🏊♀️🚴♂️🤸 There is no such thing as a perfect body, but there is a functional body and health.
Last weekend I visited the Jarun sports center in the Croatian capital of Zagreb. This beautiful place is where I started my first running training and today two and a half decades later I see many people practicing a wide range of an outdoor activities. From walking and running, from strength training and rowing to the first brave swims in a neoprene suit, anything is better than just sitting at home and waiting for the good changes in our bodies that will never happen.
The infrastructure recently is getting better and sports equipment has never been more accessible, much more people are now in training for something.
Unfortunately, without enough knowledge in the field of training and physiology and with insufficient experience and self-confidence, many of them will make mistakes, often fatal ones for our health.
Whatever sport we choose, we need to know the proper technique of movement. Different sports have their own specification that make them what they are but some rules I find in common.
Three tips that will help you exercise better, regardless of the activity you choose:
1. Always listen to your body.
When we exercise, let’s focus on our breathing and heart rate. Exercising just for the look, impressions, or appearances is a dangerous way of exercising that distances us from our bodies. By monitoring our breath and heartbeat, you can recognize the first signals that our body gives us in response to our exercise.
2. Be gentle with yourself, often.
Pain is not a part of the game. It could be just the last element of the performance. Most Age group athletes I work with will not feel pain at all or will only feel it negligiblely even when preparing for demanding challenges like the Ironman or marathon. Pro athletes also base their training primarily on “lighter” workouts that will help build their form sustainably. Pro athletes sometimes train near the limits of their endurance, but very often they give back to the body a lot of care and recovery. Age group athletes do not have time for recovery due to other obligations. The cliché that there is “no game without pain” is false!
3. Eat wisely.
The energy for training is already in you, or at least a good part of it. We often forget that plain water is the most important thing for exercising, and only then everything else. Energy drinks with added caffeine and the like are the last in the chain of our needs when we exercise. When you exercise correctly, you will get most of the energy from the reserves that are already in your body. I would not call that process of obtaining this energy a discharge, but an energy flow. Namely, we do not eat only for pleasure and the to maintain primary life functions, but also for movement. Awareness of this connection between nutrition and movement (exercise) is the key to success, not only in top sports, but also in maintaining ideal body weight and health and in everything we do from birth to death.
