Failing to plan means planning to Fail. We’ve all heard this before and as a result, we set goals around our training such as ‘get fit’, ‘lose weight’, ‘complete a challenge’, ‘compete in an event’, ‘improve 4DP numbers’… But sometimes you may have just accomplished a big milestone and are looking to ease back slightly either in the short term and/or in the long term.
This shift in gears towards an alternative goal doesn’t always come naturally especially if you have been going all out and building up to a pinnacle in your training. But taking time to reflect on the body as a whole is vital for overall progression.
Health related fitness can be broken down into five main components and it is important to make sure we are not neglecting any of these:
- Cardiovascular Fitness
- Muscular Strength
- Muscular Endurance
- Flexibility
- Body Composition
We try to help you keep your training comprehensive by offering Yoga, Strength and Mental Toughness within our training plans on top of cycling and running. Fitness can be defined in many ways but I like to think of it as ‘a state of well-being that provides optimal performances’. This means that no component gets left behind and forgotten about during training.
It is also important to remember that these different components will mean different things for different people and can be affected by many external actors such as age, gender, body type and stress levels. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link so making little progressive steps all around can generate much stronger results than putting all your eggs in one basket and focusing on a single aspect.
Cardiovascular Fitness:
An elevated heart rate is the easiest way to feel like your body is exercising in the moment. How much time a week are you finding at the moment to elevate your HR?
Muscular Strength:
Is your body strong? Do you enjoy short sharp bursts of high intensity? Muscular strength is an excellent way to fire up your muscles to their highest potential and brush away the cobwebs.
NM and AC spring to mind but do you do this type of training of the bike and in your conditioning workouts?
Muscular Endurance:
How long can your muscles keep ticking over at a steady state? It isn’t always about going flat out, it’s about the journey and reaching that destination. By working your muscles for longer at a consistent intensity your body will increase its production of mitochondria which serve as a the powerhouses to produce energy within cells
Flexibility:
How mobile is your body? Can you touch your toes? Yeah, we’ve all had that moment doing a yoga video with Abi and looking up wondering ‘how on earth can she do that?’ but practice is key, keeping your body flexible helps your body overall to keep your muscles balanced and a good posture allowing maximum efficiency.
Body Composition:
‘You are what you eat’…Well the couchlandrians are anyways 
Apart from the obvious vital organs in your body and bones to keep your shape, the main components you are left to battle it out with are muscle mass and body fat. More of one means less of the other as an overall percentage and this is definitely a game of two halves. Suffering hard on one side allows us to have short intermittent breaks in Couchlandria.
As we go through a change in seasons, have you taken time to reflect on your fitness state? (and that doesn’t only have to be by completing Full Frontal or Half Monty). 2020 has been an extraordinary year in many ways, as the northern hemisphere heads into winter and the southern hemisphere into summer, make sure that by the end of the year you come out on top when it comes to your physical fitness, but also your mental fitness!
On a scale of 1-5 (excellent), how would you personally rank each of these 5 components in relation to yourself and which one do you need to spend some more time focusing on?
