How do I become one of those amazing people
People that manage to raise kids, hold down a job and fit in all their training always look good and, more often than not, feel great. But there are some tricks to this amazing feat that they know and other people do not. Let's see how they do it.
TRAINING V. RECOVERY LOADS
To get the most out of the time you spend getting into shape there is a balancing act that goes on. Not only balancing the right training loads but the right recovery loads. Recovery loads are what people get wrong. That is all those other things that make up your unique, intricate life and take up time/energy and affect your recovery rate. All these things need to be not just factored in; they need to be part of your training programme. But there is a system you can follow to allow this to happen in the family home.
THE NEGOTIATION PROCESS
As a coach I am always talking to people about the negotiation process they have gone through with their partner family and friends. This is an important part of setting up the plan. If those around you do not buy into what you are doing you will find it 10 times harder to get through. Instead of them encouraging and supporting they may even get resentful of all the time you spend training. If they are involved in all the planning right from the start it will be their goal too and they will want to see you succeed!
SETTING THE STAGE
Sit down with the people who will be affected by your committing time to your goal and visually plan out the season. That does not mean put the event at the end and say: ‘Ok nobody talk to me for this eight-week block.’ It means mapping out everything - events, weddings, work, travel, kid’s school holidays and whatever else will affect your time and energy. If you are a geek like me you will put this in an Excel spreadsheet with colour coding, but a wall planner is a good visual way to start. Put it up where everyone can see and have all the events in the one place including your training so other people can plan ahead as well, not just you! That way everyone can anticipate the week ahead. This has made such a big difference to the tone and mood in many homes.
YOU DON’T PLAY NETBALL ON A RUGBY FIELD!
You have now what I call the set the stage, the next thing to do is set up your strategy for the big day! If you follow a training programme designed for someone else or just do what other people are doing all the time it is like performing all your netball training on a rugby field. You may not notice at first but before long you will find you are just not getting better at netball. Even if someone else is training for the same event and are at the same level as you they do not necessarily recover from the same training at the same rate, have the same training history or same goal for the event. But most of all, other people do not have all the same ‘other things’ going on in their lives that you do. It is the ‘other things’ that make up the biggest determining factor in the training that is right for you. That does not mean you can’t train with other people, it just means trying to fit in group sessions with your week, not the other way around.
MONITOR THE LOAD
Once into your training you need to be constantly monitoring your load. There are times where you need to feel stretched and times where the training should feel very easy. As a coach if people I am advising are never finding the training easy then there is too much overall load on that person. We will then look at the load that person is under during training and the load they are under while recovering from training (everything else going on) and then make some changes.
CHEAT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!
There are many ways to cheat while putting all this together. Let’s take a mother of two for example who is working part time and would like to complete her first sprint distance triathlon. She does not have time to do three swims, three bikes and three runs every week. That is nine sessions and too much to fit in every week. We can manipulate her training so she rotates through the disciplines by doing a week concentrating on each through a three-week cycle. How this is set-up works depends on all the other things going on in her life and the negotiation process with the family. There are so many different ways to cheat by changing the training around and doing less than everyone else but still getting through the event and enjoying it!
YOU ARE AMAZING!
By going through this process with good advice and careful planning you will be without knowing it one of those amazing people. ‘I don’t know how she fits it all in?’ they will say. Little do they know, you don’t have to!