Or how about a 10x100 set that you barely manage to drag yourself into the pool to start, let alone survive by your own (with nowhere near best results) but then later, felt that you'd breeze through the same set in a group swim (with all sets closed to your PB)?
I'm pretty sure most of us has experienced either or both types of the situations above.. Some of us may feel the urge to do it again just to conquer it by yourself and prove to yourself that it is do-able. But the rest may be totally demoralized the moment the once "easy" set of workout in the group turns into a grind. When that happens, you'd start to doubt your capability and your training plan.. unless you understand truly what's the concept behind the two different perceived exertions. If you felt the doubt on your capability, this post is for you as I try to explain why you felt that way and how you should go about getting it right.
Rest assure in this article you won't be finding a resolution as "because I'm in a group and thus the workout is easier cos of higher motivation.".. That commonly used phrase to describe the reason behind being motivated is so overly simplified that most people who experience motivation or the lack of often does so with little understanding to the meaning behind, let alone managing such matters.
As a firm believer of "knowing what you want to do in detail is the only way to accomplish what you want to do.", I hope this article will help you have a better grasp over your motivational issues and pave a better route to excellence.
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What is Motivation?
Motivation is the drive that gives you the initiative to set out and do whatever you plan to do. Everything, from the training plan, to the 4.30AM rides, to the 10x100s, to the 10x400s, to the wearing of compression tights to sleep for recovery and even to the reading of endless triathlon tips no matter how many of them may seem to be talking about the same thing over and over again.
Obsession? There is a source that obsession stems from and that source is not passion. It started with a motivation to do something, and in turn, fall in love with it because you liked what you do, and the passion from within then fuels the motivation to make it an obsession.
We look at motivation from the simplest source, the reasons we feel good about doing something and keep us wanting to do it again, in this case, it's Triathlon.
Why do we need to manage Motivation?
1) If you're overly motivated, you may overtrain with an overzealous training regime.
2) If you're under motivated, you will dread to go to any training. Gone will be the goals you set.
3) To excel in anything we do, we have to find just the right amount of motivation.
Having the right amount of motivation each time during your workout, races or basically anything you do will allow you to get the most out of the achievements at the end of the day.
This can mean a decreased RPE for workouts due to the psychological factor of being "On form" for the sets or race. This can also mean achieving the best effort that you deem is possible of your capability in the race you chose.
And of course, at times when you underachieved despite feeling motivated, you'd most likely gain a whole lot too, out of the learning experience of what went wrong just by the focus that you are able to exert.. i.e being Completely Involved/Absorbed in the whole process and situation due to the motivation of constantly trying to achieve your best.
In its simplest form, the reason to manage motivation is to make the best out of your investment, be it time, equipment or even emotional investment into the sport that you've grown to love so dearly.
How do we manage Motivation?
Knowing the factors behind feeling motivated for doing and training for triathlon help a whole lot in developing a plan for managing motivation.
To start the discussion, I will list the several popular reasons that leads to motivation..
1) Fun
2) Affiliations
3) Intangible benefits (Health, Hot Bod, Race Edge, Bragging Rights)
4) Confidence
5) Goal(s)
6) Believes
Fun
First reason of motivation often comes from the purity of the fun factor. If something is not fun, nobody will do it 100% willingly, let alone feel motivated to initiate the start of it.
Knowing that Fun is the very fundamental of motivation helps because when you plan your training, you can in fact add in the Fun Factor to ensure you'd enjoy the training even more.
I'll give you two examples of boring workout set versus fun workout set.
1) Basketball - Shooting
Not so fun set:
- Warmup jog
- Shoot 550 balls from anywhere and everywhere you get the rebound.
Fun set:
- Warmup jog
- Do favorite dribbling practice
--25 right, 25 left single beat dribble
--25 right, 25 left left to right double beat dribble
--25 right, 25 left front to back to front double beat dribble
--4 lengths fake cross over dribble practice
- Shoot 50 balls from 11 spots on the court
-- Split the 50 balls to 25 right handed shots and 25 left handed shots
2) Swimming - Main set: 1KM Race Pace
Not so fun set:
- 10 x 100m Hard on 2:00 <-- see already also sian if i train alone.. -_-...
Fun set:
- 8 x 50m Hard on 1:00
- 100m Hard rest 1:00
- 200m Moderate rest 1:00
- 300m Flat-out rest 1:00 then cool down
Basically, you can see that for both training, there is a main set to be completed and what I did was to add Variations to the training set.
At times, deep inside us, we know that a training set is definitely doable such as 10x100 kick. Just ask yourself if you can do a 2km swim, why can't you do a 10 sets 4mins worth of kick with rest?
However, we sometimes can't put things in the better perspective because of the enormity of the big picture. With that in mind, I also attempt to break the set into several specific mini targets.. that way, there is always something to look forward to and achieve throughout every mini sets of the training instead of having just a big chunk of workout to complete.
Affiliations
Affiliations is the term used to describe a partnership between two or more parties.
Having been through the fat and lazy stage of life, I remembered how much I dreaded going to Physical Education classes and NAPHA (National Physical Fitness Award) test. It was the PUREST form of boredom and apathy (an absence of enthusiasm or emotions was the online explanation, for me, it's an absence of BOTH)..
But I remembered how excited I was after school ended to literally RUN to the basketball court to unite with my bunch of basketball brothers. We'd run up and down the court tirelessly with NO HYDRATION in the HOT sun till the sun goes down and we'd gather for a cup noodle and a bottle of coke for mini celebration of fun and laughter. That began my journey to becoming who I am right now but that is a story for those of you who're interested to come to me for. :)
And you can see, there are so many cycling groups, running groups, swimming groups, basketball teams and there're THOUSANDS of people joining these groups and working out.. even people like Calvin of our team, he is a self proclaimed lazy person but he has not missed a single session that I could hold as long as he could make it at his best possible effort. This is an admirable feat of conditioning as he transformed from a couch potato who just do a 20lap swim a week for fun to a 2++km swimmer who have a stroke that the average joe swimmers in SG (that makes up 85% of the people in singapore mind you.) envious and drool for.
THAT - is the power of affiliation. No matter how tired he is, he'd make it to the training.. and he held himself accountable for it no matter how he perform. There're times when he felt he under performed because he was tired and he came to me and apologize for the listlessness...
Honestly, I am all impressed by this self proclaimed lazy guy because he DROVE from TAMPINES to the pool to make it for the swim when he's WORN OUT from work. Tell that to another couch potato with no motivation to workout at all and he'll tell you "YOU CRAZY OR WHAT? I RATHER SLEEP AH.".
If you don't believe what I mentioned is happening and affiliation is a form of motivation, go join a group of swimmers/riders/runners TODAY and feel your own responsibility to join them every time and again just to ENJOY the Training. =)
----- Tips for you when looking for a group to join... ------
When looking for groups in the internet, you don't necessary have to ask for groups to join. You can FORM a group yourself just by going to the forum and ask if there is anyone of the same standard as you interested to train together. Write in the post your Goal, swim/bike/run race pace, last race timing and set a date and time.
People will not judge your timing and say you're slow, in fact, the slower you are, the more likely people will join because it is just so damn hard to find a beginner group when every groups are ongoing. At least that is the norm that people who doesn't belong to any group thinks when they thought about joining a group. The most common excuse to not join a group is "But they've been training for a long time together.. i sure last one in the team one lor...".. Seriously, only your pride and ego will care about placing, no one else will. I'd rather start last and work my way up there because I know someday I will if I start now. I know that I will get nowhere if I'd stay at home and lament about everything but nothing.
And again, if you don't want to go through the hassle of coping with your ego and pride, then start one group yourself.. it can start with 2-3 people at first but make it an effort to go at it every week and trust me, the group will grow. Just like Team Sapphire. =)
Stay tune for the continuation of article on Intangible benefits (Health, Hot Bod, Race Edge, Bragging Rights) & Confidence.
Cheers
KK
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