One of the biggest changes I’ve made in my personal fitness and in preparing for events has been narrowing the gap between my training intention, and my final execution. In short, this means that on your easy training days, go easy, and on your hard training days, go hard. The smaller the difference between your training intention, and the final execution, the better your progress will be. Sounds simple, but it’s usually easier said than done.
The best way to kick start your training intention is to set up some big long-term goals and achievements you want to pursue such as signing up for a race or competition. From there, plan backwards as to what you must do to reach that goal in the best possible form. Then, stick to that plan, religiously. Being super intentional and focused on what the goal of any given days’ training is will set you up for a week of high quality and impactful sessions.
You won’t over fatigue yourself as you’ll balance your intensity properly, but you’ll get enough of a stimulus to promote growth and adaptation. As a general rule of thumb, about 20% of your sessions should be perceived as a ‘hard’ effort. So, 1 out of every 5 training sessions should be ‘hard’, while the rest of sessions being ‘easy’. Of course, there will always be a time and place when you train for the pure enjoyment of it with no plan and you just do what feels right. But, if you want to get faster and stronger and train harder for longer: focus on training with intent, and most importantly executing that accordingly.
Related news
Summer in the city
A regular thing we do amongst friends in the city during the warmer summer months is to try out some of the more popular rooftop bars. This time did not disappoint with a well spent summer evening at Wagtail, perched high above the City of London it feels like stepping into a world where the […]
Stepping Into the Screen: My Unforgettable First Trip to New York
I travelled to New York for the first time, and it felt like stepping into a movie scene that I had only ever seen in the movies. From the moment I arrived, the city had an energy unlike anywhere else I had visited. The streets were full of life, bright lights, music, and people from […]
Head of the river race
A few weeks ago I found myself in crew for The Head of the River Race’s one hundredth anniversary. This is the biggest head race (long distance rowing race) in the country, hosting crews not just from the country but the world, in all 375 crews were entered, totalling 3,000 rowers. Whilst I hadn’t really […]
