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I had the luxury, honour and excitement to have trained with a small Elite group of World Class Athletes and boy did I take my health and physical fitness to the next level.
Have you heard of the saying "You are who you hang around with?" Well I understand it now and I'll tell you why! I knew taking the challenge and committing myself to the discipline and intensity of training with an Elite group of jumpers and sprinters was going to be the hardest thing I had done to date. My health and physical fitness was good before I started, but I was still sore for every day for 4 weeks when I was put through the paces of the UK's Top Performance Coaches winter training program.
I want to discuss with you some of what I feel are the vital lessons I’ve learnt in improving my health and physical fitness which have had dramatic effects;
1. Plyometrics - simply jumping and hopping exercises - the effects that these exercises on my speed and body fat reduction was amazing.
2. Training with people better than you - Improves expectations of yourself and makes you work harder and faster towards your goal.
3. Rest and recovery - The importance of listening to your body is vital to staying injury free.
4. Discipline -The focus you need to improve and to stay healthy helps you stay the course.
Plyometrics - The biggest wake up call to me was plyometrics, basically all that hopping and bounding you see athletes do on grass and over hurdles etc. I had never given them their due credit and it showed; my example of a single leg hoping was pathetic. But as I had about 7 Plyometric exercises to do every Thursday I soon improved my strength and became very lean (ripped!) within weeks! The intensity is so great I found that after just two weeks of hard hopping and bounding my fat just melted off! My legs became super strong and my running speed improved throughout the year.
Training with people better than you - Improves your health and physical fitness faster!
My health and physical fitness was at a level that I thought was good. But when you are taken out of you comfort zone and someone has higher expectations of you than you do - it adds to your drive and ability. Combine that with having better people to aspire to, you find that you begin step up to the plate, towards the level of the people surrounding you. For example, my weights and speed improved markedly because I had one of the best coaches around shouting and screaming at me that I could do it, and I did, in as little as 3 months I was putting out some training sessions as good as if not better than the group I was training with. My advice to you is find a great coach/mentor, train with better people than you and have higher expectations of yourself. It can work for your health and physical fitness goals and any other goals equally.
Rest and recovery - the missing link to your health and physical fitness
Do you get silly injuries, niggles that soon become chronic? I know I have. The next part of my health and physical fitness education was the importance of rest and recovery. World Class Athletes have massages at least 3 times a week on their legs and back, routine check ups and listen to what their bodies are telling them. Straight after a hard technical session we would have ice baths; which were absolutely freezing as we had to stand in a big wheelie bin for over 10 minutes until we couldn't feel our toes. The result however was amazing, almost no soreness the next day! Combine this with a good deep tissue massage to get the muscles relaxed and flushed out of toxins and you are in great shape week in week out.
The last thing I want to discuss is my Health and physical fitness enlightenment is discipline.
It means two things; the discipline to train when called upon but also the discipline not to train if you are slightly tight, too tired or not mentally with it. These are the keys to staying healthy, avoiding injury and not getting into a rut. You have to have the commitment to turn up when it’s raining, or when you don't feel like it. It’s this discipline that World Class Athletes all share.
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