Preparing for things going wrong

Sometimes things don't go as you expect them to. That is just the way sport goes. However what often happens, is that these changes or things going wrong affects you whole game and can cause your performance to fall apart. This might not even be necessarily anything bad, just different. For instance how often do see a team prepare to play a really tough team, then that team gets unexpectedly beaten the round before. As a result the team loses focus expecting to beat the weaker team easily and as a result doesn't prepare adequately and loses!


So how can you prepare for things going differently to how you expect? The answer is quite simple -

PLAN!

The old saying `Failing to prepare is preparing to fail` is particularly useful here.

As is `Plan for the worst, expect the best`.

An important part of good performances is the expectation of things going well, e.g. not expecting a shot to go on the table has been known to have a negative effect on the likelihood of that shot going on the table! So you need to be confident things will go well. However it is doesn't go as well as you hoped you need a plan B. That plan B is a lot more effective if it is pre-thought out.

So how do you make a plan B?

The simple, effective way is the `If-then` method. IF this happens, THEN I will do this...
spending time doing this before a match or a tournament is a very good way of preparing for the unpredictability of sport. Let`s think of some examples of things that could occur that it would be helpful to have an If-then plan for...

Tactics-
You turn up to a match and the team/player you are playing against is playing completely different tactics. How do you change your game plan accordingly

Conditions-
The day is unnaturally warm. How do you change your nutrition, game plan etc

Equipment-
your racket is slower than usual. Do you change your tactics or just try to take bigger swings etc?

performance-
you make a lot of simple mistakes on your backhand. Do you change your plan, use some mental skills to maintain confidence in it, persevere with that shot?

These show there are so many things that are unpredictable in sport and any one of these things could cause you to lose focus and affect your performance. So having a plan written down beforehand will give you confidence and a plan to overcome these issues.

Here are a few tips to make this planning most effective-

Write it down.
Having a written list (I find 2 columns best- an `if` on the left and its `then` next to it) makes it a concrete plan that you can carry with you. The symbolism of this should not be underestimated!

Think of everything that could possibly happen.
If you make an `if-then` and the `if` doesn't happen you don't lose anything. If you don't make an `if-then` and something happens it could throw you off your game just like before.

Make the plans actionable.
Make the `then` part something you can actively change and measure. `If it is hot, then i will drink more water` is not as likely to be effective as planning specific times when you could drink the water. `If it is hot, then I will drink water during every stoppage of play` Would be more likely to get you to follow through the action instead of being vague.

Spend time doing this before matches/tournaments and you will be able to refer back to these notes should something come up and remember what you planned to do. Even if nothing comes up you can go into it with higher self-confidence because you know you are fully prepared for anything!

If you found this useful check out the other tips on the website. If you try this please comment below with how you found it and any examples or experiences where this was/ could have been used.

Struggles of a Training Athlete. Avoiding Overtraining

In the previous 2 posts, Diagnosing and Monitoring Overtraining we have looked at the issues surrounding overtraining and how we can detect when it is occurring. This is more of a treatment of an issue more than a prevention.

This post will look at how to prevent it from happening in the first place. This is the best course of action as it creates a sustainable environment to ensure training can carry on at full intensity without the athlete burning out and needing to take prolonged rests or unnecessarily miss training through injury.

So what factors are import to avoid overtraining?

Vary training!

If you train one muscle everyday and give it no time to recover it will fatigue. This also occurs mentally, if you are doing the same training all the time, the player will become bored, mentally tired, and lacking in motivation. This will affect training levels and improvement. Varying training styles, exercises, areas of focus will help avoid this. It also makes more efficient training, from muscle standpoints. different types of training will work different muscles and therefore allow some of the muscles to recover. As any bodybuilder will tell you, you never train everything


Keep A Diary!

I mentioned this in the last post for monitoring for overtraining but it is so important that it is worth mentioning again. If you keep a diary of your training, your diet, your emotions you will be able to notice the normal patterns and then plan ahead to suit your training to these patterns. If training in the evening is leaving you consistently over-exhausted then look at if it is possible to train earlier. Focusing on improving weaknesses before matches is consistently leaving you low on confidence in those matches, alter your training plan to work on them earlier and strengths closer to the matches. (Look out for an upcoming post giving an example of training diaries I have used with athletes and better idea of how and what to include)


Train Smarter not always Harder!

I have a whole series of seminars based on this principle. Even the top professionals of any sport will not train more than 8 hours a day for any extended period of time. If that is your only job, then you might wonder why more people don't decide to train 9 or 10 hours a day to get an advantage over the others... the reason- because humans only have so much physical and mental capacity to train. Therefore the key is to make those hours more effective than other competitors. Having clear goals to each training session, spending time away from the actual training analysing training and matches, there are many things you can do to train smarter. (Check out the services part of this website to look into booking the TRAIN SMART, PLAY SMART seminars).


Factor sufficient rest into your regular training plan!

Pushing yourself is a key component of improving, in anything you do. However, if you push too far something will break! Instead of working out your rest days/sessions/holidays as and when you feel you need them, plan them in advance. Often you can be swayed by your motivation levels, pressure to improve your poor recent performances, the fact you do not feel `toooo bad` and do that extra training session that you regret the morning after when it means you are too stiff or sore or tired and have to miss twice as many sessions than you had planned to in order to recover.
This is not saying that you shouldn't alter your training plan. The opposite! Your training plan should be constantly evolving to suit your body and mind! But this should be done over a longer period of time. The technical terms some coaches use is macro- and micro-cycles, but basically it means long-term and short-term plans to enable you to play your best when you need to. Changing training plans every week will not provide a sustainable, stable base of training from which to improve most efficiently.



So that is the end of the Overtraining series. Did you find this helpful? Is there anything you have learned from your experience you can add to this? Leave comments below!

As always check out the rest of the website for more tips and also how you can contact me for more individualised performance enhancement training... There is only so much general principles can help unique individuals.