3 Tips To Make Progress (for as long as possible)

Achieving your peak physical fitness and getting selected requires unwavering consistency and maximum effort in your training.

But here’s the problem:

When you’re consistently pushing at maximum effort, burnout can sneak up on you.

And when burnout strikes, it hits you hard.

Burnout will sabotage you into…

dreading training
quitting your sessions
putting in low-effort

This is why you need to avoid burnout at all costs.

In this edition, I’m going to share 3 Tips for Avoiding Burnout, so you can make progress for as long as possible.

1. Switch Up Your Training

The quickest fix for burnout is switching up your training. Most often, I find athletes begin associating certain workouts with dread. It could be 400m repeats with low rest times or heavy deadlifts.

You need to begin associating training with positive emotions. So, drop the activities you dread.

This can mean switching from a block of focused 1 -2 mile goal pace running to a higher volume, low-intensity running phase. Or, switching the rep schemes and exercises in the gym.

2. Take a Deload

I generally don’t have preprogrammed deloads. And the reason for that is that I try to ensure weekly volume is enough to elicit progress but not so much that we overreach and experience too much fatigue.

That said, when you begin overreaching and feeling overwhelming mental or physical fatigue, it’s time to lower the intensity. For deloads, I like continuing with normal training on Monday and Tuesday and take the latter half of the week off with a few easy jogs and calisthenics.

3. Stop Doing too Much

More often than not, athletes experience burnout because they’re doing too much. Deloading and switching up exercises are great, but they’re not going to solve the root cause-which is doing too much.

To solve this, you need to be honest. Look at your training log and every component piece of every workout.

Circle the core components of your training that are “Must Dos” – likely 2 – 3 runs per week, a ruck, and several strength and calisthenics exercises.

If the supplemental work you are doing is impairing your recovery and will to train, cut it out. You can always add more later.

Everything else you’re doing is supplemental. If the supplemental work you are doing is impairing your recovery and will to train, cut it out. You can always add more later.

Conclusion

Remember, training is a marathon, not a sprint. If you try to brute-force your way through training week after week, month after month, you are bound to experience burnout.