A Simple Guide to Train Like a Professional Athlete
At a time when shortcuts and hacks are becoming popular, it cannot be denied that basic principles still work best, particularly in the world of health and fitness. No wonder there is a resurgence of the most straightforward ways to train, which is basically how professional athletes do it. There’s no denying that pros have the best stamina because of their extraordinary dedication to their training regimens.
Athletes live and breathe their sports; they push themselves hard because they know their hard work pays off. Jason Reynolds, head of fitness at Lanserhof at The Arts Club, shares the training habits of professional athletes that ordinary humans can adapt like us. Whether you dream of being pros yourselves, these six methods can help you work out and train like a champion.
Always Begin with Warm Up Exercises
If you had trained in the gym or watched workout videos, you would have seen how they always start with warm-up exercises. The process is crucial before physical activity to prepare your body and mind. Warming up increases the heart rate and blood flow, which allows the muscles to receive more oxygen. Another thing the activity does is make the nerves and muscles better connected, therefore improving the efficiency of your movements. Additionally, warm-up exercises like dynamic stretching help the body become more flexible.
Train Several Times a Week
For professional athletes, sports are the job, so they don’t find it hard to dedicate all their working hours to training. Exercising for extensive periods is why pros are good at what they do; the question is, how to do it while having a regular job simultaneously? Train frequently per week—if you can, make it more than twice. It is vital to train often not only to encourage good habits for continued training but also so that you can challenge various body parts and allow them to rest and recover appropriately.
Know When to Slow Down
Most sports have one season, with the remainder of the year spent in training sessions of varying intensity. Football, for example—during the off-season, players are allowed to relax and play less strenuous sports like golf. They don’t train or play football at full intensity all year round, and neither should you. To maximize your potential and minimize injury risk, you should regularly change your routine and avoid doing the same intense training every day.
Perfecting Movements is Key
Athletes are great at their chosen sport because they have spent thousands of hours learning and enhancing their God-given abilities. Before building endurance for a specific movement, it’s better to perfect it first. Experts believe the training will never succeed, eventually plateauing, without first familiarizing with a particular maneuver or technique. Training efficiency and performance in a specific sport will be significantly affected if you move incorrectly.
Train Your Mind to Win
Having a strong body would prove useless without a strong mind. Any elite athlete will tell you that mental toughness often separates winning from losing in high-pressure situations, such as in the Olympic Games. There is no doubt that to achieve success, it is crucial to train the most important muscle in the body, which is the mind. You must have encountered athletes who did not look like champions but became legends in their sports—they likely tapped into their full potential through mental training. Some techniques used to train the brain are hypnosis, cognitive behavioral therapy, and neuro-linguistic programming, all performed by professionals. Of course, on your own, you can try relaxation, mindfulness, and meditation.
Include Rest and Recovery in Your Plan
We often see some athletes push themselves hard, overlooking that their bodies also need rest. Because they fear resting will halt their progress, they choose not to slow down. Nevertheless, rest and recovery are integral parts of a workout program. During this period, the body can repair and strengthen itself, making it perform better in the long run. You might have seen pro athletes bathing in a tub of ice—it may not give them comfort, but it’s a way to make their aching bodies recover fast.
Undoubtedly, being healthy and fit is a great life goal. To achieve this, we try to shoot for the moon with our exercise techniques. Often, we encounter injuries and imbalances in doing so. A great way to solve this is by adapting these training habits that professional athletes have been practicing for a long time. Who knows, you may end up being a pro in the sport that you love by doing so.