Weekly Tips for Athlete Track: Week 3

Welcome to Week 3 of the Athlete Track. You’ve learned where to push and where to hold back. Now it’s about producing strong output you can actually repeat.

ATHLETICS 

Strong, Repeatable Outputs
Anyone can go hard once. This week is about holding stronger output with enough control to reproduce it, round after round, not just winning the first set. Keep your breathing steady and your transitions clean so the last round looks a lot like the first.

Your Cue This Week

During fast-paced directional changes, keep your center of gravity low and stay on the balls of your feet. Dropping your hips lets you slow down and explode in a new direction with athletic efficiency.

NUTRITION 

Carbohydrates Fuel High-Intensity Training

Carbohydrates are a key fuel source for high-intensity exercise. Your body stores carbohydrates as glycogen in your muscles and liver, helping provide energy during demanding training sessions.

As training intensity or frequency increases, having enough carbohydrates available becomes increasingly important for maintaining training quality, performance and recovery.

Foods such as oats, rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, wholegrains, cereal and fruit are all practical carbohydrate sources that can be incorporated into your daily meals.

Your carbohydrate requirements will vary depending on your training load, body size, goals and individual needs. Rather than avoiding carbohydrates or saving them for particularly demanding sessions, focus on including them consistently and adjusting your intake to match your training demands.

Try this: Before your next challenging session, include a familiar, easily digested carbohydrate-rich meal or snack. If you’re training within the next hour, something lighter, such as a banana or toast, may be more comfortable. If you have a few hours beforehand, a balanced meal containing carbohydrates and protein can work well.

You can also use the F45 Challenge app meal plans to identify carbohydrate-rich meals and snacks that fit around your training schedule.

Fuel strategically around training: If you’re eating 30-60 minutes before a demanding session, choose easily digested, lower-fibre carbohydrates to provide readily available energy without feeling overly full. Options include white or raisin toast, an English muffin, crumpets or pikelets with jam or honey, rice cakes with banana, fresh or dried fruit, fruit juice, or plain crackers with jam. If you have a few hours before training, a more substantial, balanced meal containing carbohydrates and protein may be appropriate. The goal is to arrive at training adequately fuelled and ready to perform.

WELLNESS 

Train Hard, Recover Smart

As training intensity increases, pay attention to how well your body is recovering between sessions. Persistent fatigue, declining performance, disrupted sleep, irritability or unusually prolonged muscle soreness may indicate that your training demands are exceeding your current recovery capacity.

Remember, recovery isn’t just about taking a rest day. Adequate nutrition, hydration, sleep and managing your overall training load all contribute to your ability to perform consistently.

If these symptoms persist despite adjusting your training and recovery, consider seeking advice from an appropriate healthcare professional.

The goal isn’t just to perform well in one session, but to recover well enough to perform again.

Week 3 Takeaway
Focus on producing strong, repeatable efforts rather than going all out in one round. Keep your breathing steady, stay controlled through transitions, and maintain your performance from start to finish. Consistency is what helps you build speed, power and endurance over time.

Written and published by F45 Training HQ, and reposted here for the F45 North Paramus community.