Why consistency is a key trait of successful athletes

Consistency is arguably the most important behaviour when working to accomplish your goals in endurance sport. If your training is disorganised, your body is less able to adapt and it is harder to form habits.  Successful athletes focus on frequent, quality training sessions balanced with good recovery – not the occasional ‘hero’ workout. So, how can you make your training more consistent? We’ll start by taking a look at what INCUS-enabled athletes are already doing.

INCUS machine learning algorithms improve every time you use the device. This in turn makes the feedback you receive more accurate and more applicable to your training regime. As the community grows the anonymised data from runners, swimmers, and triathletes enhances the effectiveness of the INCUS machine learning algorithms (neural network) meaning users benefit from greater insights into training behaviours, techniques, and injury indicators.

What we have learnt about INCUS enabled athletes in March 2022

As our community of INCUS athletes grows we can learn more about the training traits and behaviours of successful athletes. Here are some snippets of March’s stats from INCUS users. Where do you fit in?

We have some highly successful endurance  and ultra-endurance athletes using INCUS and as can be seen from our longest run and swims recorded there are athletes putting in some serious distance workouts.

Average training distances are much shorter – around 5km for a run and 1km for a swim – the type of regular weekly sessions that are the foundation for many runners, swimmers and triathletes.

Consistency is key to any successful training plan, there is a spike in the number of swims and runs recorded on Fridays every week and another spike on Wednesday’s for running. Friday’s are a popular night for club and coached sessions so this isn’t a huge surprise.

5- tips for achieving consistent training

• Get a personalised plan that fits your current ability, your goals and your lifestyle. Be completely honest with yourself and your coach about how much time you are able to commit. A 6-hour plan followed meticulously will get you further than a 10-hour plan where you are constantly dropping sessions or cutting them short.
• Use a training diary for planning as well as recording your sessions. You should never wake up in the morning and need to guess what the day’s session will be. If you train only on how you feel, or what you fancy that day, you are very unlikely to make the incremental small forward steps that result in performance progress.
• Create a training structure that fits round other fixed points in your week, such as work commitments. For many people this means shorter sessions and recovery Monday – Friday and longer swims/runs/cycles at the weekend. Work with how your life is not how you want it to be.
• Train with others. Coached sessions and training with other people is great for motivation, but don’t be afraid to follow your own plan if the group session doesn’t match what you need to do.
• Condense your session, don’t skip it altogether. If you don’t have an hour to spare, a 30-minuteswim session is better than not training at all. If you are always cutting sessions down your program needs to be reviewed but once in a while a shorter session is better than nothing.

Your privacy is always protected.

Data from your sessions is only accessible via the account linked to your INCUS | NOVA & is encrypted on the INCUS | Cloud where it’s processed to deliver personalised insights. Another user is unable to access your training data from the NOVA unless they have your credentials or you share your session information. Read our full privacy policy