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Showing posts from November 29, 2015

Turn body image dissatisfaction into satisfaction

When was the last time you thanked your body? When you look in the mirror, how do you talk to/about your body? When you train and eat, does your body image dictate your choices in a positive or negative way? An unhealthy body image in athletes can increase the risk for disordered eating habits.  Avoiding major food groups (carbohydrates), not fueling around/during workouts, skipping meals and snacks and dehydration are some of the examples of unhealthy strategies that athletes often take to gain control over eating in an effort to change body composition/image. Whether you are an athlete who seeks weight loss/body composition changes to improve overall health, you are an athlete who struggles with body image due to comparison with other athletes, comparison to a past you or overall discomfort with your body image, or you are an athlete who follows a very restrictive diet and extreme exercise routine in an effort to maintain a specific body composition/image which h

The consistent athlete: Part III, tips

CONSISTENT TRAINING TIPS STAY FLEXIBLE Don’t freak out if you oversleep, have to stay late at work, have an unexpected trip or event to attend or experience a niggle or ache in your body. Sure, it would be great if we could always plan for these things but we can’t. A chance for inconsistency in training (and possible injury, burnout, health issues) is trying to constantly make-up workouts,  push-through fatigue/exhaustion or squeezing too much on your daily plate. When things come up in life, adjust and be flexible. Do the best you can with the time that you do have to train or just start fresh tomorrow. Look at your week of training and remind yourself of how many key workouts you have each week that can build fitness – most of the time, missing a workout here or there will have no impact (negatively)  on your overall development in your season. If you don't know how to adjust (or refuse to adjust), inconsistency in training can increase the risk for injuries and a platea

The consistent athlete: part II

Athletes are hardwired to want success. Athletes are not exercisers. Athletes want results that often result in an improvement in metrics, body composition or places and include crossing both a start and finish line. Athletes don't just show-up to a workout, they use their body to perform. The process of athletic development can be slow and this is hard for many athletes to accept. I see it all the time in triathletes who are impatient in the off-season and either train too intensely in the first few months of training OR dedicate 6-8 weeks to training for a running race rather than focusing on their slow, consistent triathlon development. Like many things in life, quick results often come with consequences. The idea of instant gratification applies very well to athletes of all levels.  It's natural to believe that if you put in the work, results will come so why not work out harder and longer for faster results?  But in spite of sickness or injury, no matter how l

The consistent athlete - part I

Many athletes tell me that they want to be better, stronger or faster swimmers, cyclists or runners. And in order to make this happen, they tell me they need to train harder. Sure, we can all improve in one area through hard work and an improvement in our sport-specific skills but many times, it is through consistent training that we experience the most significant performance gains. In other words, it's often the accumulation of training stress, that occurs overtime, that outweighs any one sport specific block of training or hard-core, intense workouts. And this training adaptation isn't limited to age-group athletes. Many top-ranking professional athletes excel because of consistency. Just like any athlete, they may push really, really hard during workouts but there are many more easy days compared to hard effort days. The human body can only tolerate so much stress until it breaks. Even with training as a profession, you'd actually be surprised as to how