Disciplined Fitness Regimen Coupled With Balanced Dietary Programme Is The Key To Athletes’ Success

Athletes are considered the benchmark for optimal personal fitness. What makes their fitness so envious and desirable by non-athletes like me and you? It is their strict daily routine that sets them apart from others: from getting up early to going to bed in the evening and getting out of the cozy bed the next morning, they are part of the everyday life of the athletes. However, maintaining a disciplined routine isn’t for everyone. This requires a high level of commitment and passion in order to achieve the ultimate level of fitness through daily training. This drive comes from the dispensation to achieve the goals that athletes have set for themselves. And what is the most cherished and admired goal of athletes? Regardless of the nation or sports that athletes represent, they always strive for ultimate glory in the Olympic Games and respective World Championships. The greatest achievers of all time are the strictest adherents to a disciplined training regimen. Mark Spitz, Usain Bolt, Nadia Comaneci, Mohammad Ali, Michael Phelps, Michael Jordan and other famous athletes become what they are known for through a well-organized daily routine. This article takes you on a journey into the fitness and health needs of athletes by looking into the programs of some famous athletes and discusses the importance of the daily routine that athletes follow to stay fit and achieve their athletic dreams realize.

What could an ideal daily routine for athletes look like? To search for the answer to this question, we need to delve deeper into the topic and conduct an insightful investigation. In the search for the answer, however, there is a risk of sweeping generalizations. For this reason, inquirers often make the mistake of not differentiating the different sporting goals and often associate success primarily with the level of fitness. Nevertheless, they are right to a certain extent, but they do not know that competing in different sports requires special training to acquire the right skills and specific body strength. Natalie Rizzo, a nutricisedr.com blogger on health, nutrition and fitness topics, writes in a January blog post about the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics: “What we don’t always think about is that athletes from different sports in the Olympics Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics have different goals, leading to very different training and nutrition plans.” She continues, “Some sports require speed, while others focus on strength and distance. Some athletes benefit from being lean, while others find it beneficial to bulk up and increase their strength.”

Rizzo’s analysis clearly shows that there is no one-size-fits-all fitness program for all athletes. The nature of fitness programs is determined by the goals that athletes pursue in national and international sporting events. A sprinter like Usain Bolt would follow a significantly different daily routine than a shot putter like Ulf Timmerman or David Storl. The skills these players possess or strive for shape their daily training regimen. Usain Bolt, the world’s fastest sprinter, would focus on training programs that lead to improved endurance, muscle strength especially in the lower limbs, controlled breathing, jumping, and so on. On the other hand, shot put players would aim to improve their shoulder and forearm strength, building momentum before the throw, physical balance within the throwing circle, and similar skills.

Daily exercises and workouts

Despite the specialized training for different sports, there are commonalities in the daily routine for athletes of all genres. A few common workouts and exercises that athletes follow may include:

• Basics of fitness training
• weight training
• To go biking
• Jog
• Go for a walk
• pushups
• stretching
• Stamina building exercises
• breathing exercises.

Examples from different sports areas

There are a number of global trainers and fitness experts who have suggested a daily fitness routine for athletes across different sports. Among them is a professional trainer George Payan, who trains sprinters. Payan maintains an online coaching resource, http://www.coacheseducation.com, in which he detailed the daily workouts of different types of athletes. As an example, he outlined a comprehensive daily routine for the 400-meter sprinters. As of Monday, Payan detailed the workouts for each day of the weak with regular rest days.

Michael Phelps, the celebrated swimmer and record holder for most Olympic gold, who eclipsed former record holder Mark Spitz at the Beijing 2008 Olympics, follows a strict daily routine. While there are some special traits that make Phelps unique that set him apart from the average adult male, he still works hard six days a week. Jonathan P. Wade describes its natural properties and writes in Motley Health:

“Phelps is 6ft 4″ tall and weighs about 84kg. He is 14 feet tall and has an arm reach of 6 feet 7 inches, which is 3 inches longer than his height. He has relatively short legs for his size, which gives him an added advantage in the pool. Also, his knees are double-jointed and his feet can rotate 15 degrees more than average, allowing them to be fully extended, allowing his powerful feet like Fins work. Those genetic advantages help him push off the wall and propel himself like a dolphin 10m before he actually has to swim.”

Despite these attributes, Phelps’ daily routine includes six hours of swimming, or 8 miles a day. He usually hits the pool at 6:30 a.m. every morning and swims six days a week, including the holidays. In addition to his swimming routine, he also follows a weight-lifting routine and spends about an hour three days a week and an hour three days a week stretching his muscles. Phelps was dubbed “the human dolphin” because of his superior swimming ability.

Phelp’s diet

Michael Phelps burns 12,000 calories every day. His breakfast includes:

• Three fried egg sandwiches topped with cheese
• Green salad
• tomatoes
• Fried Onions
• Mayonnaise.

Usain Bolt, another quintessential athlete and the role model for aspiring young athletes in the profession, is as tough a coach as Phelps is. Though Bolt is also a naturally gifted athlete, he follows a strict regimen to maintain his agility and lightning-fast speed. Bolt is the current world record holder in the 100m and 200m sprint categories at the Olympic Games.

Typical Bolts daily routine includes:

• Weighted lunges with heavy dumbbells
• Weighted squats
• cable leg drives
• Explosive step-ups with weighted barbell
• Bunny hops / box jumps
• frog jumps
• ankle rolls
• High knee jump
• steps

Aside from the above workouts, Usain Bolt’s daily routine also includes flexibility and sprinting exercises. Bolt trains intensely for 3 hours a day, followed by rest, massage and relaxation to ensure full recovery before the next workout.

Bolt’s diet

A typical Usain Bolt diet includes high-energy meals containing 60% protein, 30% carbohydrates, and 10% fat. He consumes around 196 grams of muscle-building protein every day.

The brief discussion above sheds some light on athletes’ daily routines, including nutritional plans. But there is more to just maintaining a perfect physique for competing in national and international competitions. In addition to physical agility and strength, a healthy mental health is also an imperative for a long career in athletics. Marv Zauderer, a licensed psychotherapist in San Francisco, USA, who works with amateur and professional athletes of all sports, emphasizes the importance of mental fitness for peak performance. According to Marv, a lack of mental fitness creates psychological barriers for athletes to achieve their optimal performance.

“Self-doubt, nervousness, insecurity, frustration, distraction, hesitancy, fear, intimidation—all of these are barriers to reaching your full physical potential and limit mental fitness. But what does “mental fitness” really mean? The effortless integration of body and mind working in harmony to create a sense of flow, of being in the elusive zone? Well, yes, that’s a glorious experience when ( if!) it happens, and working on your mental skills will make it a lot more likely to happen.”

Another expert, Jesse Kropelnicki (to learn more about Jesse Kropelnicki visit his blog ), which provides professional coaching to triathletes like Marv, keeps mental fitness on a high pedestal.

“Just as optimal physical fitness is very individual, so is mental fitness.”

As expert opinions claim that mental fitness is as important as physical fitness, athletes should also incorporate some mental training programs into their daily routine to overcome psychological constraints while competing at the highest level. You can do yoga, acrobatic exercises, dance or meditation to maintain healthy mental health.

Conclusion

Like professionals in any other field, athletes must follow a disciplined daily routine to achieve their ambitions in their respective sports. A famous quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes says: “Success is not the position you are in, but the direction in which you are going.” Wendell Holmes’ quote reflects the stagnation factor that people often experience after reaching a trade fair sacrificing a morsel of success, one must keep adding milestone after milestone It has often been observed that when people achieve something, they tend to become complacent, which in turn reveals their secret of success, which is a disciplined daily routine, impaired .

Therefore, it is imperative for the athletes to follow a strict daily routine. They will no doubt face distractions, but they need to build a strong mental attitude to stay on a strong footing. Another factor that sometimes places a psychological barrier on athletes’ willingness to stick to a strict routine is lack of motivation. Sometimes they felt down inside and lost the determination to do their best. In such a scenario, they could boost their morale by reading biographies of successful athletes or watching movies about bravery and glory. During these times of crisis, their mental coaches play a crucial role in rejuvenating their inner desires for competition and success.

The coaches can motivate them with anecdotes or their personal life experiences. A lively and humorous environment can also prove to be very helpful in solving the problems. There can be a number of reasons why athletes lack motivation: family problems, fights with friends or other stress-related problems. These can be addressed by timely intervention by psychological experts. When confronted with such issues, it would be better for the athletes to sort them out before they turn into bigger problems. Once the athletes have regained the composure they had lost, they should begin the workouts and training programs and gradually reach the peak regime as part of their normal daily routine. In addition to physical training and a good nutrition plan, an ideal daily routine also includes mental strength building.

Thanks to Md Intekhab Alam Khan