As some (most) of you may know I had a long trip to Asia in June/July. I was away for four weeks, travelling to Singapore and Indonesia for one week each and then rounding off the trip by a two week visit in Malaysia. I won’t go into details about that trip, but just say that it was a great experience which I fully enjoyed. Mainly the two weeks in Malaysia were amazing as I was working a lot with Datuk Misbun Sidek! He’s an extraordinary coach and man in general. From just being around him for a few minutes you can feel his exceptional passion for badminton.
Some weeks before leaving Denmark I had a long meeting with the chiefs of sports and my coach at the national centre. We were evaluating my 2009/2010 season and planning the next six months, both for training and for tournaments. The evaluation part wasn't the best I've ever had, as especially 2010 has been a really poor year for me so far. Apart from making it to the semifinal of the nationals, which was expected of me (but it was still a first), I haven't really had any personal success. So I'm clearly not satisfied with my progress over the last year and neither is the federation. Expected and fair, no hard feelings from me there, its better they are honest with me and they really do have every right to be a bit disappointed and concerned, as time is running. I don't have forever to develop into a world class player.
Still they did their best to tell me how they still believe in my potential to perform at the biggest stages. We had a long positive talk about what I need to work on and how to do it and we made a plan for my tournaments for the rest of 2010 that I'm quite satisfied about. I left the meeting feeling very motivated and ready to get working, so all in all it was a positive outcome of a quite serious meeting.
A couple of the things we decided to do something about was my weight and my general fitness. At the time of the meeting I was close to 84 kilos which is too much for a guy my height whose playing singles. At the same time I/we also decided that I have to start living a healthier lifestyle and behave a bit more responsibly. I shall be the first one to admit that eating junk food, going out for drinks or in general just going to bed late has been a bit of a problem for quite some time. It's really just a bad idea to live that way if I want to give myself the best opportunities to perform as an athlete.
The benefits from losing weight, improving my fitness and changing my lifestyle should be rather obvious. Less kilos means less energy consumption moving around court, which again means I should be able to keep going longer at the same or even higher pace. But losing weight shouldn’t come from losing my strength and power, so I’m also working hard on improving those aspects, especially in my legs.
Eating healthier should also give me more energy to make the hard trainings easier to overcome.
Fortunately I've had such a high level of motivation that I really haven't struggled to change the way I eat and work on my fitness. It definitely shows in a positive way in training as I’m now able to train much harder for more days in a row. I’m down to weighing below 80 kilos at the moment, so quite a bit change there as well. My ultimate goal is to get as low as 78 though, so there is still some work to be done. But just being below 80 kilos feels great for me as it’s really not something I'm used to at all. The last time my weight was showing a number in the 70ies was back in December 2006! 3½ years ago...
I have to go do some running, so it’s time for me to stop writing. I guess this is a very long read anyway, but I still have lots of things to tell you about. As for example what my goals and aims are for the next few months. That will have to be in my next blog though, this will have to do for now.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going!”
/HK
2 comments:
Ooh sounds like fun.. we need a reward scheme to keep you motivated to hit 77 by end of the year? Haha junk food is actually not so bad if you need to carbo-load (for strength) to compensate for the weight loss.
Have you done a skin-fold test? Might be just water you know, then it's very possible for you to lose them quick! (Some motivation there haha ok I need to hunt for some weight lost quotes to keep you goin' eh!)
Good luck, have fun! xx
Moving faster and easier around court is reward enough for me! ;)
Well I still prefer to get what I need from healthier food than junk. If I dont stay away from it, I know I will fall back into my bad habbits!
Yes I always do a skin-fold test 2-4 times a year. Did one just a week before this blog and the results were good :) I'm (almost) always very well hydrated, so it proved to be mostly fat I lost and a little bit muscles, but as long as its not from my legs its ok! Upper body weight is not really for any use in a singles. Still need to be strong I know, but doesnt have to carry around a lot of kilos above the waist!
Looking forward to the quotes! xx
Post a Comment