Ep50 Transcript: Benefits of Training with a Group – Top Takeaways from Jenny Neale

Do you want to start competing in competitions? Then find a great group to train with. In today’s top takeaways episode, I’m going to dive a little bit deeper into what I talked about with my friend Jenny Neale in episode 49 about competing in competitions in midlife.

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So I met Jenny through my Camp Gladiator training friends. I was also sucked into competing in competitions similarly to how she was. The difference is she’s winning. I just like competing. But the message that I got from her interview was to really connect with a great group, and I would definitely concur with that.

We found a great group to train with through Camp Gladiator, and that’s how we started competing at Camp Gladiator games. Jenny is now also competing in the DEKA World competition and it is basically some of the same people in that group who are training for that as well. And we kind of succumb a little bit to peer pressure, but it’s the good kind.

The thing I find so inspiring is that she had never competed in individual competitions or really even lifted weights or done a lot of serious running before July 2018 when she joined this group, and now she is winning these competitions, and I think it comes down to being around people who are going to inspire you and motivate you and help you train better.

Another tip that Jenny talked about was to find a time and make time to get those workouts in. She was working out in the evening time. Then she switched to the morning time and then really saw that the group she really wanted to be with was at that 5:15 AM time. That is way too early for me, but she was able to make it work through some adjustments with her family, and I think that’s amazing. If you are going to get up and be inspired to do that at that time, that’s awesome.

But the point is to join with a group who is going to really keep you accountable, and I think that is the benefit of really connecting with a group.

The other thing I wanted to touch on was how she was training specifically for these different events and a lot of these different events such as Sparta races, DEKA events, Camp Gladiator games, other types of events like this have different kinds of things that you have to do, different challenges.

It might be things like ram burpees or snatches or something like that, and she was training specifically for those types of activities. You usually get a packet or some sort of outline of the race or different videos that you can watch showing those different movements. For example, at Camp Gladiator, they did have an obstacle course and while we didn’t get the exact course layout until a few weeks before the competition, we were able to go over to a training facility that had things like the walls and the nets and the push sleds and the different.

Things that we could use as obstacles so that we could train properly. And I definitely found that to be so comforting when I was doing the race because I had been through it. I had gone through those different obstacles. I knew how to do it. I knew that I could do it and I wasn’t as nervous.

So if you are planning on doing a type of race like this, I would definitely suggest making sure you do specific training for that event.

And Jenny’s final bit of advice was just go out and do it. It’s so much fun, like she said, and I love doing it even though I’m not winning, it’s fun to compete and push yourself in a different way.

Hope that was helpful, and make sure you grab the free guide Top Tools for Late Starters on the website at latestartersclub.com and let’s turn dreaming into doing.