Ease into new sports

Journal can help track heart rate, time, distance

Full-time biologist and Pro Kona racer Wendy Simms, above, credits her dedicated and focused training regime for her success.

With the warm spring weather comes the excitement of getting outside, feeling the hot sun on your body and the fresh Vancouver air in your lungs. Whatever sport is your passion, now is the key time to put in some quality training to ensure that you are ready to tackle all the adventures you want to experience this summer.

Most people think that quality training means that you have to head out for hours on end and try and go as fast as possible. This is where most people make the same old training mistakes as in past years. So if your goal this year is to get fit, have fun and enjoy your newfound fitness, then listen up.

The most important thing you can do to improve your overall fitness year after year is to start a simple journal. Most people turn up their noses when I mention the word ‘journal.’ However, this is probably the most important thing you can do to improve fitness and stay healthy. At the very least, your daily journal should track your sport, exercise time, and how you felt. You can also add things like distance, heart rate and any other pertinent info. This way you can track your times, and compare them weekly, monthly and yearly to ensure you do not overdo it.

Training is no different than starting a new job. If you overload your system with too much too soon then you’re destined for failure. Training in short durations from 30 minutes to 45 minutes for the first month allows your body to catch up to the stresses you are putting on it. It is also important to go easy instead of heading out the door and hammering. Go easy and get faster, huh? That’s right. By training easy your body learns to burn fat and become more efficient. Then when you add harder workouts in June and July, your body will be able to handle those hammerfests with ease. Training hard all the time leads to injury, sickness and burnout. This is the biggest mistake even high-level athletes make and they do the same thing year after year and expect a different result. Don’t fall into this routine. Go easy, become efficient and reap the benefits.

After the first three to four weeks of training, you can add 10 per cent more each week to the overall time. Again this may not seem like much but each week you will be adding more time to your workouts. If it feels easy then you’re right on track as this means your body is accepting the stress you are putting on it. You should see consistent improvements throughout your entire training program, with the feeling that you want to get out and do more. The alternative is always feeling run down and sick. It is your choice.

DAVE NORONA for Metro Vancouver