Indoor Sport Services Training Guide

A very important part of the race review is to include a review of your preparation prior to the race. It is well accepted that consistent preparation for races will lead to consistent performances, so you need to learn from what you do before the race to make sure that you are able to do the right things before starting, as well as during the race. You should view your race as beginning a couple of hours ahead of the actual start time. If you can get in control, and stay in control of your preparation all the way up to the start time, then it is significantly easier to maintain this theme of being in control once you start to execute your race plan. So, make sure you review the whole race, and not just the result.

The review system helps you to focus on both the process of the race and the outcome of the race. It is important that you take your confidence from your ability to execute the process, and trust again that the outcome will take care of itself. If you review the process in detail, focusing on how well you did and what you said you were going to do, then you will learn much more about what influences your performance, and you will be able to identify the things that you need to focus on in training that will make a big difference next time around.

The positive outcomes and negative outcomes element of the review system are very simple concepts and also have some simple rules to guide their use. With the positive outcomes, make sure you list all of the positives that emerge. We tend to overlook many positive things in performance, and you should be looking to have your review heavily weighted in the positive direction. With the negative outcomes, these are usually easier to identify, but from a confidence and motivation perspective you need to ensure that you consider the negatives and make some strong decisions relating to what you will do to combat this negative happening again, or how you can make use of existing strengths to eradicate the problem totally. If you like, it is often useful to decide on positive action to take relating to the negative outcomes, and then discard the negative list totally. With this approach, you are only left with positive reminders of the performance, and positive action that you have taken to bring about improvements. Dwelling on negatives is unlikely to be a useful response!

As I have said before, these ideas are full of common sense, however, they are not easy to apply. If you are going to make the most of the review process, you do have to use it regularly, and really follow through with the things that you believe are most important to you. As you race more and more, the number of reviews that you will build up will become a really useful resource, and will help you learn the key lessons that will help you improve your level of performance as quickly as possible, but more importantly, help you to develop consistency in your racing performances.

The mental side of your racing and training is worthy of consideration. The Indoor Rower is a great way to develop mental fitness as well as physical fitness, so make sure you are getting the maximum benefit from it. Using a little mental effort will certainly help you enjoy the physical effort that much more!

Recommended Reading

Stephen J. Bull, John G. Albinson, Christopher J. Shambrook : The Mental Game Plan: Getting Psyched for Sport
Sports Dynamics, 1996
ISBN: 951954326