In this episode I explore how some seemingly inconsequential 'triggers' can have a cascade effect which can majorly disrupt your training.
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Listen to the Training For Trekking Podcast on: Or any other of your favourite podcast platforms! Episode Transcript: Introduction [0:00] Right, hello, hello, ladies and gentlemen. In today's episode, we are covering episode number 13 of this 20-episode miniseries, which is 20 lessons learned through 20 weeks of training. And today, we are covering a topic which often gets overlooked by a lot of people. It seems a little bit small at first, but it is so, so, so, so, so crucial for success during our training training process. [0:27] Now, when it comes down to us training for anything, whether it's in my case, training for an event, in your case, training for a big adventure, or just trying to improve your fitness for your hiking, or whatever it may be, we always concentrate on the training itself. We think, okay, we need to get fit, we need to get strong, we need to get resilient, I'm going to put all this time and attention into my training sessions, which is absolutely the right idea. You know, these things are important, that's what you need to do to to improve your fitness, your strength, your resilience, yada, yada, yada. However, it doesn't stop there. And essentially, not only is that time spent in your training and your hiking important, but all the other actions that you're doing around that during your life, helping support your training, support your energy, support your mood, support your emotions. There's dozens and dozens and dozens of little things you'll do every single day, which are really, really, really, really valuable. [1:20] And habits of nutrition, of training, of mindset, of productivity, just doing lots and lots of small, good, consistent actions through your day will typically dictate your success through a training program. You don't really think about it a huge amount, but this plays a massive, massive, massive role in your success. Because these little things that you do outside of your training sessions will greatly affect your energy, your recovery, your mood, your emotions, your ability to actually perform in your training sessions. And when you're actually on the trail, trail, they'll affect your health and a dozen other peripheral factors that are going on. So while the training sessions themselves may seem like the hard work, we also want to put a lot of attention into these small actions which we do throughout day, which are usually just as important, and these positive habits that you put in place. [2:07] Now, I'm not going to go into setting these habits around, you know, the good things around nutrition, around mood, around mindset, all these little bits and pieces that you should be doing today. But what I'm going to be talking talking about is kind of the flip side of that. Identifying Triggers [2:20] And we're going to be talking about avoiding triggers, which is going to affect you in a negative way, which is going to affect you and derail these kind of good habits that you may be doing and really have a flow-on effect and a knock-on effect, which is going to negatively affect you during your training. So, you know, that may be a little bit vague and a little bit, you know, a little bit, you. [2:43] Confusing. So, let me give you some examples, some practical examples and the story of kind of my situation. So, let's start with eating and nutrition. So, during the training process I was going through, I was like, okay, you know what? Nutrition is a really, really, really, really, really important factor for me. Both because number one, I'm training really hard, much harder than I've trained in a long time. I need to be supporting my energy and my recovery to not only get through the training sessions, but recover and adapt day to day to stay healthy through all the stuff I'm doing. On top of that, as I mentioned in a previous episode, I was going through a little bit of a weight loss journey as well. And I was trying to drop a few kilos because this was a weight class-based event. So I was like, look, I'm going to try and drop a few things. So I knew my nutrition was really, really, really important. And for my nutrition, I had a lot of good habits in place. I was being really careful with my meals. I was making sure I was snacking to sustain my energy, making sure I was going to get a good mix of everything. thing. I'm not going to go into all the details of it, but I had a lot of good habits in place and a good structure set that I was really confident that it was going to help with my energy and my recovery and also sustain the weight loss. [3:51] However, when it comes down to any type of nutrition, not even a plan, just like having an intention with nutrition, my number one enemy when it comes down to nutrition is cheese. Now, it may have sounded a bit weird, um but let me explain it now there's nothing wrong with cheese you know i'm not vilifying cheese i'm not demonizing cheese or anything like that there's nothing wrong with cheese in moderation but i know for me personally i do not have an off switch when it comes to cheese if i have a bite of cheese i very rarely stop so for me if there's cheese in the house if i'm because i work from home and if i know there is cheese sitting in the fridge it just sits in the the back of my mind all day. And whether it's like a block of really nice, delicious like brie cheese or camomile or something like that, or really just like cheap and nasty like grated cheese, like the cheapest stuff you buy, I literally, I can't resist it. [4:49] And this has a few issues for me, because not only is this bad for me when I'm trying to control my intake of food and control my calories if I'm trying to drop weight, because cheese is pretty calorie dense, and if you eat a whole wheel of brie cheese, that's probably not amazing, but it also, I'm very, very aware, that it does have a knock-on effect in a lot of other areas. If I eat a bunch of cheese and I gorge on cheese, my energy gets low. I feel a bit bloated. I feel a little bit uncomfortable. My energy dips. I also make worse decisions about my other nutrition because I'm like, oh, you know what? I've already done this. What's the harm in going to order some hot chips? Or what's the harm in going and buying a meat pie or whatever it may be? [5:28] And it has all these sort of knock-on effects that I'm aware that not only is it probably not ideal for me to have this for a bunch of reasons, but there's a bunch of other consequences that will often happen. So for me, I was like, you know what? Cheese is a trigger for me. Cheese has this consequence of If it's in the house, I'm going to eat it, I'm going to feel bad, I'm going to feel gross, it's going to affect all of these other things. It is a trigger, which gets in the way of my good habits of eating well, of making sure I'm energetic, of taking good care of myself and all of that. It gets in the way of that. It is a trigger. So I made the decision for the 20 weeks of training, there was never going to be cheese in the house. And if we were having cheese in some some type of meal, we were literally only buying the exact amount of cheese we'd use. Or we'd have it, and then I'd be like, Ali, get it out of the house. Take it to work or whatever it may be. So for me, I knew cheese in the house was a massive trigger, so I eliminated that. And that made a big, big, big difference for me. [6:26] Now, another example, another sort of trigger that I had in this situation was watching TV shows, or not TV shows, but streaming shows at lunch. lunch. So what I mean by this is typically, you know, I work from home and typically when I, I know when I'm getting a little bit tired, when I'm going through days of fatigue or whatever it may be, when I have my lunch, when I sit down and have my, whatever I'm having for lunch, I will sit down with my laptop and have a show watching. And again, there's nothing particularly wrong with that, you know, in theory. [6:59] For me, I knew this was a bit of a trigger and I had a a little bit of a knock-on effect. Because ultimately, you know, for my training, not only was I training in the morning, and I was training quite hard in the morning, but I was also wanting to fit in other training sessions in the afternoons and the evenings to kind of complement what I was doing. I was wanting to fit in strength training, I was wanting to fit in extra cardio, I was wanting to do some stretching, all of these other bits and pieces, and they typically went in the afternoon or the evening. And essentially what would happen is I'm aware that if I watch a show at lunch. [7:29] What happens is it really exaggerates my tiredness, kind of sink into my tiredness. It's something I do when I'm just like, I just need a break, but it makes things a little bit worse. And what happens in the afternoon is I'm aware that my productivity at work significantly drops. I procrastinate on things. I faff around. I don't really do. It takes longer to get through things. And also my motivation to do other things really, really drops in the the afternoon, which ultimately leads to me having to work longer, meaning I don't finish up my work by the time I was planning and I have to work a little bit longer, and also ends up putting stress on my other sessions. I'm like, oh, I'm working longer, so then I've got to cook dinner. I don't really have time to train, or maybe I'm just super low-motivated or whatever it may be, and yada, yada, yada. So I was really, really, really, really aware that watching TV shows at lunch was a trigger for me, and I had this knock-on effect that affected all of these different things and it was an issue. So essentially what I did, I said to myself, look, I know this is a trigger. I'm aware this is a trigger. So essentially I'm going to cut this out. I'm not allowed to watch shows at lunchtime. And if I was tired, I would still give myself a bit of a rest at lunch, give myself a break. I wasn't working all through it, but I would do something else. I would read a book. I would listen to music, listen to a podcast, go for a walk, whatever it may be. And I found cutting out this particular trigger was so, so, so effective for me. [8:50] And then another one, another thing that had a pretty big knock-on effect was if I was basically late home on a Sunday. So on a Sunday, typically I will do a lot of my chores. I'll basically do the groceries. I'll do my washing. I'll kind of plan out my week ahead. And I have this little routine on a Sunday, which I do a lot. But what would often happen is we'd have have social events, or we'd go away, or we'd go this and that, and we'd get late home on a Sunday. And I realised, if I'm late home on a Sunday, and I'm like, oh, you know what, we're home six or seven o'clock, or even five o'clock, and I'm like, the last thing I want to do is go to the groceries. The last thing I want to do is do the washing. I just want to sit down and relax. And then what would happen... [9:36] Is I wouldn't do this stuff on a Sunday, then it would get in the way of me during the week. So I wouldn't have groceries. So on Monday, I'd get a couple of takeouts. I wouldn't have clean clothes, and then I'd skip sessions because I don't have clean clothes to go to the gym. I had all these bits and pieces, which really had a bit of a knock-on effect. So I knew, look, being late home on a Sunday and not being able to do these chores before I went to bed on a Sunday, that was a trigger for me. That was an issue, and that was a problem. them. So we made the decision like, look, if we're away on a Sunday, if we're going on a social occasion, whatever it may be, we're going to try and get home at a reasonable time. I had this discussion with Ali and my wife and I was like, look, can we try and do this? If we're away, like instead of like lingering, because we had lots of weddings during the process and we'd often go away for the weddings. And instead of lingering, like and hanging around 12, 1, 2, 3 o'clock the next day, we'd like, you know what, have a break here, see everyone and then, you know, head off and be home at a reasonable time. Or alternatively, if I knew, look, this wasn't doable, if we were were going to be out quite late on a Sunday and just wasn't doable to work around, then I was like, look, I'm going to get all of these chores done on Saturday or Friday before we go away or whatever it may be. Because I knew if I could get these done before Sunday, that was a really positive thing for me. Alternatively, if I didn't, it was a really negative thing for me. So those are just a few examples of these kind of triggers that I had, which if I didn't do, or I did do, whatever it may be, it would just have so many knock-on effects would ultimately affect my energy, my mood, my emotions, my motivation, and ultimately my success during the training program. [11:02] So for you as a hiker, having listened to this, what I want you to do from here is really have a deep, deep, deep think about this. Because most of us are aware that we have these certain triggers in our life and these certain things that get in our way. But most of us, it just kind of sits in our, I guess, subconscious. We're aware of it, we know it, but But we don't really shine a light on it. We don't really take action on it. We don't really respect it. Taking Action [11:32] But it still keeps on tripping us up again and again and again. So this is what I want you to do. I want you to have a really, really, really deep think about this. And I want you to jot down what type of triggers you typically have. I would assume most people listening to this will have one or two to spring to mind pretty quickly. If you think about it seriously for five or 10 minutes, you'll probably come up with a few more. Things that seem small initially, you're like, oh, that's one thing here, but it does trip me up. And it does tend to have a bit of a knock-on effect. Maybe food-related, maybe drink-related, maybe sleep-related, maybe social-related, whatever it may be. It could be literally anything. Have a really deep think about this. Identify them. Then from there, I want you to write them down. We don't literally, do not just think this because it won't be effective. Get a pen and paper or get out a Word document, write this down. You have to get this out of your head. Then what I want you to do is once they're written down, once you've shone a light on them, like that's the issue, that's the trigger, and and this is typically what it leads to, I want you to come up with solutions here. [12:32] Like in my example, with the cheese, I was like, I'm just not going to have it in the house. Or with the chores, I was like, I need to get these done by Sunday evening, or I'm going to do it earlier in the week, whatever it may be. Come up with simple solutions around it. Some things may have simple, simple, simple solutions. Some things may be a little bit more complicated, but just come up with solutions that you think are going to work. Everyone's going to be a little little bit different. If you need support from your family, write that down. Say, look, this is going to be tricky. I need to chat with my husband, wife, partner, children, parents, whatever. Write it all down. Come up with these solutions. [13:09] And again, write this down. Put this up somewhere you're going to see. For me, I am aware I have a few big triggers that we didn't mention today. I've literally got this written on a whiteboard in my office. I see it every time I walk into the office and I'm like, oh, I got to avoid these things. Gives me a reminder every single day. So, so, so important. And then from there, make yourself the promise that when you fall off the wagon, because you will absolutely fail at this time and time and time and time again, what you will do is you're not going to wallow in it. You're not going to be like, I failed this one time. That's it. I'm the worst. I'm just going to give up or whatever it may be. But make yourself the the promise that when you fall off the wagon, you'll get back right on it the very next day. For me, if I had a cheese binge, I made the promise on the next day, I'm just going to get rid of all the cheese in the house. And that happened a couple of times. There were a couple of social occasions we had where people pushed cheese on us and they were like, oh, we're never going to eat all this and take it home. And I had a massive binge and I was like, oh my gosh, I can't do this. Chucked it out. Felt bad about myself, but I made myself the promise that the The next day, I'm going to get back on action. [14:12] So write this all out. Identify these triggers, come up with solutions, and come up with that promise. Write this literally all down, put it up somewhere that you're going to see. Now, in all honesty, this can be really, really, really hard. You will fail multiple times, but keep on bringing yourself back on track. Because even if out of 10 times these triggers come up, even if you change that two times you avoid these triggers and eight times you fail, that's two times more than you would have done without this process. And it will have such a a significant knock-on effect for you down the line. [14:46] So a bit of thinking there, and everyone's going to be different. There's going to be so many different things, but most of us are pretty aware that maybe one or two of these things happen to us all the time. For me, again, I was not perfect with these things. I felt the wagon multiple times, but I got myself back on track, and I was aware that over the 20 weeks, this made such a massive difference for me, even though I wasn't perfect. So I strongly encourage you to do this. Whether you're training for a big adventure or whether you're just training to be fit and strong for your regular adventures, figure this out. Identify the triggers, write them down, come up with solutions, make yourself the promise, put it up somewhere you're going to see. I promise you it'll make such a big difference to your long-term progress. So that's enough about me harping on this subject. I hope this one made sense. It took a little while to kind of wrap my words around this one today, but hopefully it all makes sense and I really do hope it helps a few people. So thank you so much for listening and we'll talk to you very, very soon. Bye.
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AuthorRowan is a personal trainer who specialises in training for hiking, trekkers and mountaineers for their bucket list adventures. Archives
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