Keeping Your Body at 100% Whilst Training – Part 1
Last week I asked on twitter what you guys did to keep illness and injury at bay whilst you focussed on your training. This was a topic of debate at Leander, with Womens Eights Head only a few days away and many crews chopping and changing due to athletes health it was important for me to focus on what I could do to keep myself in the best of shape.
Large volume training takes a big hit on your body and can lead to a weakened immune system. This stems purely from the fact you’re spending a lot more energy trying to repair and strengthen used muscles. It’s no surprise then that the biggest time our athletes face illness is either launching themselves into training after a break (e.g. after xmas when I got very ill) or when volume is ramped up. Our previous two weeks have been very ergo and mileage heavy, with most days including a 20k water outing, 16k ergo and weights. It was different to our usual work load and this did affect some athletes, with tiredness playing a big factor.
It was important, then, that we followed some very simple advice on how to stay healthy the week leading up to a race.
Don’t try anything new – this might sound self-explanatory! But leading up to a race, (whether it is on the water or on the erg) don’t try any new weights exercises or eat at any new restaurants. New food may not settle well on your stomach, you may get food poisoning from a new restaurant or a new weights exercise may damage a muscle.
Rest up! – Make sure you’re getting 8 hours. If you have are in a place where you’re training full time, use that break between 2nd and 3rd session to get a nice nap in, it can tick you over to 9 hours total rest a day and also helps boost your performance in that third session
Eat Well – The week leading up to a competition you may be winding down the work load, but you shouldn’t really wind down the amount you eat alongside this. Eat exactly the same portions and at the same intervals as you would on a normal training week – don’t be surprised if you put on a KG or 2, but that is nothing to worry about (unless you’re lightweight…obviously)
Drink more water – I always find that slightly upping the amount I drink during heavy training period helps combat muscle tiredness. Of course you’ll naturally drink more with the increased sweat, but even when you’re not thirsty have a glass of water if you haven’t had anything in the past hour. Staying hydrated also helps all your internal processes keep up with the work load. I always tend to up the amount of fruit juice I drink too (though not by too much as there’s waaaaaaaaaay too much sugar in there!).
So far, ignoring the wave of pain I experience at Christmas, following this advice has helped me stay healthy when it’s most important. Although I have not been rowing seriously for too long, I still haven’t been in the situation where I haven’t been able to race due to illness or injury and I thank these simple rules for that!
Next week I’ll be talking about long term advice to follow to help prevent injury and other… sores!
Natalie X
