Sports is great outlet and avocation. For a select few, it can also be rewarding vocation. For most of us, it is often a mix of participation, spectating and a wash of memories from various times in our lives.
In my own experience, the connection to sports has remained important - if variable. As a kid, I played baseball and basketball. I had dreams of becoming the starting second baseman for the SF Giants. Like most, I quickly relegated those dreams and focused on academic studies. Basketball, my second love, ended for me as an organized, competitive activity after my junior year of high school.
For years, I relegated sports to the back burner. It was something I watched on television. Occasionally, I might go out to jog or play a pickup game of softball or soccer. Only in my thirties did I return to sport as a discipline when I took up tennis.
My own website is devoted to fitness, nutrition and health. I'll steal a few lines from it because they are relevant to the discipline any athlete, amateur or pro, must apply to his or her chosen athletic pursuit:
Getting fit can be an enjoyable process, one that enhances body and mind and supplies you with new energy reserves. Truly intelligent
fitness work revolves around a sympathetic attitude towards your body
and self. All pursuits, including fitness, benefit from equal measures
of self-tolerance and self-belief. This is especially so in a world
where skeptics abound.
To realize the best plan for you, listen to your body. Pay attention to its moods and rhythms. Limber up through a routine of stretching and basic aerobics. Develop a consistent program stocked with variety and incentives. Keep it fresh and keep it going. A
good fitness routine is varied and interesting. By mixing stretching,
walking, weight lifting, sprinting and cardiovascular activities – you
maximize your fitness potential. Build a program that integrates skills and attributes most appropriate for your sport. Make your workouts count!
Do you want more energy and generally better health? Logic suggests you plan a general exercise and nutrition program that builds strength, cardiovascular level and stamina. If you are an athlete chasing superior performance,
evaluate your current fitness state and your actual nutritional habits.
Measure your current speed, strength and stamina levels with the help
of a personal trainer. Use these metrics as baselines for change.
Different pursuits require different programs and emphases. Take runners: if you are a sprinter,
customize a program that you combines strength with speed and
coordination exercises. A long-distance runner or rower gains the most
benefit the most from a program featuring endurance training.
Tennis players
will benefit from speed, strength and stamina work, and from core work
via pilates and related exercises. Whether you are a court genius like Roger Federer,
a weekend warrior with tournament aspirations - or just a person who
likes to hit the fuzzy yellow ball, you will benefit from a real
fitness regimen.
Before getting strenuous, consult a doctor. Make sure you are ready for the physical demands of a full workout schedule.
More thoughts in the next section...
Make Workouts Count
Workout is
an interesting word, typically meaning an exercise session or a single
instance of building and training muscles in an aerobic context. A
workout is also sweating clean with a goal in mind. It is a stepping
stone, a component of a linear, chronological fitness/training
sequence. As a building block in an exercise program, it holds
essential value.
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the context, and a workout is also a slice of time, a point of focus,
and a retreat from the pressures of the day. Hopefully, a workout is
also just good clean fun. Getting fit is more than just about getting fit.
There
are hundreds of different workouts, from 'template' workouts to
customized sessions that you design in advance or adapt to energy and
mood. Truly valuable workouts are indeed building blocks towards
incrementally improved fitness. Put together varied sessions featuring
stretches of exertion and blocs of rest. Different workouts emphasize
specific aspects of fitness; where one stresses speed work, another
focuses on strength. A third workout type might be centered around
stamina.
The
workouts you pursue will also depend on your sport, fitness profile,
and current reservoirs of energy and time. Different athletes will
naturally emphasize different mixes. A tennis player will focus on speed and core strength,
as quickness and core solidity are keys to a successful game.
Long-distance runners may emphasize stamina and flexibility, then mix
in speed work. Who knows, you may find yourself gliding to the ball like Roger Federer, and plastering it for a winner.
Preparing the Plan
In our Fitness Glossary we define preparation, an essential part of your personal fitness strategy:
Preparation
means evaluating your current fitness status and and goals and
identifying the best way to achieve these goals. It translates to
designing individual workouts with a progression in mind, then
approaching each workout with focus and intent.
The
more serious you are about fitness in general or in achieving a
specific competitive goal, the more preparation should play a part. Set
out a plan in stages, starting with the goal and creating a long-term
design.
Then break the major segments into specific workouts,
the sum of which should accomplish the purpose of that stage. This
might be improved strength or speed, or repeating a specific movement
that relates directly to your sport. A tennis player
might create a schedule of specific, yet subtly varied, shoulder
exercises, to improve his serve. Alternately, he might spend two weeks
focusing on pilates to strengthen the core muscles that are so
important to high-level tennis performance.
You get the idea,
and know your sport. If you are not sure about specific exercises that
are most beneficial to practitioners of your chosen sport, consult a
trainer or coach. Make workouts count, and the rewards will come in
bunches.