There are many similarities between growing trees and training to improve your long term perfomance.

Lets talk trees for a minute………..

When you first plant a tree you need soil thats in good condition- something thats got enough nutritients and moisture in it

You’ll need to water it regularly (but not too much or all the nutrients will be washed away)

If you really want it to grow quickly you need to fertilize frequently (but not too much or you’ll burn the roots and kill it

That tree will need an environment where it has sunshine and fresh air- rest and away from pollutants-pour grease on it or chemicals and it kills the roots

You’ll also have to watch for traumas that occur on the tree from time to time- and deal with them straight away-tangled roots, mold, stuff growing on the leaves, bugs eating away the trunk etc

Now how is that different to an athlete

Everyone understands the need to train regularly (thats water) and fertilize (thats intensive training).  Those two are easy

Now back to gardening- have a look down your street. There will be one shrewd fellow who gives his garden a regular soaking, but not too much. He’ll weed around the trunk and make sure the soil doesnt gather too high. He’ll cut off dead branches. He’ll fertilize when the plant needs it on the change of season-but sparingly.

Then there’s the guy two doors down- leaves the watering system on every day. the soil is all washed of nutrients and the leaves dark from pests. During the holidays he’ll dump fertilizer on ,it will shoot green stuff for a few weeks and then soon after the plant dies. Then he’ll rip that one out and start all over again.

Many triathletes treat their training the same way as their gardens- constantly overcorrecting, constantly looking for a shortcut or avoiding the hard jobs like weeding and pruning.  Consistency- apply good soakings of aerobic work, moderate amounts of intenisty(fertilizer) and correct injuries/mechanical problems(pests) before they flare up

So what sort of gardener are you?

I once went to one of those motivational seminars where they talked about a type of Bamboo plant called the Moso. It grows roots for 5-6 years with no grow above ground and then shoots 15 feet in the seventh year. A lot of the stuff we need to do is behind the scenes are fairly grubby in the ground-before all the pretty flowers and shoots come out- worth thinking about

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Posted in All Articles Nutrition Psychology by Jimmy C No Comments Yet