So your training has started for the Open. Whether you’re working with a coach who is individually programming your training sessions or following a blog, there’s no such thing as being “too prepared”.

5 Tips for Succeeding in this Year’s Open:

1. Lifestyle

There are a few things that can help you achieve the lifestyle you body need.  First and foremost, you need low stress in your life outside your of training. Stress on the body happens when you train to create adaptation. But your body is going to thrive best in your workouts when you are physically rested and mentally clear, “Present” as we say at OPEX.  Sleep has to be a focus for athlete’s competing in the sport. You need to have work-life balance.

Doing things that bring you peace, leisure or zen outside the gym (from yoga, to the outdoors, spending time with friends and family, volunteering, reading, disconnecting from e-mail, etc.); An outlet for releasing your stress, and ensuring your body is properly nourished and hydrated so as not to evoke any unwanted physiological stress (ie. No beer and pizza that sends your digestive processes haywire the night or two before the workout, indulging in your nagging sugar cravings, etc.).

Looking ahead and planning allows alignment and creates balance. Without planning the mind get cloudy with all of life’s other stressors and to do lists. The  Open is a long five weeks, which makes it hard to focus physically on actual task at hand, with all the other elements which come into play.  So instead of searching for more low stress things, search to remain consistent and ensure you have planned the workout times out, recovery pieces etc…AS YOU HAVE been doing.

2. Prepare appropriately

Everyone it is different. We all know, everyone responds differently to prep work differently ie. is some may get JAZZED up by doing CJ a few days out and some may needs some intensity and volume prior to. Ensure you have the right prep to do the task the best so that when the time comes, YOU have put the training in, sharpened the skills and prepped as an individual to do best. The open offers several different characteristics that dictate small changes in prep, get individual coaching and have a specific plan designed for YOU to have the best opportunity in reaching your maximum potential.

3. Follow the Open Prep Guide

THIS IS OUR MONEY MAKER! Every week of the Open, we will guide and talk you through your warm-ups, the pragmatics of each workout, help you get prep the system properly and ultimately, do the Open properly.

You don’t have to go it alone, and if anything hearing the strategies and suggestions from an outsider’s perspective can be highly beneficial for taking all angles of attack into consideration.

4. Mindset

Your mental game is huge. There are plenty of ups and downs in a given workout or week. Know what you are doing on the front-end during your warm-up to emotionally and mentally prepare to attack each workout. Visualize yourself completing the movements, hitting the number of reps you can. Trust yourself, know that you can only do what you can do, thinking about other scores or anything else besides being present is wasteful. First tackle and realize if you are using emotion to change things. Perhaps you do not even know you are doing this? How can one make things less emotional? Start with awareness of how you are resting, thinking and feeling. Use this as fuel in some cases and make it logical to others by using science and facts. Then implement the OPEX prep guide to help you stay on track where no emotion is at play, only facts/data.

5. Allow Your Body to Recover

Depending on the workouts, some individuals MIGHT do the workout each day, depends on the workout, intensity, CNS, etc. The warm ups, prep and cool down (along with nutrition, recovery protocols, etc) are pertinent components to ensure that you are prepped and ALSO recovered between pieces. Is the aerobic system built? Have you put in the training to recover from intense pieces? What is your training age? We can concentrate on the components we can control, knowing HOW you recover from intense workouts, then being honest about the amount of volume that you have put in and how you are peaked as an individual. If the volume was there in training season, and you can recover from each open workout quickly, then there is more potential to repeat workouts. Practicing recovery all season is important and a piece that we at OPEX hammer on to all clients. DO NOT make drastic changes like cryo, cold bathing or Marc Pro if you have not practiced it.

If you found this helpful you might enjoy our FREE download, 5 Habits of Elite Athletes where we go deeper into topics like Lifestyle and Mindset. Click Here to get the download!