3 Simple Ways to Become a Better Athlete

Strength and conditioning is awesome, isn’t it?

After all, it’s pretty cool to see that hard work, proper planning, and a well-designed and thought of system of training can enhance nearly any athlete’s speed, strength, and power output.

But often times, what we do outside of the gym and away from training, practice, competition may be more important than the training itself.

Simply put: If you can recover faster, the ability to perform will be higher than the athlete that is still tired, beat up, sore, etc from a previous training session. Everyone reacts different to training, and how fast you can recover and adapt from the previous training session depends on a lot of variables such as age, gender, sport, frequency, volume, etc.

Here are 3 ways to ensure you’re doing all you can to recover and make sure your body is performing on all cylinders to maximize your results from the hard work you put in week in and week out to dominate your sport:

1. Sleep 6.5-8 hours Every night – This is so simple, but the sad fact is most people don’t get enough sleep. And then these kids wonder why they fall asleep at school, or are tired come practice, etc. Get to bed at a reasonable hour (before midnight), turn off the TV, unplug most electronics (I understand the need to keep your phones on for alarm purposes, but turning the phone off at night should be a must for most people so you aren’t interrupted while you’re sleeping AKA recovering), and make sure your room is as dark as possible. Another good tip to make sure you sleep sound throughout the night is to read for 10-20 minutes before going to bed instead of playing X-Box or watching useless television. A great/ideal sleep schedule would be in bed by 10:30-11:00 and up by 6:30-7:00.
   

2. Eat Breakfast – Another very simple strategy but often skipped meal by most athletes. Instead of sleeping in that extra 30 minutes because   you went to bed too late, get out of bed and eat. Whenever I have skipped breakfast the rest of my day suffers. This ideally should be the largest meal of the day. Shoot for whole, natural foods at all costs, instead of downing a couple bowls of processed sugar (boxed cereals). A great meal could be 4-6 whole eggs, 1 banana, 1 orange, 16-24 oz of water, and a bowl of natural oatmeal with peanut butter. You will be amazed how much better you feel and perform if you can establish a regular routine of eating a solid breakfast. Don’t pass this up!

3. Use Different Recovery Methods – Hard training requires that your body rest in order to recover and adapt to come back stronger for the next training session. By sleeping well and eating, you’re doing your part to ensure the body is well-fed and rested to do all it can to jump-start the restoration process. If you’re really serious about this, you can use these simple extra methods to feel better, recover faster, and help you in your quest to get stronger and faster:

• Contrast Shower: This is very hard to do at first, but do them 2-3x per week and you’ll be amazed by how you feel. You’ll begin by setting the water on warm for 1-2 minutes; then crank the water on as cold as you can stand for 1 minute; follow up immediately by cranking the water on as hot as you can stand for 3 minutes; repeat that cycle 3 times total, always starting and ending with cold. You can also use 30 seconds cold/2 minutes hot, 15 cold/45 hot. If I’m in a rush I’ll use the quicker versions, but Charlie Francis use to recommend the 1/3 method so I always recommend that one first. These take some guts and mental toughness, but they are bearable after the first shot of cold/hot. These basically serve as a “pump” mechanism to help eliminate excess waste built up from exercise and flush the system. These are brutally awesome.
  

• Mobility/Foam Roll/Stretch: I feel so much better when I do something as simple as a short series of mobility exercises and foam rolling prior to getting to bed, after a tough workout, when you wake up, etc. This type of stuff really has no limit; the more you roll and stretch/address your mobility, the better. I like Joe Defranco’s “Agile 8″. (Click the link to the left, just scroll down a bit and you’ll see a full description of this). You can begin using it immediately. No foam roller? You can buy them for 15-30 dollars new. There’s really no excuse not to have one.
  

Train hard, but always keep in mind that what you do outside of the gym has a drastic impact on your health, performance, and well-being.

John Cortese, CSCS