In any sport it’s likely that through your career you’ll make a mistake or two. It’s all part of the process of learning. Although making too many too often can ruin the consistency of training and start to have a negative impact on your long term goals. We’ve compiled a list of tips to help you avoid making basic mistakes and to keep you on track to smash your goals.
It’s very easy to look up to professionals or high level amateurs – after all they’re the inspiration for many people. Especially with all the transparency and access of apps such as Strava. But directly copying their training regimes/programmes can be more detrimental than beneficial! These athletes could have been practicing their sport for years & years.
Over this time they’ll have learned their own personal limits, listened to their bodies & developed a huge endurance base and muscular platform for them to carry out their training off.
It’s very easy to get carried away when starting out – you need to learn your own limits, do your own thing.
Rather than planning your training programme spontaneously as/when you see other people doing things. Try to set aside time in the future to try new things out, and plan ahead. This way you’ll be able to plan more effectively what you can manage rather than changing it if you feel tired or overdoing it because you feel good.
Rest and recovery is one of the most important factors when it comes to increasing training load and one of the easiest mistakes to make. Things like nutrition, sleep & active recovery can be carefully monitored through the training period. But one thing that’s often over looked is stress. Anything that adds stress to your lifestyle can have a negative impact on training. This can be anything from a long day at work to an argument with your partner.
— OPTIMIZING YOUR NUTRITION THIS WINTER —
Regular targets can be a great way to asses whether you’re keeping on track with your goals. And accepting that they’re sometimes missed it ok. By focusing on the long term goals you’ll be able to react & respond to short term issues.
DO:
- Focus on the long term goals, remembering the bigger picture will help.
- Complete your own training independent of other peoples influence.
- Recover well & aim to reduce stress.
- Build confidence – this will help you to gain motivation.
- Listen to your body & respond to what it’s telling you.
DON’T:
- Copy others training & plan last minute sessions.
- Panic about short term fitness.
- Compare yourself to others around you before race day.
- Try to train hard 100% of the time – let yourself recover.
- Overdo it if you’ve got a lot of external stresses – let life take over some times.
— TOP TIPS FOR ENDURANCE RIDING —
Hopefully by following a few of these top tips you’ll be able to improve your training programme and see the benefits long term with the common mistakes. This will allow you to really excel at your summer event & we look forward to your progress.
