4 Conditioning Mistakes That Keep You From Feeling Your Best
Written by Tricia Moore
Your conditioning work should be every bit as thoughtful as your warm-ups, strength work, and recovery. Here are four common mistakes to avoid to make sure you put that sweat to good use and make your effort count.
Mistake #1 – Prioritizing Speed Over Quality
This approach can set you back with injuries, which can set you up lackluster results and frustration. This might seem counterintuitive but If you only focus on speed, it will take much longer to get to your goal. If you consistently perform high quantities of repetitions at a subpar quality, you’re only reinforcing bad habits and poor quality. The most successful athletes – and the ones with longevity in their sport by mitigating injury and burnout – are those who understand quality of work is more important than quantity of work. Train smarter, not harder!
Mistake #2 – Randomly Throwing Together Workouts
This will get you random outcomes. Be thoughtful about the gears and aerobic zones you are working each week. What zone do you need more of? By being able to understand and control what one you are training in, you are able to better target your needs whether they be recovery, fat loss, or to cover 100 miles in your upcoming race.
Mistake #3 – Believing More Intensity Yields Better Results
You can burn more energy with a steadier state. Just ask our RUN CLUB steady state is a GREAT place to build your base. A solid foundation is KEY! Spending time in steady state training zones brings with it a plethora of health as well as performance benefits including Increased aerobic capacity and endurance; a stronger foundation from which to exert maximal power or high intensity effort (i.e. – Fran or 1k row); ability to sustain a higher level of work aerobically before going anaerobic; and, because it is less demanding on the CNS and creates fewer waste products like lactate, it has less inflammatory response in the body and therefore on the immune system.
Mistake #4 – Not Balancing Conditioning With Strength Work
You need both. Plain and simple. Train both. Maximal strength can translate over to short burst sprints on the mono-structural machines like the Assault Bike. Jumping, bounding, punching, sprinting, and change of direction are just a few of many movement patterns that benefit from higher levels of explosive strength. And strength endurance allows you to go for an extended duration in order to achieve optimal results. Read more on the 4 Types of Strength.
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Very good, especially for Masters athletes.