Training… why and what for?

Well… Its only Thursday and my week’s plan has already crashed and burned. I had five activities planned for this week and despite only being half way through, I have failed on 2 of them and have realised I can’t do a third due to a weekend birthday party.

The intension was that each night I would do a set of crunches and push ups. If I’m perfectly honest so far I have just plain forgotten to do them. As for the trip to the Velodrome, a series of unfortunate event put a stop to that. At work the last meeting of the day over ran and the traffic on the journey home was heavier than normal, resulting in me arriving home much later than I had intended. Having arrived home late I rushed eating my tea and by the time I had to leave I wasn’t in a fit state to make good use of the exercise. So I didn’t go at all.

While I’m sure I can make up for the missed exercise later on in the week I do feel quite annoyed that I didn’t foresee these problems (they are fairly predictable). I have therefore decided to take this opportunity to do a bit of research as to how to set a training regime that can accommodate a busy lifestyle and to learn a few lessons from this to avoid making the same mistakes again. So here is a summary of what I have found.

Research

So my research started in the typical 21^st Century way…Google… a simple search for advice on setting up training regimes. After a short while I discovered the same points being raised time and time again.

• Goals
• Time
• Rest

Well it seems simple but it was mentioned again and again, for the training to be effective the goals must be well-defined. Whether your aim is to learn a new skill, run raster/longer, improve fitness or even as simple as lose weight the goals need to be; defined and achievable.

Time is very precious so it should be used wisely. Many different guides suggested set frequencies for training others gave loose guideline depending on how much time a person could devote to their training.

In almost every guide “rest/recovery” was mentioned as a planned activity. I did find however, that “rest/recovery” meant different things to different people and that depending on what your goals are your rest periods and type of rest will be different.

My next train of though was relating what I have read to what I tried to do this week and well it didn’t stack up to well.

So how does this relate to me?

First of all, the goals, it seems a simple thing to do, have a target to aim for. So simple in fact, that I clean forgot to do it. In fairness I had said at the start of the week, that I had planned an easy week in order to ease myself back into training. The question that rises however is what am I training for? The answer is I don’t know.

At the moment I have no defined long-term goals either for hockey or cycling.

In my head I knew, when it came to hockey my playing style requires speed and endurance rather than dazzling skill but while the aim was there the target had not been defined.

When it comes to cycling the situation is even worse, the only thoughts I have is that I would like to be better. What does that mean? Obviously training for long distance road cycling would be very different to training for a sprint race around a Velodrome. I needed to work out what I was training for. To find my answer I had to break my interest down. After a bit of soul-searching I discovered that cycling is for me is escapism. When I’m on my bike and I’m pushing myself hard my brain stops thinking and I am free from any troubles that are bothering me. I can escape from the world just as effectively if I’m fit and going fast or not so this does not bring any natural goals to aim for so the only option left is to find a competition and use it as a target to aim for.  More details to follow…

Time Management

Time management was another recurring theme. Another obvious point, only professional athletes can afford to allocate huge quantities of time towards their training. The rest of us who have work, family and a social life will find it much harder to find the time. The result, inevitably, is that the time devoted to training is a trade-offs with your “real” life and one that only an individual can decide for themselves. The decision has to consider how ambitious your targets are and how much time you are willing sacrifice.

Elite athletes tend to train in blocks e.g. 2 days on 1 day off. If you follow this system then the days of the week have no meaning. In “real life”, however, we work on a 7 day week where we are at work for a large proportion of the day for 5 of those 7 days (not true for shift workers I suppose). I think, for an amateur like me, it is easier to dedicate certain days for exercise. Some of the articles preached flexibility and while the arguments were convincing I feel I would be far more likely to get a bit lazy if I am not strict with myself. Also it is easier to sell the idea to any other people who you are inconveniencing if you exercise on the same day each week.

In addition to planning exercises on specific days I discovered that the weeks should be “themed”. These themes should reflect how close you are to the deadline of your target. I.e. 2 weeks before the big race you would be doing some high intensity training while the week before the race you would have a more relaxing week to leave you nice and fresh.

Rest

It seems counter intuitive but exercise actually breaks down your muscles, it is the recovery periods between the exercises that build your muscle up stronger than before. Doing nothing builds muscle. This is not to say that you can sit on the sofa 7 days a week become the fittest person alive. The muscles need to be exercised to promote the growth. This being so the recovery time is almost as important as the exercise. Professional athletes do a tremendous amount of training, but when they are not training, they are most likely sitting or lying down somewhere relaxing or taking a nap. Quality exercise needs quality rest.

When it comes to the rest of us, the mere mortals, most of us can’t afford the time to just sit around, claiming that we are training for the next big event. Our recovery periods invariably get filled with the rest of our life. This isn’t a problem but it does mean that the recovery period will be longer to compensate.

So after all this reading and a rather longer blog what have I learned?

What has been learnt?

Deciding what to do at the start of the week without an overall goal is not a sustainable way of training. To improve, I will need to follow these three bits of advice.

Well first and foremost I need to set some goals.

Check.

• These goals need to be well-defined and have targets set so that progress can be measured. These targets will provide the motivation required for you to push yourself to the next level.

Second, time management is difficult?

• I am not a pro level athlete so I should not expect to train like one or expect the same results. I essence I need to be aware of my personal commitments my work commitments and designate a set training time spread across the week.

Finally rest is good, very very good.

• As such it should not be over looked in any training plan.

So looking forward I have found myself a Duathlon to enter Run 2.5km Cycle 20km Run 5km  details will follow in a subsequent post with links for sponsorship details.

Also I will set myself a 2 month training plan to set explain my targets for this race.

May 19, 2011 | Categories: Taining | Tags: Goals, Planning, Recovery, Time Management, Training | Leave a comment