When you’re looking for fitness advice, it’s best to go straight to the top. Therefore, we’ve spoken to leading wellness experts and sports starts to bring you all the advice you could ever need to help you get fit and take care of your wellbeing.
1. Visualise Success: Sports psychologist Michael Sachs instructs, ‘Use all five senses. Don’t only see things, but hear what’s going on, smell, taste the sweat in your mouth and feel the steel bar and what’s it’s like to go through the movements. This benefits ordinary people lifting weights as much as it helps elite sportsmen.’
2. Power Up: ‘When most people work on their fitness they only really do one part – the endurance part,’ says former Olympic champion Daley Thompson. ‘They spend maybe 30-40 minutes on a running machine but would get much more benefit if they mixed it with some really high-intensity work. The crucial bits in sport come down to how you perform in short bursts – those half-seconds and milliseconds. But few of us actually work on those.’
3. Shoot like Thierry Henry: The Arsenal star notes, ‘Strikers rarely get more than one touch to find the back of the net. Practise with a friend, and get him to knock balls to you at different heights and speed. ‘Try attacking the ball and hitting the target first time without the extra touch.’ Not only does this hone your football skills; it also provides a cardio workout that boosts your explosive power and flexibility.
4. Improve Your Breaststroke: ‘The straight-arm pull comes from your fingertips,’ explains Olympic gold medallist Duncan Goodhew. ‘Recreational swimmers often allow their pull to continue too long, rather than quitting while ahead. With a long pull it’s difficult to get the hands back to their starting position. Practise very short strokes, keeping the pull completely in front of the body.’
5. Breathe Properly: Former Olympic cyclist John Howard warns, ‘Most people don’t think about breathing and consequently end up inhaling and exhaling rapidly. This stimulates the flight-fight mechanism and is very inefficient. If you can elongate and control each exhalation, you can improve your cardiovascular conditioning.’
6. Score like Ronaldo: Brazilian football legend and World Cup winner Ronaldo asserts, ‘Sex a couple of hours before the match is the key to success.’ Well, if you insist!
7. Get in the Sauna: Ella Winter, Cannons Retreat manager, details, ‘Saunas are a great way to unwind after a workout as the dry heat relaxes tired muscles and helps to flush out toxins and impurities, such as lactic acid, that have built up during exercise.’
8. Stick with It: While your fitness regimen can seem like a new and exciting venture in the beginning, it only takes a few weeks for the hobby to become a chore. This is especially the case if you don’t see instant results but this is completely normal. Persevere and you will make the gains you want. On average, it takes around three months for training to become a habit, and by that time you will start to look and feel better. While you’re waiting for those three months to pass, make sure you constantly remind yourself why you’re doing this and give yourself healthy rewards.
9. Be SMARTER: You may not want to set yourself rigid goals, but giving yourself too much leeway won’t help you to succeed. You’re more likely to achieve your goals if they are Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic, Time-framed, Exciting and Recorded. This is the same for any goal or achievement, be it in the gym, home or office.
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