How To Simplify Your Fitness Regime

When it comes to keeping fit, I have always been a ‘Jack of all trades’, Master of None. This bugged me for a long time because I found it difficult to make any real gains in one activity/sport without devoting all of my time to it. Now though, with a sub-3 hour marathon under my belt and triathlon events in my sights, I believe that we should all avoid ‘compartmentalising’ our fitness regimes because as humans, we are built to be the ‘Jack of all Trades’.

If Your Training Plan Is As Sectionalised As These Fields, Maybe You Need To Rethink Your Approach

Doug Wilson: USDA/ARS

What is ‘Compartmentalising’ and why do we do it?

In my view, compartmentalising is the act of perceiving different activities as being entirely separate from one another. For some reason, we often split our fitness regimes but forget that cycling is linked to lifting weights, rowing, or even walking. Recently, a friend told me that he was entering an open water swim and asked if I would like to join. I said yes because I love the challenge of an event and swimming a race in the sea was something unknown to me. Then, by habit, my compartmentalising thought process began and I started to plan the next few months of training, revolving all around swimming. To swim better I have to train more in the pool I thought. This if of course truth in this approach and I am now swimming multiple times in a week, but my perception is different. Instead of thinking of my swimming training as being a separate activity to my run to work, or my weights session, I look at them all as one. So by ‘compartmentalising’, I mean that it is more of a mental approach as oppose to how you practically set up your training program, though one will affect the other.

Humans are all Multisport Athletes

Whilst a small minority of us chose to spend our lives dedicated to one disciple, such as a professional Olympic lifter, it cannot be denied that we are all multisport athletes inside. Of course we become better at one discipline if we focus our energy on it but I believe that it is in our primal nature to be all-rounders. Our ancestors made full use of their physical prowess, running, jumping, lifting, and so on.

As I am going to do an open water swim, it is of course necessary for me to include swimming in my training but following my marathon success, I have learnt that I do not need to solely focus on becoming a good swimmer to succeed. I am taking a more holistic approach. I want to view my training simply as activity. Swimming is an activity, much like lifting weights in the gym. The two activities may yield different results but we don’t have to just be devoted to one. If like me, you have always dabbled in various activities, then view that positively, as oppose to thinking, if only I had specialised a bit more…Are humans really supposed to specialise?

Ways to De-compartmentalise

You have to de-compartmentalise at a mental level first and foremost, so that you honestly view your physical activities holistically, as part of your existence as a human being. This sounds a bit woolly and it is but once you accept it in your mind, no physical activity will ever be seen to be a waste of time to you. You can then work on putting the approach into practice…

• Build variety into your workout plan even if you are training for a specific event. It’s good to still lift weights if you are training for a running race. Variety can help avoid injury, and keep you focused on your goals!

• Avoid training for one activity for 6 weeks then jumping to another and losing all progress made in activity number one. A decathlete wouldn’t over focus on one event for too long…

• Learn to view all activities as equal. Walking is just as much an activity as swimming or cycling.

What do you think? Is it better to focus on one discipline, like adding 10kg to your bench press, and then move on to your next goal, or do you want to look at the big picture???

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Related posts:

1. Triathlons, Ultra-Marathons and Iron-Mans: Welcome to the Endurance Age
2. My First Open Water Swim – Bournemouth Pier to Pier Swim 2010
3. 2010 Virgin London Marathon Training – PART III: The Before and After
4. A Quick Starter Guide to Open Water Swimming
5. Your Unique Physique