How To Improve Your Athletic Performance

Exercise is an important part of personal health and wellness. Moreover, it’s crucial for perfecting any physical sport or activity. It doesn’t matter if you’re a professional competitor or an amateur at home; there are many ways to get stronger, leaner, and overall healthier. Read this guide on how to improve your athletic performance so that you’re ready to conquer your next workout.

Track Your Workouts

One of the most important facets of proper athletic training is monitoring your performance. Keep track of your daily workouts in a journal, online, or on your phone. Wherever you do it, jot down the number of repetitions completed, the number of sets you do, how long you rest, the weights you use, and so on. While this might seem like extra work, these measures will help you visualize your progress. Keeping track of your workouts is a great way to hold yourself accountable so that you’re not plateauing.

Change Your Routine

Alternatively, switch up your routines. Whether it’s weight training, high-intensity interval training, steady-state cardio, or something else, using the same workout routine for months on end is monotonous. Your body adapts to the same workouts after a while and won’t respond as well as it did initially. So, change your routines every six weeks to three months. Changing routines doesn’t need to include performing completely new workouts; it can be as simple as adjusting the number of repetitions or performing a variation of the same exercise. Either way, changes like these will help shock your body into thinking it’s doing an entirely different workout.

Hydrate

It almost goes without saying that staying hydrated is one of the best ways to improve athletic performance. Still, we’ll reiterate it here. Drink plenty of water before, during, and after your workouts. Athletic individuals should drink about one gallon of water each day to ensure their bodies stay sufficiently hydrated. If you consume high-sodium foods or sweat easily, drink more. Consider consuming electrolytes as well to replenish them during your workout.

Rest

Additionally, proper rest is crucial. There’s a common belief in sports or fitness that you need to train with 100% efficiency every time. While that certainly helps with your workout, it also exhausts your body. Take a couple of days out of your routine to rest. This will allow your body to recover from the intense activity while preparing you for the next workout session. Use the time to catch up on your favorite book, movie, TV show, or video game. If you must, you can have active rest days where you do yoga or light cardio exercises to keep yourself active. Just don’t do anything strenuous, as it might lead to injury.

A great way to switch up a stagnant workout is to incorporate high-intensity interval training. You can browse our selection of cardio or rowing machines to see which best fits your lifestyle. When you’re ready to buy rowing machines online, call us with any questions or concerns. We’re happy to help you find what you need to improve yourself.