2019 is drawing to a close and it’s time to look back and see what progress you have made throughout the year. There will be things you can change for the coming new year in relation to your training, its handy if you keep a journal as it’s much easier to look back on certain sessions and see whether they have helped or hindered your progress.
This year was a strange year for me, lots of ups and downs in my training and family life. I started off 2019 training in a new team and performing sessions that I had never tried before, the volume was tough but I enjoyed it at first. Unfortunately things didn’t work out, the training didn’t play to my sprinting strengths and I started to feel lost and also dreading getting on my beloved rower – this had never happened before and it was very demoralising. Luckily I was able to see that it wasn’t doing me any good and I decided to bite the bullet and leave the team and the training behind.
In 2019 I have learnt that sometimes the program just doesn’t work for some people and that’s not a bad thing or a failure. Generalised programs for exercise very rarely play to every athlete’s strengths and when it starts failing either the coach or the athlete (or the PT/client) has to flag it up. There is absolutely no point in carrying on aimlessly and chipping away the confidence of the athlete with every session that is deemed a failure by them. Action has to be taken , whether that’s changing the targets/goal or even changing the coach. A PT should be always looking at the clients and their programs and gauging if the exercises are benefiting their clients and more importantly the client is enjoying them. My disastrous start to 2019 with my training is evidence that if the client/athlete is not enjoying the program then progress will be slow if at any made at all!
Luckily I have found my love for all the ergs coming back to me in the last 4 months of 2019 mainly thanks to a new coach who has given me the confidence to enter competitions and push myself. In doing so I have broken British records and won an online competition, both of these have boosted my confidence and made me realise that all it takes sometimes is a supportive push to bump-start the hunger again.
I would also advocate writing what your goals and targets are for 2020 in your journal. Do you want to aim for the same or do you want to really challenge yourself and push those goalposts even further in 2020? New challenges are always a great motivator, but choose wisely, if you don’t then you are increasing the risk of not fulfilling them and we want 2020 to be YOUR year! Pick targets that will push you but that are realistic, you want to ignite that fire within not put it out before it starts going!!
Remember too, Christmas is once a year, so enjoy it. Don’t stress about calories or time to exercise, if you can fit it in then do something. If you can’t then enjoy what your doing instead of it- remember in the grand scheme of things its only exercise and it will be there after Christmas for you to get your teeth into properly! Eat what you want, remember everything is ok in moderation, don’t stress about what is passing through your lips especially on the big day!! There will be plenty of time to burn those calories in 2020! Enjoy the time with your families and look forward to 2020 – I will!!
