By: Steve Yahns, MS, CSCS, NASM-PESAssistant Director of Performance, Lead Methodology EducatorSpectrum Sports Performance
Let’s be honest, we’ve all been there. We pay money for a service and expect whomever we are paying the money to, to provide top notch service and results. With most services, this is true and accurate. For instance, I paid a good amount of money to have my car detailed after years of neglect. It took some time, even a few visits to the detailer, but eventually my car looked amazing and I didn’t have to do anything except for show up. When it comes to performance training for athletes and personal training for gen-fit, showing up is only the first step. It’s not as easy as simply showing up, handing your body off to your coach or trainer and expecting to become an elite athlete or become amazingly fit. You, as a client, also have to put in work!! Below I’ve listed 5 simple steps to take after showing up.
1.) Have a good attitude – Attitude will have an effect on everything!! Basically all of the remaining steps will be more effective if you display a positive attitude. More importantly, you will have more fun training, your coach or trainer will have more fun training you, and you in turn will want to show up more often and go the extra mile to achieve your training goals!
2.)
Fuel your body
- This step includes nutrition, supplementation, and hydration. It sounds simple, but most people fall off in regards to this step. People will train their butts off 5 or 6 days a week, and then fail to eat or drink water, or eat too much ‘junk food’ and think it’s okay because they’ve been working out lately. Failing to properly fuel your body significantly limits your results!!!! Why work out harder and not work out smarter? It really doesn’t make sense.
3.) Don’t forget to recharge
- After a long day of work and workouts, the body needs its rest. Give it what it needs and get enough sleep!!!! Lack of sleep will hamper any fitness goal you may have. Weights become heavier, your body becomes slower, and your body is more fatigued. Proper sleep and rest will make all aspects of your training easier!! Once again, make it easier on yourself and get more sleep!!!
4.) Work on your weaknesses
- We are all victims of this. We are good at something so we focus on getting even better at it. For instance, I’m fairly good at bench pressing, and I enjoy doing it, so I’m tempted to do it on a regular basis and forget stuff I’m not good at, like flexibility or mobility. This can cause serious problems throughout the body and possibly lead to injury. Since I know that flexibility is not my strong suit, I really need to focus on becoming flexible. This might mean foam rolling or stretching prior to training sessions, before bed or even on my ‘off’ days. Whatever your weaknesses are, identify them and then attack them!! Make them your strengths and your body will thank you and your results will skyrocket!!
5.) Lastly, take pride in your fitness goals!!
- What I’m saying is educate yourself on what you’re trying to do, whether it be to become an elite athlete, lose weight, or just become more fit, give it 100% of your effort! Educate yourself on what little things you can do to get there: ask your trainer or coach what else you can do to get better, ask your nutritional specialist how you should fuel your body better, do some research on your down time on how to get better. Whatever it is, start taking the extra steps to get you there. Remember, you only work with your trainer or coach for an hour or so each day, what do you do with the rest of the 23 hours in the day? Ignorance is not an excuse!! I’m sorry if this sounds mean, but if you really take pride in your fitness goals, then you are willing to educate yourself on anything that you can possibly do to get there and you are willing to go the extra mile!!
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