What’s that old saying about the definition of insanity? To keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? When it comes to THESE two “most common” mistakes, get in line if you’re among the folks who routinely make them, yet also expect to reach your potential or get better results while making them. I’m here to say, it is time to change and break some bad habits! Learn to train smart.

Mistake #1: Beyond the more obvious factors we talk about here at Pursuit Athletic Performance (that are important for any athlete to reach their goals), such as improving movement quality and developing true functional strength, one training element stands out as KEY for your success, more than almost any other. What is it? Differentiating intensity on a daily basis, and even within each and every training session.

What does it really mean?  (When you hear "train smart," from a coach, this is partly what they mean!)

In my years as a coach and in training with other athletes, perhaps the single mistake I’ve seen most athletes make who do NOT progress as they hope to, or who have plateaued in their performances, is that they muddy workout intensity, making the easy stuff too hard, and the hard stuff too easy, and everything in between becomes "sort of" hard.  This basically is the equivalent of talking in a monotone voice. Boring, and not very good for improvement!

In order to IMPROVE and adapt to get better and ultimately be more efficient and faster, stay away from the "in between" intensity standpoint is a poor way to execute smart training. If the easy stuff is too fast or too hard, you won't have the energy to sustain effort on the "quality" segments, and vice versa.

The MORE you can dial in and differentiate your intensity in every workout, the better you will feel, the better you will perform, the faster you will recover, and ultimately, the more you will improve.

Mistake #2: Preparing well, including doing a smart warm up, at the beginning of every training session is critically important to both prepare your body for that session and to minimize risk of injury. When I am observing others, I notice that many tend to blow-off their warm up periods and then end up starting their sessions too hard or fast. If you are rushed for time, that tendency to make this mistake is even greater.

One very common factor that many athletes forget to consider as their fitness improves, is that the more fit and strong you become, the more important a progressive warm up period is. And when it comes to racing, a proper warm up is crucial if you want to have a great race, regardless of the distance.   

Make It More Dynamic, Not Static!  

A high quality structured dynamic warm-up of at least 5 to 15 minutes at the beginning of training sessions and races will accomplish several important things:

• It will raise body temperature. When you begin to sweat, it means that your muscles are getting warm, loose, and relaxed. There’s some evidence that higher body temperatures thin bodily fluid, which lessens strain on joints and on the heart.

•It reduces initial levels of muscular stress. Anyone who has ever tried to keep up with an “overzealous” training partner who sprints out of the parking lot at the beginning of a ride, knows how your legs burn because you are not warmed up.

• It conserves muscle glycogen. “Fast from the gun” workouts and races dip more deeply into your precious supplies of glycogen – the fuel your body needs and prefers to burn for endurance efforts. A slower start with adequate warm up allows you to burn a greater percentage of fat, conserving reserves of glycogen.

• It opens capillaries. A warm up dilates the vessels that allow blood to bathe muscle cells with oxygen and nutrients.