It is now under a year until the Olympic Games in Rio and Team GB’s athletes are ramping up their preparations.

With local prospects such as Dartford’s Adam Gemili, Carshalton’s Harry Aikines-Aryeetey and Croydon’s James Dasaolu competing to make the start line, Vibe caught up with Team GB and English Institute of Sport coaches to find out how you can train like an Olympic athlete.

Thrust

Improve your running and potentially protect against lower back pain by working on you ‘Posterior Power’, strength and conditioning expert Duncan French says. Do this by including hip thrusts into your training programme alongside squats or deadlifts.

RAMP warm up

The best way to warm up, Duncan advises, is R.A.M.P.

R stands for raise, and that means your heart rate, body temperature and blood flow for training in low intensity exercise. A is activate muscles and joints with low load exercises, such as band walks for hips. M is mobilise joints and increase muscle range of movement with dynamic stretching. P is potentiate - include high intensity activity closer to training intensity to improve subsequent performance such as doing jump squats prior to doing squats

Do a Bridget Jones

Keep a diary of your training data, says Duncan.  You can track progress, identify loading for the next training session and understand when to vary your training programme

Identify a challenge

Identify a physical challenge you want to achieve, says Duncan. Develop the training programme to achieve the challenge.  Before completion of this challenge, identify the next challenge so it easier to continue training from one to the next

Staying focussed

Lead sports psychologist at the English Institute of Sport, Sarah Cecil can help athletes maintain their focus when motivation is low.

“Treat motivation as a verb not a noun,” she says. “It is a doing action.”

Going beyond

One thing Sarah needs to help athletes with is pushing beyond what they think they are capable of. She says: “Remember to praise yourself as you go beyond your perceived limit, this will help your brain know what your new capability is.”

Getting in tune

Making sure your head is in the right place for competition can be tricky, but Sarah recommends a process that many athletes go through before competing – choosing the right music. You need something that evokes the frame of mind you want to be in.

Pre-workout food - Fuelling

Performance Nutrition expert James Collins knows his food. He was heavily involved in advising teams and individual competitors for London 2012 and leading up to Rio 2016. 

He has two recommendations for pre-workout food and it depends on how much time you have available:

“Maybe it’s a person who just has time wants a quick snack before training - the focus would be for a high glycaemic index carbohydrate so something that is absorbed quite quickly,” he says. “This might be something like a cereal bar, banana, bagel, or flapjack, something for a quick energy hit before your training session.”

For those who have longer – between an hour and three hours - before their session, James recommends a mixed meal with proteins, mixed vegetables, and slower release carbohydrates, such as quinoa, ebly, couscous or noodles.

Post-workout - Recovery

Depending on your work-out, there are different priorities for what you should eat and drink. If you’re sweating a lot, you need to replace the fluid you lost.

James says: “A lot of people will be going back to the office in the afternoon so to actually replace the fluids, be hydrated, is important for your concentration levels in the afternoon. “

You also need to refuel your muscles, so carbohydrates are important, and protein is vital to help repair and grow muscle. James says to target a minimum of 20g of protein straight after a session. He says: “These might be things like lean meat, pulses, sources of dairy as well are always really good options there but just to make sure the timings here are really good.”

Fitness First, Team GB’s first official fitness partner, can identify the perfect Olympic sport for you based on your height, weight, age, sports you do regularly and other factors. Go to fitnessfirst.co.uk

Get a glimpse of London 2012 gold medallist rower Helen Glover’s training routine in the video below: