Five elements for fitness success

More than 10 years ago I started to focus intensively on the topic of fitness. I was able to learn from many coaches and athletes and tried out a few things myself. In today's article I will introduce you to the 5 factors that are crucial for your fitness and general performance.

1. Weight training

The muscles need incentives to grow; the best way to do this is to provide them with ever-increasing resistance. You can do this with dumbbells, machines, bands or even your own body weight. The goal is to gradually increase the resistance during training; in English this principle is called progressive overload.

A few examples to understand the principle:

1 example: You do the bench press, the first time you do 10 reps with just the bar. After a few training sessions you put 5 kg on the bar. Now a new stimulus is applied and the muscle begins to grow.

2 example: You do a plank (forearm plank), in the first week you can stay in the plank for 40 seconds. After 3 weeks of training you can do 70 seconds. The body begins to get stronger.

2. Nutrition

When it comes to nutrition, the dreaded word diet is often mentioned. This word is seen by many people as something negative and restrictive. Whether nutrition, diet or eating habits. What you eat and drink has a major influence on your athletic performance. While many gurus may disagree to sell you something, there is no one perfect diet. On the one hand, we are very different as people, and on the other hand, we always have to evaluate nutrition in connection with our sporting goals. Building muscle and losing fat require differentiated approaches. The timing of when you eat something can positively or negatively influence the effectiveness of a nutrient. A nutritionist can help you better understand this complex topic. I consider it very important to have a normal relationship with food. Sometimes it helps to eat a pizza or drink a beer, but that doesn't mean you don't approach your diet cleverly the rest of the time. Fortunately, you can decide for yourself what you want to eat and drink at the end of the day.

3. Recovery

Have you ever had a hangover from a long night of partying? You get up and feel like you've been hit. You are tired, dehydrated and drained. Muscle soreness and high stress can cause similar symptoms. The body speaks its own language, and that is not German. Heavy legs, runny nose, headache, your body is trying to signal to you: I need rest! We are not machines, we need a balance of work and rest. Ying and yang. You can't train 24/7 and expect progress. If you want specific information, you should google the supercompensation principle. In general, we need a balance to bring us back to our optimal state. Good sleep is extremely important here, followed by nutrition (good food and drink), and mental state is also essential. You can achieve a lot of positive things here by spending time with friends, going for a walk, pursuing hobbies or even meditating.

4. Mindset

Some call it mental strength, toughness, discipline, attitude, motivation. All of this is part of your “mindset”, or in German “what’s going on in your head”

And that is probably the most important factor for your sporting success. What goes on in your head ultimately determines how you behave and the decisions you make. Mindset is more than just motivation, you have to be willing to want to improve. Sometimes you should put your own ego aside in order to learn from more competent people. Accept obstacles and see them as opportunities. And in addition to hard work, you should also have foresight, i.e. be able to draw up a plan.

(This is only about mindset in the area of fitness, and not about mindset in other areas of life or about mental health!)

5.Cardio

Last but not least, cardio. Like strength training, there are also different forms of cardio. HIT training, endurance running, circuit training, sprinting or even playing a sport all count as cardio. Cardio is about how high your heart rate is and how long the exertion is. If you are interested, I can recommend very interesting literature on this subject. The cardio training must also be adapted to the specific goals; in general, your body benefits enormously from better cardio or better endurance. You become more efficient and resilient. More endurance also helps with strength training; you can train with more intensity over longer distances.

In summary, these 5 factors determine your fitness, whenever you optimize one of these 5, you get more out of your body. I hope this article helped you understand the topic of fitness a little better. If you have any questions or help, please send me an email or DM on Instagram.

With sporty regards,

Hendrik