So its the the day of your sporting event. It could be martial arts, a dance show, football, it might even be an ultra-endurance event. Leading up to the event you’ve put in countless hours of training, developed solid eating habits and you’ve probably experienced and overcome a shit tonne of obstacles.
Its the day of your event. You find you haven’t performed as well as you could have. I use the word performed, because the end result (whether that be a gold medal or no medal) is not indicative of ones performance.
In my experience, I have entered competitions where I have fought through a tough 4 or 5 rounds to walk away with a bronze medal. That means a hell of a lot more to me than if I show up to a competition and am practically handed a gold medal with only a fight or two.
What causes an unexpected dip in performance on the day could be a whole range of things: poor nutrition, lack of sleep, nerves, an injury, an improper warm up. The list goes on. From my experience, the main culprits hindering an individuals performance on the day of an event are poor nutrition, an improper warm up and nerves.
Proper Nutrition
It is worth noting that your performance will not be significantly enhanced if you only eat properly on the day of the event. So lets assume you’ve been bossing your eating habits leading up to the event.
First and foremost, when planning meals for the day of the event, stick to foods your body is familiar with. The day of the event is not the right time to be experimenting with new food choices.
A key reason to eat well on the day of your event is to prevent low blood sugar levels and its symptoms: dizziness, nausea, fatigue and muscle weakness.
To begin your day, choose a breakfast high in complex, non-refined carbohydrates to keep glycogen stores full, in order to make the most out of your warm up and performance. Complex carbohydrates pack in more nutrients than simple carbohydrates, because they are high in fibre and digest more slowly, thus making them more filling. When they are digested, carbohydrates are broken down into glucose to provide readily available energy for the body to use quickly and efficiently. Opt for single ingredient foods when preparing your meals: fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, legumes etc. Some of my favourite breakfast choices include overnight oats, porridge and homemade granola.
During the day, keep your energy levels topped up by fuelling yourself with snacks and meals based around single ingredient foods and fewer refined ‘fake’ foods.
Although an athlete may have the best of intentions, sometimes they feel they’re unable to eat before an event due to eating making them feel ill or giving them an upset stomach. If you fall into this category, be sure that you eat well the day before and early on the big day.
So how will all of that actually help?
- Prevent fatigue
- Aid concentration
- Ensure the best recovery after the event
- Make you feel like a superhero!
Warm Up
“Warm up!” Sounds obvious doesn’t it? However its surprising how many different reasons I’ve heard as to why people don’t warm up.
- “I don’t want to waste my energy”
- “I’m too tired”
- “I don’t know what to do”
- “Oh I just go out there and see what happens”
My number one tip for overcoming all of the above statements is PLAN YOUR WARM UP. Don’t just go out there and see what happens. Your warm up should include techniques you are confident with and ones that you are going to use. Don’t waste your time trying to learn a new technique, this is unlikely to have any real benefit when it comes to your performance. Don’t worry about flash, fancy techniques. Use what you know works for you and keep it simple.
I tend to raise an eyebrow or two when I hear people say “I don’t want to waste my energy”.
A good analogy to use is a car engine to warming up on a cold day. As the car warms up, the fuel and oil become more viscous and so it’ll flow better. Therefore, the moving parts of the engine glide past each other more smoothly and the system performs more efficiently compared to just pressing the accelerator to the floor immediately.
Planning a proper warm up will ensure you are using your energy more efficiently and you are less likely to fatigue prematurely. Your heart rate should gradually increase, resulting in more oxygen being transported through your blood and used within the working muscles. An increase in body temperature will result in an improved range of motion around your joints and you will get close to your optimal efficiency.
It is very easy to get distracted and watch other individuals warm up and try and suss out your competition, but this shouldn’t be your focus. Get into your zone and prepare yourself psychologically as well and physically.
How can you do this? Listen to your music to shut off what everyone else is doing. Visualise your strategy and the techniques you are going to use. If you can visualise something you can attain it.
Dealing with Nerves
Pre-event nerves can come from a range of different sources: how good your opponents are, how important the event is, who your opponents are, winning or not, who is watching etc. Whilst there is a long list of things that can make you feel nervous, the true cause isn’t anything I’ve mentioned, but it’s you! Yes, you make yourself nervous. What is important here is not what is happening externally, but rather internally.
Here’s what I mean. It isn’t the size, skill or reputation of an individual that makes you nervous. It’s how you respond to them and what you say to yourself leading up to the event. Feelings of nervousness are cause by our internal response to the things that are going on externally. If you can make yourself nervous, then you have the ability to change your response.
- Keep your focus in the present. Don’t allow your focus to fast forward or rewind to the past. If you want to feel relaxed, you must learn to keep your focus on the present and recognise when your focus is time travelling and bring it back to the present.
- Have fun. Enjoying what you do is the secret to staying calm and performing your best. Too much pressure can result in you being too serious and your skill set can start to disappear. Enjoy the event and embrace the challenge of a tough opponent. Trust your intuition.
- Breath. Whenever you’re feeling stressed in the hours or minutes leading up to your event, switch your focus to your breathing. Slow and deepen your breathing to get rid of any trembling or intrusive thoughts.
So in a nutshell, eat properly, warm up and control your nerves.
Sounds vanilla right? You’ll be surprised how many individuals aren’t doing these three things or at least aren’t doing these three things properly.
Are you?
Remember, it’s focusing on the minute details of the simple stuff where you’ll really maximise your performance gains.
Zero Gravity Fitness 