Train like an Olympian
Heptathlete Katarina Johnson-thompson shares her winning fitness formula
What can we learn from the training schedule of an Olympic athlete (except that they’re super-fit compared to us)? Well, we joined Team GB’S KJT to get her training tricks in the hope we might be as #bodygoals as she is.
1 MIX IT UP
Being a heptathlete, I have a varied training regime. I train six times a week with one rest day, and on Monday and Tuesday, I train twice a day. So, in a week, I’ll do four or five gym sessions, a hill session, and two running sessions.
2 EAT SMART
I centre my diet around protein, spacing it out evenly throughout the day. For breakfast, I eat Müller Light yoghurt mixed with granola as it’s fat-free and delicious – I could eat bowls of it! For lunch, I make eggs when I come back from training and mix it up with avocado, smoked salmon and bread. Dinner normally consists of chicken breasts with vegetables or a noodle stir-fry, but I Deliveroo a lot of healthy stuff to my place in France. I miss home as my mum used to cook for me!
3 MENTAL MOTIVATION
I used to visualise myself doing well to motivate me, but now I make sure I haven’t got any injuries, that I’ve trained and done everything my coach has told me to, and then I just tell myself to chill out. I’ve done the work and I shouldn’t worry.
4 KNOW YOUR LIMITS
A good workout doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be on the floor dying. In the past, I’ve learnt that will make you injured and you won’t be able to achieve anything. So, the goal for me is knowing I’ve achieved something in each session. It could be a technical thing, or a fitness thing, or a confidence thing, but it’s just good to know you’ve achieved something by going out and doing it.
5 SET YOURSELF GOALS
Goal setting helps me get up and do hard workout sessions and realise it’s all for a purpose. For athletes, it’s very easy because we’ve got our goals set out and our competition dates, so we’ve got a path and a target that we’re closing in on all the time. It really helps me get through my training. Katarina is part of the Müller Athletic Squad. Müller has partnered with British Athletics to inspire the next generation to have fun with athletics.