I love the Olympics!
It’s very hard to stop watching it on the TV. I even had to turn it off so I could get this written.
Sweet beach volleyball has just come on! Damn, it’s mens 🙁
If you want to look like an athlete, you should train, eat, sleep and act like an athlete.
Here’s where to start.
1. You must lift weights or do some form of strength training.
The hockey players lift weights.
Swimmers lift weights.
Archers lift weights.
Tennis players lift weights.
Gymnasts do huge amounts of bodyweight strength training.
Every athlete needs to be strong so they train to get stronger. You should do the same.
Keep trying to get a little stronger every workout. One more rep. A slightly heavier weight. More reps in less time. Whatever.
2. You play your sport and you practice religiously.
Athletes are single minded about their sport and they do it all the time. You have a life and can’t dedicate your life to looking like an Olympian.
But if you train like one you will probably end up looking like one.
Best thing you can do is set aside some training time each day and make sure you do your training. Consistency is king. And take one day a week off from training so you can rest.
3. Sleep when you need to sleep and aim for 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.
Give yourself a bedtime and stick to it. Recovery is just as important as training, because of the stress in our everyday lives and the added stress of training all the time.
Late nights are for uni students and holidays.
And make sure you have an amazing bed, quality pillow, a dark room, phone off or on silent and no TV or computer to distract you when you should be going to sleep.
4. You need to eat like an athlete, not like a supermodel.
Athletes eat a lot. They also eat stuff which keeps them healthy and enhances performance.
An athlete’s diet includes plenty of lean meats, good fats, a ton of vegetables, some starchy carbs for extra energy and plenty of fruit.
Athletes can get away with eating extra starch and fruit to fuel their long training sessions. People training for fat loss can not.
5. Athletes cycle or periodise their training with competition.
If there is a meet in October, training gets harder the closer they get to the event. Food and lifestyle gets stricter and discipline is high. After the event they chill for a bit to get their focus off competition and have fun, before starting off slow again and building up to a peak for the next event.
You should set up your training to coincide with major events such as sporting events or fun runs, holidays, or training to look good for summer. Then you have some downtime after the event to relax a little before getting building back into a harder training mode for the next goal or event.
You don’t have to eat broccoli all the time, do a fist pump at the end of each workout or shout C’mon whenever you’re excited, but it might help.
You can’t expect to be in Olympic shape in 3 months, when these guys have been training all their lives for it.
What about a 4 year plan? Why not aim to look like an Olympian by the next Olympics? It’s definitely possible whoever you are and whatever health issues haunt you.
I kinda look like an out of shape marathon runner at the moment, but maybe by next Olympics I’ll more resemble a basketball player or a diver or even a decathlete. Who will you look like?
