You: The Athlete

67 Days to Memorial Day

When looking at implementing any of the training tools we talk about here, or reorienting your training program to incorporate more of these ideas, already we’ve made a shift. What we’re doing here is looking at you, not as gym goer, lawyer or sales professional, but rather as an athlete. We’re adapting the principles of athletic performance coaching to enhance your performance through your day. You are a functional athlete. Your events, your tournaments happen every single day.

To this end, we have to treat our training and the way we approach it as an athlete approaches hers/his. How do athletes prep themselves all year to make sure they’re performing at the highest possible level?

First and above all else, is the athlete’s mindset. Remember Jen, the triathlete I mentioned a couple of weeks ago? If she has not decided well in advance of her long mid February bike ride up The Pallisades that come hell or high water, she will succeed, she will find some area in which she can improve, she doesn’t stand a change against the cold and the wind. She’ll never finish. I know. You’re not running a triathlon. But you’re not training for one either. Everything is scalable. To get the results we want, relatively speaking, we all have to train just as hard for our own lives and our own events as any serious athlete trains for theirs. When you get your mind in the right place, decide that you will, in fact, succeed, you’ve just quadrupled your chances.

Set your goals. S.M.A.R.T. ones. Specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound goals. You are going to push your program and fitness to a specific place, to accomplish a certain reasonable thing by a pre determined date. What’s important to you? What do you need? What are you training for? Set those goals. Then when you get to that date, be honest with yourself. Did you hit them? If you’ve made specific and measurable goals, it won’t be hard to tell. Hit them? Good. Now, reset and make new ones. Onwards and upwards. Didn’t hit them? Where did you fall short? How can you now incorporate that into the next phase of your training to make sure you hit them next time? Remember these intermediate, progressive goals are benchmarks and way signs that keep you enroute to your ultimate goals.