Faith

Do you have faith? Faith in yourself? Faith in your program? Faith in your development? It is my strong belief that to reach your fullest potential you must truly believe that your training is going to move you in the right direction. Faith goes hand in hand with confidence, without one the other can't survive. How can you be confident when it comes time to perform when you have no faith in your program?

   That was one of my biggest problems this summer, it was the first time I have trained on my own exclusively for an entire season and there were a lot of holes in my knowledge (many of which I've since filled) that left me second guessing myself all summer. I would spend a week doing one thing then be convinced that it was doing more harm then good and completely rework the next week until instead of periodizing I was just running in circles, chasing my own tale. Not a day has gone by since that I don't wish I could go back and click "redo" but so is life, and I'm stronger because of my failure. It's time to start looking forward. 

The Little Things

I was lying on my back with my feet up after practice today, I had just ran 200m repeats in the sun and my whole body felt rubbery and exhausted. While lying in the shade I was staring up into the sky and could see Starlings dancing around the treetops while chattering to each other. It was a peaceful moment of perfect tranquility. And then I begin to think about how "awake" I was; I feel as though I lost myself somewhere between March and the time the season started. I spent the whole summer in such a fog that I didn't get to enjoy any of the little moments which are probably just as important in the run of the season as the training itself.
   This was a summer of bad ideas and poor decision making on my part, but I'm glad that I'm starting to get back on track. I think it was important to "mess up" so I could see what doesn't work. There's two weeks left of the summer and it's time to make the most of it. Maybe it's because I'm eating 3500+ calories a day most days but I feel as though I have a greater self awareness than I've had in a long time.
   In the past I have fallen victim to trying to limit my calories under a certain number without looking at my activity level for the day, right now I'm taking a more relaxed approach where I'm eating as I feel hungry. Like today for example, for some reason I have been very hungry so I have eaten more than usual: it's 6:00pm and I have already had 3022kCal. This season I will be taking regular skinfold measurements which should give me a better idea if the weight I'm putting on is fat or muscle. Right now I'm guessing I'm about 164lb's but I'm sure close to five pounds of that is creatine/glycogen weight.

Clean Your Room

This season I really want to start paying attention to the little things that, when put together, can make a big difference. Things like... cleaning your room! I would argue that one of the most important parts of a successful season is staying healthy, not only injury free but free of sickness as well. The stressed placed on the body from training can compromise the body's immune system greatly so it seems wise to do everything possible to stay healthy. Washing your hands, washing utensils thoroughly, keeping living space clean, sweeping and dusting regularly just to mention a few.
   I have been guilty in the past of letting my room fall apart, when I was living in residence I dusted my room maybe once all year and swept maybe twice. But from now on I'm going to do everything in my power to stay at optimal health, there's really no excuse for not doing the little things other than just plain laziness!

I'm Getting Too Old For This...

It seems that many collegiate athletes retire from sport after their varsity career, too many times have I been told that by the time I'm 25 I'll be fat and out of shape. I'm entering my third year of CIS eligibility out of a possible five but even when I'm finished I have no plans of stopping training. I know that real life gets in the way, trying to build a career, relationships ect. but it's all about prioritizing. The vast majority of people would rather go out on a Friday night instead of sitting at home alone, icing and planning next weeks workout's. And that's quite understandable but I am a firm believer that you can only get out what you put in. It's not enough to be an athlete for a couple hours a day, you have to be an athlete 24/7 if you truly want to reach your potential.

   When I'm 25 I don't want to be on the downside of my career or be out of sport altogether, I want to be just entering my prime years. Right now, at 19, I feel as though I am just starting to understand the mechanics of a good training program and my knowledge of the sport of track and field is about 20% of what it needs to be. But even so, I'm working towards jumping 15.00m which has been my goal since I started track and field. I know that I'm not there yet but sometimes I get excited thinking of how close I am to a distance that has always been just a dream. There wasn't a single jumper over 50 feet (15.20m) this year in Canada... and knowing that I'm nowhere near my potential keeps me motivated. I want to jump 15.00m, I want to jump 16.00m and who knows, maybe even 17.00m but it's going to take countless sacrifices. Sometimes I look at "normal" non-athletes and I feel so envious of them, how they can go to movies and scarf down a bag of pop-corn or stay out late while not worrying about being fatigued at practice the next day. It would be so easy to slip into that kind of "normal" life but that's the last thing I desire, I want to reach my peak with no regrets, knowing that this is the farthest could have possible jumped.

Genetic Bottle-Necking

I was looking in the freezer while preparing supper and found that I had both haddock and salmon. Before choosing one I looked at the nutrition to confirm my suspicion--the salmon had about four grams of fat per serving while the haddock only had 1. But the fat in salmon is "good", polyunsaturated omega 3 fat and since it had four times as much as the haddock the salmon seemed to be a superior choice. But then I got to thinking about the micro-nutrition--the minerals and vitamins that aren't listed on the back of the package. Although one food may seem superior to the other both foods fill slightly different dietary niches. After looking it up I found that haddock is higher in magnesium than salmon, which is a valuable mineral in aiding the body in recovery. The most important part of any diet is diversity and to make sure a broad range of foods are consumed. If I could get all my daily calories from peanut butter sandwiches I would probably eat them from dawn to dusk but clearly that wouldn't work, I would soon become very sick which a cornucopia of deficiencies.
   And then I remembered a term which was a frequent theme in an evolution class I took last spring, "genetic bottle-necking". If you are unfamiliar with the term it is basically the tendency for an allele to become fixed in a small population by means of genetic drift. To me this seems to the perfect analogy, if you start comparing all similar foods together and eliminating the food which is deemed "worse", you are in essence removing an allele from your dietary gene pool which in turn reduces the chances have hitting all major micro-nutrients.
 
   ...I ate the haddock.

Relative Strength

I seen this commercial today, it made me laugh but it's true of a lot of athletes who try to reach an ideal body type that probably isn't the ideal body for their sport:

To go along with what I was saying yesterday about "training just for the sake of training" I think a lot of what is done in the gym is done for no reason other than to achieve a more ascetically pleasing body. For example, the jumper who goes to the gym and does ten sets of curls and then finishes with bench press on their off day. While upper body strength can be important in overall muscular balance doing curls until your arms are about to fall off is just going to add excess bulk, impede range of motion and add more fatigue to an already busy week. I think the perfect mindset to be in would be one where any thoughts of body image are completely eliminated and every piece of training is for the sake of becoming a better athlete in ones own sport. Of course this is nearly impossible to achieve because everybody has varying amounts of humility and places value in their body image.
   I'm proud to say that I haven't done a biceps curl in over three years (although they may have there place in general prep to eccentrically stabilize the lower arm while sprinting), my issue is more to do with my weight. It makes since that the lighter you are the less force you have to apply to the ground to achieve lift but I have been thinking lately that maybe an extra 5-6 pounds doesn't make as big a difference as I used to think it did. I usually try to get my competition weight to about 157-159lb's but I often feel as thought to get there I'm sacrificing a lot of strength. Right now I weigh about 158lb's and my squat is down over 70lb's and my power clean is down about 40lb's. I think that I would have had a much more successful season if I competed at 165lb's but kept the strength. I guess everybody has their own ideal body weight and it's a matter of finding that perfect zone where relative strength is at it's highest.

Training For The Sake of Training

Everyone has been guilty of it, training just for the sake of training, I am especially bad for it--going for the gym and doing things that aren't event specific in the least. I find, for me, I feel like as long as I'm in the gym or on the track I feel I'm becoming a better athlete even if I'm not doing anything relevant. Of course this is not an effective way to train and beyond being a waste of time can also cause unnecessary over-training. That's kind of why I like the general prep phase of training, it can be frustrating to take a step away from event specific exercises but since the exercise variation is at it's highest point of the year it keeps training from growing stale. Also with more of a focus on volume and a lower intensity then during peak season there is less acute stress applied to the central nervous system which reduces the amount of days spent feeling flat and lethargic.
   General prep is almost a licence to do whatever you want (within reason). To increase connective tissue strength it's important to move through all planes of motion and not just rely on event specific ranges of motion. I'm excited to get back into training after a short layover while I recover from the summer season and work my general strength back up.

How Healthy is Healthy Enough?

At what point does "healthy become "healthy enough"? I think there is clearly a point where a diet becomes sufficient and any extra tweaking and improving just becomes redundant. Not only that it becomes very difficult to eat--the healthier the diet the less options available in convince especially while traveling. Today I went to the Bulk Barn a picked up a load of new grains that I'm excited to try: rye flakes, wheat germ, 12 grain blend, cracked wheat, spelt and chia seeds. They weren't overly expensive but did cost more than a bag of rolled oats at the grocery store which leads me to my real musing, is there any real difference between eating any of these "nutrient dense" grains compared to a still relatively healthy choice, quick oats? Probably not but then again there are a lot of things that athletes do over the course of a season that probably don't make any difference. I still like the feeling of knowing I'm getting the most out of my food.
   As long as long as the basic nutritional grounds are covered it doesn't make a huge difference what the food is. Eat quality, high fiber, complex carbs; get adequate protein and replace unhealthy fats with poly/monounsaturated sources. It's really that simple! I read an article recently called "Unhappy Meal" and the mantra was "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I think that beautifully sums every nutritional principle up beautifully. 

Confidence

It is common to hear people say that performance is "90% mental, 10% physical" or "you can do anything you set your mind to". Well I think that both of these are exaggerations, but still, mental strength and confidence cannot be overlooked. In comparison to the mind, the body is relatively easy to train: to get stronger, squat; to get faster, sprint. But how does one train the mind? It may not be so obvious but the same tactics apply, countless repetitions of positive self-talk, and eliminating self-doubt should in theory help.
Confidence has always been something I have lacked when it comes to performance, I am constantly filled with self-doubt in my abilities and the self-talk that I give myself is almost always negative. When I do give myself positive self-talk it's usually "phony" and I don't really believe in it. "Performance is 90% mental, 10% physical", well, I think that a more accurate statement would be the reverse, 90% physical and 10% mental. Throughout the general preparation, specific conditioning and technical blocks of training it's all about putting the work in, preparing the body to jump farther or sprint faster. But in that final competition block the mind takes over. That's when it's time to believe that the months of work and effort have prepared you for optimal performance. It's a time for rest and a time for NOT over thinking. Then, on competition day that "10% mental" really takes over, negative thoughts promote negative results and positive thoughts promote positive results.
That's kind of where I am right now, a couple of days away from a competition, trying to stay positive and not doubt myself too much. But it's really hard not to let the negative thoughts creep in, some days I believe that I can jump 14.50m+ and other days I feel as though I haven't worked hard enough, more so, I haven't worked smart enough. I think that there's a lot to be said about taking a step away from track a couple days before a competition, that's what I'm going to do tomorrow on my off day--take a day to just do things that are enjoyable and not think about competing.