Train Like A Pro, Feel Like A Champ
Sometimes you’ve got to turn your world upside down to put things in place. I came to Utah to get my degree in nutrition and coach endurance athletes. The plan was to work in a lab doing performance research with cyclists, but I fell in love with skiing. Lost in the moment, playing in the mountains, and exploring new trails, I feel alive. I push myself body and mind, using everything I have: endurance, strength, flexibility, balance, and coordination.
From age six through college I was a competitive endurance athlete. I started with swimming and gymnastics. Shoulder and spinal injuries led me to road cycling and racing centuries. At the university I focused on reaching my highest potential, majoring in exercise sport science. Theory came to life in the lab, finding new ways to improve my performance. The majority of my work was training studies as the lead researcher or a test subject.
I fine tuned the best in sport nutrition and hydration to meet the energy demands of various cycle training protocols to get faster and speed recovery. What’s amazing is that this sport science research applies to skiing and snowboarding too. This is my tenth season with over 100 days skiing, over 1 million vertical feet and no injuries. I love teaching athletes how to optimize their nutrition and training to reach their highest potential!
It is such powerful information. We can all learn from the pros to improve our performance whether it is athletic, academic, or our professional performance. Performance is a combination of our genetics, how we train, and our nutrition. What do you bring to the table? Are you strong, fast, flexible, creative, intelligent, etc. How do you prepare for your best performance? How do you fuel and hydrate? I’ve broken it down into eight steps.
Eight Steps To Best Performance
1) Start with a Plan: The pros do not leave things to chance. They have a clear, purposeful, and detailed plan that includes training, nutrition, and work. It keeps them focused so their actions are deliberate and purposeful. For example pro athletes train seven days a week. Each day has a specific aim such as steady state, intervals, race day, and recovery. Each day has a particular concentration like endurance, strength, flexibility, balance, speed, or power. Pro athletes stick to their plan for the most efficient use of their time and to avoid over-training and injuries.
2) Balanced Training: A high performance athlete balances their training to target all of the body systems including strength, flexibility, balance, endurance, and speed. The focus depends on where they are in their training cycle (i.e., preparation, competition, peaking, and transition phases). In Utah, early March is when skiers and snowboarders are in competition mode. They weight train about two days a week to maintain their strength. Approximately four days per week they are doing ski/snowboard intervals of high intensity exercise and low intensity to rest, similar to race conditions. Flexibility work is part of their daily plan for about 30 minutes or more each day to stretch the muscle groups they trained.
They have at least one full recovery day each week where they do active or passive recovery. Active recovery is low intensity exercise to increase circulation and flush their body like cycling on a stationary bike, going for a walk, or taking a restorative yoga class. Passive recovery is when there is no exertion and the athlete completely relaxes like having a massage, acupuncture, using a hyperbaric chamber, foam rolling, compression therapy, cryotherapy or taking a nap.
3) Pay Attention: The pros purposely train like it is their job. They show up prepared to train with the proper gear. Energized with the fuel and hydration their body needs, they get the most out of each session and perform their best. They stick to the plan with the prescribed intensity. This is what distinguishes a professional high performance athlete from others. Most cyclists, runners, and paddlers go all out, high intensity every time they train. The proper stimulus to create change requires specific and varied intensity levels or workloads for set amounts of time.
Athletes use technology to monitor their training, intensity, workload, etc. They are also in tune with their body, listening to the different body cues they receive as feedback. Breathing provides powerful information and should match the prescribed intensity level. If it does not, the athlete knows something is off and can adjust. Energy level, focus and concentration, and other feelings in the body are excellent ways to gauge the training. Pro athletes are also attentive to their thoughts and the self-talk going on inside their head, noticing if it is positive or negative and adjusting accordingly.
4) Recovery is Key: Pros know recovery is essential to their performance. Training breaks the body down. Recovery allows the body to rebuild and repair itself, and this is also the time when the body can adapt to the training. Professional athletes who take their performance seriously will have two days of recovery or more, depending on what training phase they are in. It is important to give the body plenty of time to rest and relax. Stretch, foam roll, take a bath, hot tub, have a massage, or take a nap.
5) Quality Sleep: The pros make sure they get plenty of sleep. Sleep directly affects hormone balance and the body’s recovery ability. It affects how the body responds to nutrients, exercise, and stress. The more quality sleep the athlete gets, the better they perform. It is essential that athletes create and stick to a sleep routine. For example as part of one’s sleep routine, to prepare for sleep approximately one to two hours before bed, reduce stimulus to the brain and eyes by turning off the TV, computer, laptop or cell phone.
6) Sustained Energy: The pros do not wait until they are hungry to eat. Hunger is a body cue signaling that the energy level is running low. Professional athletes know they have to properly fuel throughout the day to maintain their energy and perform their best. The pros have a fueling plan specifically designed to meet their energy and nutrient needs, adjusted to what time they train and the type of training they do. They know they have to plan ahead with their fueling. Digestion is how the body breaks down the food and drink consumed and makes it available for use as energy. Certain foods give them energy, speed recovery, improve focus, and enhance clarity. High fat and high protein meals slow the digestive system. High fiber vegetables and fruits are excellent for health, but are not ideal when consumed directly before or during training. Pros learn this from working with a sport nutrition coach and from their own experience.
Sport nutrition is an essential part of best performance. If the athletes are going to be on the mountain for first chair, then breakfast is their most important meal. It is planned to optimize their nutrition needs, with sufficient time to be digested and absorbed so energy is ready for use when they get on the snow. They bring water and sport drinks with them, along with snacks to stay fueled and hydrated during their practice. As soon as they finish practice, they have a recovery drink. They continue to have water, snacks, or a sports drink until it is time for dinner.
7) Balanced Nutrition: Pros nourish themselves with meals, snacks, and drinks about every 3-4 hours. Balance means that meals and snacks include vegetables, fruit, lean protein, and healthy fat. As explained in the sustained energy section, fat, animal protein, and fiber slows digestion and energy release. When the athlete is able to have fully balanced meals, they aim to eat foods in their most natural form for high quality nutrients such as vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Again using the example of a skier or snowboarder who has morning training or competition, breakfast and dinner are the times when he/she can have fully balanced meals. Immediately before, during, and immediately after training or practice, the athlete will typically have sport nutrition drinks that are easily absorbed quickly.
8) Hydration: Pros do not wait until they feel thirsty to hydrate. Thirst is another important body cue. It signals that the hydration level is running low. Throughout the day athletes drink water or herbal tea. While training, sport drinks are ideal because they hydrate the body with water, provide energy through liquid calories, replace electrolytes lost from sweating, and maintain performance levels. After training the pros know to have a sport nutrition drink with a carbohydrate to protein ratio of 4:1 to speed their recovery.
These eight steps are proven in sport science research to improve performance in professional athletes. They will work for you as well. When you learn how to optimize your training and nutrition to meet your daily demands whether athletic, academic, or in your profession, you will have the energy, clarity, and focus to take your performance to the next level.