Keys To Athletic Success
Mindset:You have to decide that you are an athlete and believe in yourself and your abilities. Staying focused and striving to accomplish your goals by avoiding outside influences and distractions can be a major challenge.
Set Goals: The proper mind set begins with setting goals when it comes to staying motivated, and having a sense of progression in your training and preparation. Set realistic goals that are within your ability to achieve. This does not mean you have to win this or that race, because you never really know who is going to show up. Start prioritizing races into A, B, and C events. This will allow a more flexible training schedule and the ability to mentally accept training through C races and understanding the need to taper training for the A races.
Diet & Nutrition: A proper nutritional program gives you the energy needed to train and perform as an athlete. It is also a good idea to take a daily multivitamin. Eating 4-6 meals a day, instead of the 3 large meals is also recommended. Not to list all the fades and diets that are available to research the below is recommended reading.
http://www.trainingbible.com/pdf/Paleo_for_Athletes_Cliff_Notes.pdf
Water: Water - it's second only to oxygen. This does not include soft drinks, iced tea, etc? Other than sports drinks and fluid while riding if you are thirsty reach for water first.
Weight Training: Everyone can benefit from weight training, not only athletes. They question is what type of weight training and when to do this training. A consistent and focused workout program is without question beneficial. Find a weight training program that works for you and stick with it. If you find or feel you are getting overly muscular study up on weight lifting. Lifting less weight with more repetitions builds lean muscle. In addition doing the exact same weight program week after week is not the best approach. Change it up to confuse the muscles by using them in a different way. And naturally as you approach an A race you want to taper down the weight training.
Rest: Strive to get 8 hours of sleep a night. Rest is more than simply getting enough sleep every night. Rest, is having adequate rest time between workouts. Muscles grow during rest time not while you're training. Thus, sometimes planning your training around your family, work, and rest schedule is required.
Cardio: The most important thing when it comes to cardio is to pick a time and intensity that fits your needs. Thus, study up and device a plane, get a coach or ask for help
Track Your Progress: The most common way to track your progress is to keep a log. Record your log based on the goals that you have set. Anything to complicated or time consuming is likely to be abandoned in a short amount of time. A training log is a tool to motivate you and allow you to keep track or your training. It is also a reference for future training and allows you to avoid the mistake of doing the same thing over and over. If you don’t change your training how can you expect your performance to change over the years.
Mix Things Up: Cross training. No athlete should only practice and compete solely in their sport year round year after year. Different sports and exercises work your muscles in different ways, and this is a key factor to athletic progression. Change exercises or the order you do them in every four weeks. Muscles have memory and will stop growing if they perform the same movements for an extended period of time. Changing the type of cardio you perform is also a good idea as well. Changing your workouts reduces boredom increases your, peeks you interest to learn new training methods, and helps prevent loss of motivation.
Never Stop Learning: Study Up! You can watch videos or TV, read books, go to seminars, talk to other athletes, go to sporting events, and visit bulletin boards, while always trying to keep an open mind. There is more to learn.
This post will remain here for a short time then be summarized and moved to BCC Training Knowledge (link in the right margin).
