How To Train To Be More AthleticGym Plan3 min read·Mar 2, 2018
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5 tips to look and perform like an athlete
Move Faster.Instead of sitting on a recumbent bike and plodding along, or walking on a treadmill for 30 minutes after your workouts, start implementing changes so that your body is conditioned to move quicker and faster. HiiT training is your go-to cardio here. Not only will it greatly improve your anaerobic fitness, aiding in quicker recovery between sets/rounds and burn lots of fat, it’ll also massively improve your ability to perform at higher levels without tiring so much. Opt for hill sprints, prowler pushes, treadmill/assault bike/rower sprints, or even battle ropes or medicine ball intervals. 15-20 minutes of interval work 1-3x per week should suffice. Just don’t do too much, more definitely isn’t better as it can be taxing on your system.
Don’t Train Like A Bodybuilder.You gotta’ stop chasing the pump if you’re trying to get more athletic! Slow, controlled repetitions are a great way to maximize time under tension for growth, but explosive training benefits both your lifting strength & power and your overall athleticism. So outside of lifts such as cleans, snatches and high-pulls, you can also use less weight than you would normally on big lifts such as bench press, squat or deadlift, then start to lift that weight as quickly as possible instead. By exploding through your reps, the end result is linked to point number 1 in that it’s teaching your body to move faster, especially your ability to move weight quicker. This technique will also give improvements on your overall strength once you start attacking heavier loads.
Don’t Skip Glute Days. 🍑Athletic performance comes from the parts of the body you can’t see in the mirror…your glutes, hamstrings, and back, these are your power and speed muscle groups. Developing these muscles will not only make you more explosive but will also play a role in injury prevention. When it comes to your routine and training for athletic purposes, aim to do twice as much pulling as you do pushing in the week. Lots of people are prone to bad posture, especially those who sit throughout the day, so training these posterior muscle groups can help towards that issue. Good exercise selection for your pulling days are; pull-ups, rowing variations (bent over rows, one-arm rows etc.), deadlifts (both romanian and traditional), hamstring curls, hip thrusts, glute-ham raises and face pulls.
Train Abs.Now we’re not talking about training the abs so that they look good, we’re talking ‘function’. The core muscles help brace the spine, help you rotate safely and create force & stability across the body. A strong core will help to not only increase your overall strength, but it’ll also play a role in injury prevention and allow your body to move and perform maximally in any way possible. It transfers over to most athletic sports in terms of overall performance. Look to include challenging and effective movements (both holds and dynamic ones) like planks, side planks, bird dogs, wood-chops, hanging leg-raises and Turkish get-ups. You can also add in stability ball exercises to further challenge your core.
Do Mobility.This ones a bit of a no brainer. No athlete would take to the field not warmed-up correctly and not have their body feeling loose and firing correctly. Just as you wouldn’t want to roll into the gym and start throwing barbell snatches around without correctly warming the joints, muscles, ligaments and tendons up. We ain’t talking static stretching here…move your body! Functional movements such as bear crawls, inchworms and the lying crucifix can all be extremely beneficial before your workout, just make sure your moving your body and if possible, mimicking movements you’re about to do in your workout. Don’t neglect mobility unless you want your output to slowly diminish over time!
So if you compete in a sport or you simply want to condition your body to look and perform more like an athlete…stop training like a bodybuilder and change up your game plan!
Here’s two great workouts and a good mobility warm up that will help boost your athleticism:
Gym Plan3 min readMar 2, 2018
