Octogen Strength Coach – Don Stevenson

Developing a professional attitude

For most people training is something they do to keep in shape and stay healthy.

While many people WISH they could perform at the level of the elite athletes they see on TV the reality is that only a handful will transition from “working out” to training seriously for a competitive sport.

In my mind if you want to work out for health or whatever that’s fine, just don’t come complaining to me if you don’t look or perform like an Olympic medallist or pro footballer.  These guys and girls are (mostly) as good as they are for one big reason.

The reason is pretty straight forward.  Whether or not employed full time to train these athletes are professionals and their training is structured in a professional manner.

Before I go any further one quick caveat.  The main thrust of this article is on developing the attitude of a professional athlete toward your training.  Now there are certainly examples of paid professional athletes that act far from professional, drinking, taking drugs and partying etc but mostly they are in the minority and only get away with that crap because they have put the hard work in years before and are genetic freaks.

So, let’s assume that you are currently a pretty hard core fitness enthusiast who trains at least 3-4 times a week and who pushes most of your workouts pretty hard. You may already compete in a sport or martial art or you may be thinking about competing in the near future.

To get the best results in a competitive sport you are going to need to adjust your current training program and attitude.  I suggest you take a page out of the training diaries of the true professionals and adopt some of the following strategies.

Strategy #1 – Decide what you want to be good at

A lot of gym goers want it all.  They want power lifter strength, marathon runner endurance and underwear model abs.  Bad news for anyone like this, you are deluding yourself.  To develop the attitude and training of a true professional athlete you need to decide upon a very narrow set of goals and then pursue them to the exclusion of all others.  As a simple example if you are going to focus on maximal strength training you can’t worry too much about how you look, on the other hand if you are training for a bodybuilding comp you can’t expect to have the strength of a powerlifter.  Pusuing too many fitness goals at the same time is a recipe for becoming averagely good at all of them and competitive at none.

Strategy #2 – Prioritise training, nutrition and recovery

If training is something you fit in around everything else you do and recovery is something that you get around to sometimes then you’ll never achieve your major goals.

Naturally you are going to have to balance training with family, work and other commitments but if you assign a high priority to these things and make it clear to everyone around you why it’s important you are already well ahead of the game.

Notice that I didn’t just say to prioritise training.  A lot of people get their workouts in but then don’t follow up with good nutrition and recovery practices.  Professional sports programs place a huge emphasis on nutrition and recovery because they understand that training is only half the battle.

Some simple steps you can take to improve your nutrition and recovery include.

• Setting up and following a program of sports supplements
• Taking your post workout nutrition with you to the gym so that you can take it as soon as you finish training
• Get a sports massage every 2-3 weeks (more often if you can afford it)
• Do a couple of stand-alone stretching and active recovery sessions a week
• Get enough sleep – try something like ZMA or GABA to improve sleep quality.

Strategy #3 – Join a team

Even if you want to compete in an individual sport, training with a team of like minded people will vastly increase your motivation and improve your results.  Find a training squad in your area and become a member, then aim to become a leader.

Strategy #4 – Get a coach

The best athletes in the world have the best coaches they can find, so why does every weekend warrior think they can achieve world class results on their own?  Even experienced trainers should find a coach because often it’s hard to step back and approach your training objectively.

Once you find a coach make sure you follow their coach and don’t run around trying to modify their programs thinking you know best.  This is a very unprofessional thing to do and a fast way to piss your coach off.

Strategy #5 – Practice visualisation and concentration techniques

It might seem a bit strange at first but if you can read a book or two on NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) or self hypnosis for sport you can achieve some significant improvements in your focus and performance.

When I’m lining myself for a max deadlift or squat I often visualise the whole gym turning dark so that the bar is the only thing there and then I imagine a little demon taunting me about how weak I am. This makes me angry and consequently much more aggressive toward the weight.  I probably look like I’m possessed when I step up to the bar and let out a huge snarl or grunt but it’s a very effective technique to help me block out the annoying little twats doing concentration curls in front of the mirror!

Strategy #6 – Compete hard but fair

Turn up to your competitions with the aim to go out and achieve personal bests.  If you compete in a sport with relatively few competitors don’t run away from the competition by hiding in a different weight class or division, seek out your competition even if it means stepping up a category.  Winning by default is not really winning.

When you compete don’t argue with the judges (unless they really fuck things up, in which case your coach should argue for you) and treat your competitors with respect.  Accept that sometimes you will win and sometimes you’ll come off second best.

Strategy #7 – Develop a substance abuse problem, sleep with a bunch of waitresses and adult film stars and then make a heartfelt apology to everyone you’ve hurt in a scripted TV press conference.  Claim your secret personality or screwed up childhood “made” you do it.

Just kidding of course, but honestly who do these idiots think they are fooling? Tiger might be the greatest golfer of all time but he also appears to be an A grade dickhead!

That’s all til next time.  I can’t help you with all of these strategies but I can certainly help out with your training, recovery and supplementation programs so if you are looking to step up, make sure you shoot me an email and find out how I can help.

fitness@octogen.com.au

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 15:42 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.