People are always googling and searching how to increase their conditioning. There are many great ways to do this such as personal training, at home workouts, boot camps, running, swimming, playing rec sports, crossfit, fitness classes and of course the king of conditioning, Boxing! We’re going to share with you some of the best ways you can quickly catapult your conditioning to the next level, because we want to see you achieve the best results you’re capable of with any fitness goal you’re trying to reach.
Learn to Relax
Sounds weird doesn’t it? When you think of conditioning you think of gritting your teeth and getting after it, but this isn’t always the case. Yes, with certain types of exercises being tight is important, but even with certain lifts it’s important to learn how to activate the right muscles and relax others. If you’ve ever spent any time running you’ll know how important relaxation is. If you try to run even just a 5k in one of the great races in the Athens area and contract your muscles too much, you will be burnt out before the run is over. It’s easy when you feel fatigue coming on to try and “ muscle through it”, but this often has the reverse effect. This is true for most forms of conditioning and is true for a Boxing Workout, as well. If you’re training Boxing, you have to be loose. The looser you are the faster you’ll be, the harder you’ll hit and the longer you can go.
Relaxation comes from the mind first by focusing on it, then you can bring it to your breath and the rest of your body. When you’re doing high intensity conditioning, like a Boxing workout, it is easy to let your breaths become strained and create tightness throughout your diaphragm and core. You begin to hyperventilate and your output has to drop drastically resulting in you getting a less intense and beneficial workout. But if you focus on relaxed breaths and relaxing the muscles you aren’t using to perform an exercise then you will have an immediate increase in your output which will in turn improve your conditioning. This is how you can make it through some of the best workouts on the planet like a Boxing workout.
Rest
This is something we have all heard and almost all of us ignore. We all think that doing more workouts a week, or adding another type of training on top of what we are already doing, or trying some new fitness fad will get us in better condition. If you are doing a time tested workout like the Boxing training in Athens that we provide, then you are in good hands. If you train more than a couple times a week and you’re not getting the results you want, you may need to look at your R&R (rest and recovery). Overtraining is a thing, and if you start to feel more fatigued or start getting nagging injuries that won’t go away then it’s probably time you cycled off of hard training for a week or two.
Incorporating some form of recovery training is essential as well. That’s why we started providing a Mobility & Recovery Class at our gym in Athens to help our members get the most out of their training.
The body does an amazing thing when you give it a break after extremely hard work, it does something called super-compensate. For instance, with a sponge, if you keep squeezing and squeezing it then no water is absorbed, but once you let go it sucks up everything. The body is the same way. Sometimes the final key you’re missing (if you’re training very hard) is to back off just a little.
Get a Coach
We all need a Coach no matter how good you are and no matter how bad you want it. The body and mind often go for the path of least resistance so when it’s time to just push a little harder your mind will tell you “don’t try so hard, you’re tired” and you’ll reason it out afterwards that your workout was “good enough”. Often we make decisions with emotion first and then rationalize afterwards. A good coach won’t let you do that, they’ll call you out in a loving way and push you a little harder and help you gain a little bit more from each workout week after week.
Another benefit of working with a coach in a personal training session or group fitness class is that they help you stay accountable. We often will do more for others than we will for ourselves. So when it comes time for you to stay consistent with training then you need to join a Boxing/Fitness Class or commit to good personal training in Athens where your coach and or your fellow training partners will help keep you accountable and consistent.
Lastly, a coach is valuable because they can show you the way. They’ve been where you’re at and they’ve gone where you want to go and/or they’ve taken many people to the level you want to go to. They can compress what would take you years of trial and error and make it only weeks or months.
The Final Bell
Try these concepts out for yourself and experience the difference they can make. The next time you start feeling fatigued, keep the intensity, but focus on relaxing everything that isn’t being used. When you stop losing weight, gaining weight or underperforming, then take a look at your R&R. And lastly, when you want to get to the next level and really breakthrough with your conditioning and training, get a coach.
Our mission at Keppner Boxing is to positively impact as many lives as possible through the discipline of Boxing & fitness in a safe and supportive environment. If you haven’t already checked us out, like so many people have and reaped the benefits of our classes, training and culture, then it’s about time you do!