A few days ago, the male rowing marathon world record was broken.  The new record setter averaged a 1:39.6/500 meter split for 42,195 meters.

It took him a shade over 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Those of you in the CrossFit space (or if you have any experience with rowing) know that a sub-1:40 pace is no joke.  To hold that for hours at a time – unbelievable.

But that wasn’t what caught my attention.  It was the caption of the post.

“Finally, after 14 years of training, I was able to break it.”

Now, though most of you aren’t necessarily looking that far down the road – to maximize your athletic potential – that long-term thinking has to be part of your mindset.

A big portion of that includes training smart, training consistently, and avoiding injuries.

Training smart means identifying and improving weaknesses, varying intensity, volume, and rest – and one of the most overlooked aspects – knowing when to shut down a training session (lots of reasons here).

Training consistently and simply getting the (focused) hours under your belt is what improves your efficiency, your technique, your energy systems, and your energy expenditure.  For lack of better terms, just think of it as paying your dues.

And if you do all of those things, it should put you in a position to be relatively injury-free.  In the long-run, sometimes the best ability is simply availability.

So, while it’s easy to look at things from the day to day or week to week perspective, all of the best athletes are taking a bird’s eye view of their training and thinking how they can be better next year and the year(s) after.  

For you to become the best athlete you can, regardless of the sport, you should do the same.

If you have any questions, want to make sure you’re on the right track, or want to learn how we work with athletes with our Individual Design coaching, email help@conquerathlete.com.  Or, check out our website www.conquerathlete.com and set up a free discovery call.

-Coach Jerod Gordon