NEWS

Marginal Gains

I’ve been doing triathlon now for around 10 years, before that I was swimming full time and now for the last few years, I’ve been coaching 4 brilliant swim squads, ranging all the way up to the National level. What makes these sports, triathlon, cycling, running and in particular swimming so difficult, are that they are .01 sports. What I mean by that is that everything, the early morning training, the multiple sessions per day, the hours of travelling, sore muscles, no sleep and lack of a social life, all of it can come down to 0.01 seconds. The difference between silver and gold can be .01 seconds. Whether you PB, or make a state or national time, can come down to .01. The difference between making the National team or being left off the squad can be .01. So in sports where so much time and effort can be decided by so little, where do you make the difference ? If your competition are doing just as much training as you are, just as many sessions, putting in just as much time and pushing just as hard as you are, how do you set yourself a part ?

You go in search of the marginal gains. Marginal gains are all about doing the little things right, the basics, the things we all know but because they’re so simple, we neglect to do them. Everyone can be guilty of this from time to time, myself included, but some neglect more often than others. Anyone who’s ever done any form of coaching will know just how frustrating it can be to see your athletes doing something wrong, something they know how to do and have done a thousand times but are, for whatever reason, choosing not to. As a coach and athlete, the little things done wrong frustrate me more than the big things. The little things are what I get angry about. I found myself having to give a similar speech to this to my squad a couple of days ago and it was something I wanted to expand on.

So to get back on topic, how do you find the marginal gains ? I think the biggest piece of advice I could ever give anyone in terms of finding .01, is that you always need to train with purpose. Everything you do needs to be done with purpose. I use activations as my first example. Pre-training activations are a key part of training for myself and the athletes I coach. Activations not only condition you ready for the main session, but they also help to improve mobility, stability and flexibility, ultimately making it easier to control and improve technique, and therefore enhancing performance. But if for example you lazily stroll into training, shuffle around the warm up, throw your body around during lunges without control or only lower by a couple of centimetres doing push-ups, it doesn’t do a thing. In fact it could do the opposite, increasing risk of injury as opposed to decreasing it. So instead, you come in with purpose. You walk in tall, skip fast with focus, lock on your core, stabilise in each exercise, focus on technique and drive through each range of movement (R.O.M.). The purpose needs to continue through the session, into the water, onto the track or out to the road. I’ll continue using swimming as the example. Our squad is expected to do 3 butterfly kicks of every wall, in every streamline when doing freestyle, butterfly or backstroke. For anyone who has ever done this, it can be difficult and exhausting, especially at first, and if you push of lightly, shallow, with loose arms and just give your legs a flick, it will continue to be difficult. But if you push of every wall with purpose, lock your arms tight, and kick through your full R.O.M., than eventually, 3 kicks becomes 4, 4 becomes 5, and all of a sudden three kicks is not only easy but its habit. When you then get into a race, you’ll push of every wall with purpose but with less effort. The same goes for recovery, think about the little things you can do with purpose to improve performance – foam rolling, post-training stretching, re-hydration and refuelling. This concept works in almost all aspects of training, but in life as well. This can be even in something as simple as the way you conduct yourself. If you hold yourself tall, walk with purpose, show enthusiasm, show pride in what you do, have your equipment in order and ultimately respect those around you, you will be mentally ready to train with purpose as well. By consciously deciding to think about the little things, to attack everything you do, in and out of the pool, on and off the track, with purpose, the marginal gains come a bit quicker. That extra purpose becomes .01, then .05, .5, then 1.0. That extra purpose becomes the mental and physical difference.

Generally speaking, it takes 2-6 weeks of consistency to adapt to training overload and see physical improvement and increased performance. But if you just think, if you do everything with purpose, meaning you assert yourself with effort, you can make an immediate change.

I could continue to talk about this concept for a long time but this has already become a decent article, so I’ll leave you with two points to summarise.

Firstly, always do the little things, the basics, the stuff you know, the stuff you know you know, do them right and with purpose. In training and recovery, mentally controlling and thinking about the little things, and doing the little things that little bit better, will provide the best foundation and base for improvement in all aspects (physical and technical performance, stability, mobility, flexibility, conditioning and strength), helping you to find .01 when .01 is physically out of reach. Doing the little things right and with purpose in life, will give you a sense of accomplishment, it’ll give you confidence and it provides the foundation to build on throughout the day, where doing one little thing right, will lead to another and another and another, transferring immediately into your training life.

Secondly, have respect for those that support you. I had a conversation yesterday that made me very proud to do what I do and I think it somewhat relates to what I’ve spoken about today. Your teacher now, will always be your teacher. You will be always learning from them in some way or another. So have faith in them, do challenge them when you must, but ultimately respect their response and they will provide you the same courtesy, your rapport will be better for it. Respect what each other says and understand that generally, everything that is done, is done because they believe it is the best thing at that time. I will always do everything I can, as my coaches have done for me, to ensure that everyone is given the best opportunities possible, to develop as both athletes and people. So respect everyone and continue to learn, develop and grow together. Do EVERYTHING with purpose and that’s how you find .01 in sport, and that’s how you find .01 in life.

That got very long very quickly but I hope you enjoy it and I hope that someone takes something away from it.

So until next time.

Josh Stapley

Josh Stapley is one of our Elite Energy Ambassadors, and is a Pre-Elite triathlete with the HyPER (Hy Performance Endurance Racing) team.  You can read more from Josh on joshstapley.wordpress.com