aw basics

The holistic approach to TRAINING

Improve every area of your life and you will reap the benefits when it comes to competition

IF you want to fulfil your potential in athletics, you need to pay attention to all parts of your life. Training hard for an hour or so every day and then forgetting about athletics for the next 23 hours will not result in great performances.

Getting the most out of your ability means focusing on your lifestyle at work, your relationships at home and your nutrition throughout the day. Your athletics performance is reliant on all these factors and until you realise that everything is interconnected – with each factor affecting your athletics results either positively or negatively – you will struggle to perform as well as you can.

Some people are strong in some areas, but not others. They might train hard and put everything they can into their daily sessions at the track or gym, but they might then ruin things by having a lousy diet.

Others train well, but then become over-tired due to a poor working lifestyle. Some people struggle to fit their training into their days, evenings and weekends because they have a disorganised home life where they struggle to organise their time amid the many demands made by their relatives or friends.

The good news is that this is all achievable – and it will definitely lead to an improvement in your athletics performance if you start to get it right.

The bad news is that it’s a never-ending process. To get things back on track, there is no ultimate destination. Instead, it is an ongoing process that will never quite be perfect, no matter how much thought and effort you put into it.

Here are some key areas in a holistic approach to athletics

► Train hard, train smart

Get your schedule right and attack your sessions with energy and enthusiasm. But more than this, ask yourself: do you have a good relationship with your coach?

Have you got appropriate training partners? Are you doing all the little things that help performance – stretching and mobility, mental preparation, regular physical
check-ups.

► Avoiding illness and injury

Work on your strength and conditioning to ensure your body is strong and flexible and less likely to break down with injury. In addition to this, be careful to avoid illness. Do not over-train and make sure you have enough rest and sleep.

► Diet and nutrition

Most people can improve hugely in this area and there are no mysteries or secrets either – they know what they have to do. The hard bit is executing it! An entire magazine could easily be written on this subject (a series of books, in fact), but in short the advice is simple: eat as much real food as possible (ditch products that come in packages) and cut out the junk. So lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, lean meat and fish, water and juice. It’s not rocket science, but the hard bit is doing it because food that is bad for you usually tastes better.

► Relationships

If these are off-track, chances are your athletics performances will suffer too. The people around you help guide your decisions and they can potentially offer support and help.

If you have a family, learn to fit your athletics in and around the demands of the family. If you have a planned day out at the park, for example, then take your trainers and run home. Try to fit sessions into lunch breaks at work, or get up an hour earlier to do something before everyone else is up. If you have a busy social life, try to cut down the hours you are out after midnight. Drink sensibly and don’t have a big night out close to an important competition.

► Work or studies

Good decisions during your working day, or period at school or college, are vital. Are you managing your time wisely? Are you eating at the right times of the day – a good breakfast, lunch at lunchtime, a snack 2-3 hours before training? Sometimes you might have an ultra-busy day when it’s impossible to train – if so, accept it and plan to do some harder work on a quieter day or over the weekend.

Athletes such as Paula Radcliffe and Steve Backley – and even going back as far as Sebastian Coe in the Eighties – utilised a holistic approach to training. They realised it was not enough to train hard for an hour or so every day and then spend the rest of the day eating badly or doing things that might hinder their athletics.

Successful elite athletes have bags of talent, but their holistic approach means they maximise their potential because they train hard, but also rest sufficiently. They eat and drink healthily. They prepare thoroughly for competitions. They ensure they are surrounded by the right team of people. They work on strength and flexibility. They have regular health checks to monitor their blood and bone density.

Of course full-time athletes have far more time to devote to the sport than newcomers and recreational athletes. But everyone has one thing in common: we are all trying to fulfil our potential and the best way to do this is by improving as many areas of our lives as much as possible.

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