Conditioning is a word that gets thrown around a lot in the fitness industry, but what does conditioning really mean? There are those who get kicked out of strength conditioning, marathon runners have to go through a type of endurance conditioning, and then there is the conditioning that is necessary for wrestlers and martial artists.
Conditioning can appear as this basic concept of hard work and training to build your body so that it can perform or withstand what the sport demands of it.
And it’s true.
However, that’s not the whole picture of what it means to be a conditioned athlete. Developing your body and performance potential is just the result associated with having “great conditioning.”
The other half of the definition of conditioning is more about the discipline, the standard, and the values you espouse.
“Great conditioning” is the result of adopting and integrating habits, norms and values that slowly, over time, change and transform the conditions of the body.
Conditioning is not so much about developing yourself, but more about adopting a specific way of being that serves you in the long run and is beneficial to performance and skill execution in a given sport or physical activity.
So how do you integrate a great conditioning ritual? One that meets your athletic needs based on the sport or physical activity of your choice?
A good place to start is to look at where your values lie in your sport. By looking at components that you already have a natural inclination to prefer and value, then you have a platform where you can design for yourself a discipline that you are more than likely to commit to.
If, for example, you naturally favor cardio, use it as a foundation to build a discipline for conditioning, not just great cardio, but also as a way to condition for better form, more strength, and increased endurance. perform the activity that is the source of cardiovascular exercise. It’s also a great way to build secondary attributes. If, for example, you normally rely on jogging for cardio but would like to develop another physical skill or work on your upper body, then you might consider boxing cardio. Or you may want to develop better foot coordination and jump rope.
By focusing on what you already prefer, you are much more likely to build on it and develop a discipline, and from a place of discipline is where conditioning can best flow.
Additionally, using Discipline is a powerful way to set yourself up for growth and improvement in a specific skill or attribute. Once you’ve established a discipline in a particular practice, it’s just a matter of pushing yourself and upping the ante to improve and refine that conditioning.
Let me leave with a final thought, and that is, when you think in terms of the type of conditioning you feel you may need for whatever fitness goal you have, think about what you need to wear and how you should be in the training process. instead of what you need to do to reach and achieve a goal that you ultimately get to. Chances are that when you reach that goal, in order to maintain it, you will need to maintain the conditioning by maintaining the practice that got you there in the first place.
Conditioning is a process.
