What is a responsible athlete?
Advice from Tri Training Harder
How you can make a difference
Often we have conversations with athletes about athlete responsibility. Regularly they are unsure what it means or how it makes a difference. So let’s look at that here.
Athlete responsibility is the other side of the coaching relationship. It is when the athlete takes responsibility to deliver their best session every time. To quote Clive Woodward, it is the “critical non-essentials”.
the extra mile
Examples of athlete responsibility are: spending an extra 5-minutes doing their own activation and warm-up before a club session. Making sure they have the right kit and working equipment for the upcoming session to eliminate the excuse of not having it with them.
It’s letting the coach know about upcoming changes to schedules or routines in advance to make the schedule work for you. Preparing your meals and snacks to encourage a well-fuelled session and promote excellent recovery.
Have great training sessions
It is doing the little things around the training sessions like physio and bike maintenance to enable positive training experiences.
A lot of these things may sound like they do a lot to make the coaches life easier. But if you think about it, this means the fundamentals are in place to do a great session. Then the coach and the athlete can talk at a higher level about how it went.
Alternatively, if the sessions went wrong, there are fewer places to look to work out why it didn’t go to plan.
Use your time wisely
Furthermore, it means you hit the training time as efficiently as you possibly can. Instead of bumbling through with the wrong goggles, slightly under-fuelled and unsure of the exact set. You hit the session knowing what you need to do and you just need to focus on executing it as well as you can do (no one is perfect!).
Athlete responsibility is undoubtedly non-essential. You can do a session without hitting it at 100%. But if you want to see real improvement, then it is critical to use every minute as effectively as you can.
LEARN MORE FROM THE TTH TEAM
If you would like to learn more about removing barriers and creating a plan that works for you, we highly recommend that you get in touch with Tri Training Harder and speak to one of their amazing coaches!
The coaches are there to provide you with the best training methods possible and to help you succeed before your race with us!
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