 |
| News > Commentary - Coach Ken: tips on self-improvement |
|
|
| |
| Photos | |
 |
Air Commandos perform a practice physical fitness test on the field near the Fitness Center at Cannon Air Force Base, N.M., April 2, 2012. Coach Ken talks about self-improvement in his most recent commentary and how a positive attitude can impact overall fitness. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Alexxis Pons Abascal)
|
Download HiRes
|
|
|
|
Coach Ken: tips on self-improvement
Posted 6/25/2012 Updated 6/25/2012
Email story
Print story
Commentary by Capt. Ken Corigliano
56th Special Operations Intelligence Squadron
6/25/2012 - CANNON AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. -- Coach Ken is a series of fitness tips and race experiences to motivate and educate Airmen to become more physically fit and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Capt. Ken Corigliano is a tri-athlete with the Air Force team and a nationally-certified coach.
How do you know you are improving? How do you know if what you are doing is leading to physical improvement and not to injury? It is very important to know that recovering from an injury can take just as long as improvement. To understand this process we need to define some terms:
- Threshold - the point at which you can withstand a certain amount of exertion before exhaustion--this point must be routinely crossed to see improvement.
- Pain - the body's physiological response to passing a threshold
- Suffering - the mind's response to pain
- Rest - the necessary activity in which the body and mind heal itself. The length is determined by how much the threshold was exceeded.
- Excelling in anything requires exceeding threshold and moving out of your comfort zone. In athletic endeavors, discomfort manifests itself as physical pain. There are guys and gals out there who consider themselves mentally tough.
Pain is your brain's attempt to tell you to ease up. The best athletes in the world, and even the best professionals, accept pain and even welcome it.
The more you experience pain the more tolerance you will build, but you must increase it carefully and allow for proper rest intervals.
This process is called "habituation" or "de-sensitization". If you pass out or vomit, you were improperly prepared for the workout. In over 18,000 hours of training and 150 races, I've never vomited or passed out.
Preparation is the key to success. I have found, especially after having almost ended my Air Force and athletic careers in a bike and car collision that having a relationship with my body allows me to push myself to the very precise point where great improvement occurs.
You must experiment with your workouts. Vary the times, your nutrition, exertion and always provide plenty of sleep. Something I do with myself and my athletes is schedule the toughest event up front so the remaining events look easy by comparison.
If you train for a PT test by running 2.5 miles, the 1.5 miles seems really easy, especially if you throw in some half mile all-out repeats to get that speed under you.
Here's my game plan for the 1.5 mile run (now keep in mind my run goal is 7:30-7:45 min): long runs of 5.5 or more miles: Mentally I say it is four 1.5 mile repeats and I get faster for each one.
Medium runs of 4 or more miles in which I run several laps: four times with one lap easy in between and the target pace is 5:25.
Short runs of 3 to 4 miles total in which I run one lap: as hard as I can with one or two laps easy in between, target pace is 4:48.
Pyramid sets: the goal is to increase the pace of each lap to a peak, then descend to a normal rest pace. This I call the ironing sets (increases my pain tolerance) and these are very mentally tough.
Exceeding your pain threshold has amazing effects on your brain. The runner's high is named for this and it is called "the zone" or "flow".
Routinely surpassing your threshold increases the frequency and duration of being in "the zone". The more you enjoy an activity the more likely you will be in the zone.
Think of this - performance capacity is defined in part by the importance of the experience one is presently engaged in. This literally means the more value you assign to your physical fitness evaluation the better you can do on it.
The more you enjoy pushups, sit-ups and running, the better you will do. In addition, you will only value things you truly enjoy.
Enjoying fitness means you will be more relaxed and thus devote more energy to scorching your test. Consult an experienced coach for your training plan to ensure it makes long-term sense and leads to improvement. Every day, just a little bit better.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| Featured LinksTopics of InterestPublications |
|
|
| |
|
|
