The Habits of Habits for Athletic Performance
I think it’s safe to say the all of us have a few areas of our lives that we’d like to improve or enhance, right?
Especially when it comes to health and fitness!
One of the simplest ways in going about this is by creating good habits that make these positive changes…but often it feels tough to develop consistency.
For a competitive athlete, efforts to eat healthy, lift regularly, do speed work and bring more balance to your life can seem like an effort unto itself.
It takes work and it is not always easy to develop a good habit, especially if you’re trying to break a bad one at the same time. However, establishing a plan of attack can help you as you set out to develop new habits that will help you with your training and improve your athletic performance.
First, it is important to know what you are getting in to. Most people need months of engaging in a purposeful, specific behavior before it becomes a habit.
Before the habit becomes second nature many individuals are at risk of “back sliding” into the old patterns of behavior.
Think about this, have you ever tried to change a technique you use in your sport to improve your athletic performance, like change your golf swing, how you throw your pitch, or how you serve the tennis ball? It’s not as easy as it seems right?
Or maybe it is your running form or your swimming mechanics. At slow paces it is pretty easy to maintain your new technique. But turn up the intensity and what happens to your technique?
If you are still within the habit-forming window, there’s a good chance that you’ll fall back into your old technique under pressure. This is important to understand because when you commit to changing any behavior, you will need to be vigilant and purposeful in your training efforts.
What behaviors am I referring to?
For athletes it can run the gamut from:
- Diet – eating fewer sweets or consuming more protein
- Fitness – incorporating speed training into your weekly workouts or adding aerobic workouts on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) to
- Sleep – getting 8 hours a night
- Other lifestyle behaviors – better managing stress, drinking less alcohol, not working on Sundays
What are you working on or should be working on?
What behaviors are you trying to change that will lead to improved athletic performance?
Regardless of the habit you are trying to develop, there are some tactics you can use that can help you in your efforts,
Below are a few things you can do to increase the changes that the new habits will stick and then become second nature.
Strategically Place Cues to Support Your Efforts
Let’s say you swim at 5 AM a few mornings a week, and you find it tough time to drag yourself out of bed. Knowing this, you can hang your swimsuit on the bathroom door, have your bag packed and place the alarm clock (or clocks) out of reach of the bed. This way when the alarm goes off you must get up and turn it off. These cues will support your commitment to swimming regularly. Once out of bed, there is no excuse—swimsuit and bag are ready.
What makes sense for you?
There are a limitless number of cues or prompts you can use. For example, you could put pictures of healthy food on the refrigerator, tape notes with motivational sayings in spots you often pass or keep your running shoes in your car.
Based on the behavior you are working on, identify the cues or prompts that would be most meaningful and beneficial to you.
Enlist the Support of Others
Recently in working with an athlete, we were having a discussion regarding their up coming winter workouts. They recognized the importance of staying fit but noted that it was going to be quite a challenge to do it on their own. You know the winter season …cold, dark and raining, or snowy…just a ton of excuses for not working out.
We talked about this challenge and ways they could manage it. The strategy they settled on was to enlist an accountability and workout partner. They will provide support for each other on a structured, regular basis. With all the social media available it’s no surprise that social support can work wonders.
Support from others cane be the form of encouragement from friends, a spouse, or family member, all you have to do it ask for it.
Social support can also be about finding an accountability partner. Seek out someone who is trying to make a similar change. Having a partner can enhance your motivation and give you additional accountability or responsibility and making it less likely for you to skip a workout or miss a class.
Set Goals for Yourself
Yes…back to goals. In past posts in this blog I have talked about the importance of mental strength skill of goal setting and how it can be of value in achieving peak performance.
Goals, when appropriately set, can enhance motivation, tell you what you need to do, and provide feedback to help you recognize your success or identify areas of improvement.
Goals can be equally effective in helping you in your efforts to change unwanted behaviors. By setting small and even micro-term goals associated to the new behavior you’ll be able monitor your progress along the way and experience success that will increase your confidence, thus your athletic performance.
Provide Incentive
Rewards are powerful. To be effective, however, you must identify a meaningful reward for yourself. For example, you may be highly motivated by indulgencing in your sweet tooth. Or it could be getting an In-n-Out Burger. The reward or incentive can be a variety of things as long as it serves to keep you on task.
The next step is to determine what you need to do to receive the reward, i.e. swim three mornings’ sessions for 45 minutes, eat fruits and vegetables at every meal for seven days, or incorporate two speed training sessions each week. Reward yourself along the way to facilitate continued progress in your athletic performance.
Change is easy; it’s the resistance to change that’s hard. So by making the change as easy as possible you’ll have better success at including the new habit into your way of training and then improve your athletic performance.
