation isn't limited to age-group athletes.
Many top-ranking professional athletes excel because of consistency. Just like any athlete, they may push really, really hard during workouts but there are many more easy days compared to hard effort days.

The human body can only tolerate so much stress until it breaks.

Even with training as a profession, you'd actually be surprised as to how little intensity professional athletes do relative to the aerobic/lower to moderate efforts in their overall weekly training load.
Intensity is important but the main focus to athletic success is consistency and top athletes (or their coaches) recognize how much intensity is too much.

But consistent training is not just about training intensity or volume.

As age-group athletes, it is important to find consistency in training in order to reap fitness gains. If you have convinced yourself that in order to get faster, stronger or better in a specific sport, you simply need to train harder or longer, you may find yourself making less progress than if you told yourself, that the key is training smarter.

With the off-season starting or finishing, this is the perfect time to think about your previous season and what changes, tweaks or modifications you want to make in order to be more consistent with training in 2016. Hopefully, you won't say that in order to be better, you need to simply train harder.

Consistency shouldn't be confused with perfection as a perfect workout is not defined as the workout when you gave it your all and left it all out there.

Unlike a professional triathlete who fits life into training, it is important that you are able to focus on your ability to adapt to your training plan all while juggling a busy family, a high stress work environment and other life commitments.

It's important that you avoid haphazardly checking off workouts just because they show up in a weekly training plan.

Any given training plan must fit into your lifestyle and every workout must have a purpose.

By understanding your life and your personal limitations with your time, you will find it much easier to stay consistent with a smart training plan.

Sometimes you will be able to get in your entire planned workouts, other times you may have to miss a workout or settle for a 10-minute workout (instead of 90 minutes).

With consistency, you will get better, stronger and faster.
And the only way to be consistent is to know how to adjust in order to make progress.

Athletes who are most consistent with training know how to train smart and use their time, energy and efforts wisely. 

The moment you try to train like a professional, train like another athlete or train like the past-you that had more time, you will find yourself struggling to keep-up with unachievable expectations. 

Let's think about some of the most common reasons for inconsistent training.
Are you guilty of any of these?

-Trying to squeeze too much training into your day when you just don't have enough time to properly warm-up, cool down, execute and recover
-Trying to progress too quickly with intensity or volume
-Working out way too hard or way too long, most of the time
-Burn-out from doing too much too soon
-Putting too much time/energy into your favorite sport and not spending time improving your weaknesses
-Training in spite of injury or sickness
-Ignoring an injury just to complete a workout
-Trying to make-up workouts (or do more than needed) for fear of losing fitness or not being race ready
-Making sacrifices with sleep and diet in order to get-in a workout
-Doing too many group workouts, never giving yourself a chance to listen to your body at different paces/intensities for each sport
-Not keeping your easy days easy
-Relying too much on your gadgets to control your workout
-Getting too focused on total time, miles or pace, letting metrics dictate how hard or long you workout
-Finding yourself "catching-up" workouts in your training plan to check off every/most workouts.


You may think that that work, family and travel cause inconsistency in your training but almost every age-group athlete is busy.

Whether you work 20 hours or 40 hours, have no kids or have 6 kids, travel for work or work for home, every athlete has a certain amount of time to train and it is up to you, the athlete to be realistic with how much time you can dedicate to training in order to stay consistent.

Karel and I work from home, we have no kids and we are our own bosses but guess what, life gets in the way for us too and in order to not sacrifice healthy eating/homecooked meals and quality sleep, sometimes we have to miss or modify workouts due to available time and energy.

But we don't stress about it.
Life moves on.
Because training adaptations occur overtime, there must be a great understanding and appreciation for quality workouts and knowing when and how they can occur.

On a daily basis, you can only do the best you can, with the time you have, with the energy you have, to have the best workout possible on that day.

Let consistency drive your athletic choices in 2016 when it comes to training smarter instead of training harder.

What changes will you make this upcoming season in order to train smarter in order to stay more consistent? 

Develop consistency in your workout routine

Health, body composition, sport, exercise, career, projects/events, etc.. If you can think back to any great success in your life, consistency was likely part of the equation when you celebrated reaching the goal you sought out to achieve.

Whenever you are motivated to pursue a goal, one of the most important components is consistency.

Life brings challenges and setbacks are evitable but if you have a goal in mind, you have to be willing to be as consistent as possible with the habits that will bring you closer to your short and long term goals. To keep you consistent, be sure that you are not aiming for perfection in all areas in your life.

And because your health is always a top priority, never let your health take a backseat just because you are focused too heavily on your career, sports, etc. For if you don't take care of your body, it's hard to make anything happen that requires the use of your muscles and brain.

I am a big fan of hard work and a no-excuses approach but then again, I am no stranger to setbacks. And when it comes to hard work and no-excuses, my hubby is the true example of dreaming big and never ever giving up. Karel came to America with only a backpack and for several years he put his cycling passion on hold because he had to work up to three jobs a day (often with less than 2-3 hours of sleep) to "make it."

I have discovered success in my personal, career and athletic life thanks to hard work and consistency. I do love a routine but I also strive off making progress even if the plan has to change sometimes.

To help you reach your personal, athletic, career or life short and long term goals, be sure you follow a practical  routine that allows you to achieve your desired results. Sometimes a professional is needed to help guide you along the way and to help you stay accountable so don't hesitate reaching out when you need help.

As a coach, 7x Ironman finisher and exercise physiologist, here are a few of my top 3 consistency tips when it comes to working out for fitness/performance gains.

1) Follow a well-designed training plan - Even a poorly designed training plan will produce positive results if followed consistently. However, to maximize results and to find balance in life, consider the right mix of training stress AND recovery so that you can experience consistency with your fitness and feel productive in other areas of your life. Athletes love to hurt and feel tired and sore after a workout as a sign that the workout was effective. Although there's nothing wrong with a little good-hurt to remind you of your hard workout, be sure you are able to recover from your previous workouts (or schedule workouts appropriately to allow for better recovery) in order for your efforts to be repeatable throughout a training plan. Consider giving a great effort every day instead of an epic effort every once in a while.

2) Be flexible - Although dedication and committment to a training plan are two key elements to finding success, consider the variables that may affect your routine. Weather, work, family, diet, travel, motivation, recovery, etc. You must be flexible with your routine to make the most out of every day (whether it's training indoors, consideirng the weather and planning ahead or not feeling guilty for intentional days off). Also, rmember that training/working out should not adversly affect other areas in your life (ex. work, family, pets, etc). A training plan should not leave you unmotivated and exhausted but instead, energized and inspired to give your best effort on any given day. When it comes to your training plan, do not feel defetaed when life gets in the way. A rest day means more energy for tomorrow.  Try to avoid moving around workouts just to fit it all in because it's on your weekly plan and instead, think about modifying workouts or creating a schedule that works best for you each week.

3) Balance is key - Flexiblilty in a well-designed plan will work. But consistency with training doesn't just apply to getting the workouts done but instead how consistent you are with your effort in each workout. Although there may be room for a missed workout here or there alongside a needed day off, a training plan should be balanced in a way so that you can maintain your routine for forward progression with fitness and so that improvements in performance can be made to keep you motivated that your training is working. There's no good in doing a haphazard workout just because it's on your plan. Make the workouts count so that you are making efficient use out of your time. As an age group athlete, you have a lot on your plate so who cares what everyone else is doing, your plan should fit your needs and lifestyle.


And of course, HAVE FUN! If you don't love what you are doing, it's unlikely that you will follow through with your routine. Although consistency will help pave the way to results, it's important that you stay motivated with your choice to use your body for sports or fitness and the best way to keep up the excitement is to truely love what you are doing on a daily basis.

Hard work is tough but success feels amazing!