Want to get fit like your military Olympians? OFFduty’s Jon Anderson tells you how:
You don’t have to be an Olympic athlete to train like one. And just because you have no plans to make a go at elite-level wrestling, boxing, fencing or track doesn’t mean you can’t learn valuable workout tips from those going for gold at the games.
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OFFduty caught up with the platoon of military athletes bound for London to learn their secrets to athletic success. No, these tips probably won’t turn you into an Olympic athlete, but put some of these training tactics to work in your own workout and it’s very possible you’ll find yourself making Olympic-sized gains.
Read the rest of Jon’s story over at OFFduty.
Bonus! Here are two more tips from Army wrestler Spc. Justin Lester that are exclusive to the blog:
Breaking your breaking point
Exercise: Turn it up to 11
OK, this is a mental exercise, but you do it while pushing the physical stuff. In fact, it’s how Army wrestler Spc. Justin Lester takes physical to the next level.
“For anybody, no matter what exercise you do, no matter what workout you do, you have to learn how to push past your breaking point,” he says.
Like the “Spinal Tap” speakers that go to 11, you have to make a habit of pushing past the usual limits. “If your workout calls for 10 100-yard sprints, do 11. When you learn how to do that, that’s when you’re going to be successful.” He doesn’t mean all the time. “You can’t do it every workout. Just throw it into the mix. You have to listen to your body. Obviously, you don’t want to over train.” It’s all about “tricking your mind,” he explains. Tell yourself just one more. Once you’ve done it, you’ll often find you have room for another. And then maybe one more.
Take pullups. He can do more than 60 at a pop. But he got there with an unrelenting self talk that kept demanding more. “OK, I was supposed to do five, my body is failing now. All right, do two more,” he says. And then he would. “All right, two more again. I keep telling myself, do more, do more, do more.”
The place where he faces down his limits the most is in the pool. “I suck at swimming, absolutely suck,” he says. “I can get across, but every second I’m in there, I have to tell myself keep moving.” Still, when the coach’s workout is done, he adds an extra lap. But not just one. He makes sure he’s to a place where he’s exhausted “and then I tell myself, all right, you’re going to swim down and back to where you can barely stand up. And then the next time.” Next time? Yeah. “I’ll swim a little bit further and doggy-paddle the rest of the way.”
Conserve energy with John Legend
Exercise: Slow jam playlist
Again, it may not sound like an exercise at first, but listening to some slow grooves is just as important to Lester’s pre-match warm-up as stretching, he says.
While many athletes will have go-to playlist to get them pumped before a competition — or memorize a certain song to help them mentally crowd out self-doubt and other distractions — Lester uses down-tempo tunes to just chill out. “I listen to slow music, R&B — usually Robin Thicke or John Legend — just to calm me down,” he says. “I get so anxious and excited and ready to go. You burn through a lot of energy doing that. If you’re all tensed up for 10 or 15 minutes before you even get on the mat, you’re already exhausted.”
