DON´T OVER COMPLICATE YOUR TRAINING AND YOUR LIFE
Podcast with Vincent Luis
Last week we referred you to Joel Filliol, this week we refer you to Vincent Luis – one of the most recent athletes to join Joel’s training squad (the JFT Crew) and has had great success, taking the ITU World Champion title in 2019.
This episode really is a great one and worth saving to listen to again in the future.
For someone so young, he raises so many points that we all need to remind ourselves of. In summary, here are the key topics he raises:
- Thrive off of a team’s success – Joining the JFT Crew exposed him to various World Champions who are all supportive and helped each other out (NOT competing and letting egos run wild). The Crew thrives on each other’s success; they might be competitors in races, but if one wins, they all win.
- You are all part of the MoT Squad, if you follow our pages on Facebook or Instagram you know that your teammates are having success too – BELIEVE in the method of training and use your peers success as fuel to motivate and achieve success!
- Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Train to feel and adapt as needed, don’t chase numbers or data. Data is not used on race day by most Pro’s (Vincent doesn’t) and besides, it’s not accurate / relevant in triathlons!
- Don’t over complicate things in life – training, fuelling, eating, where you sleep, etc. Accept what you have access to, what the facilities enable and how you feel at any given moment and adapt to it
- Running kills performance! Before joining the JFT Crew, he ran up to 180km per week! Joel limits him to 100k now, and as a result he is healthier and faster. “The more you train, the more you want to train and train harder” sound familiar?! Unfortunately, the more training you do, the more likely you are to become susceptible to…
- RED-S alert!! A few weeks ago, we linked you to a podcast discussing RED-S; from listening to Vincent describe how he approached both the 2012 and 2016 Olympics you should have realised that he had put himself in a state of RED-S:
- Over training in the months leading into the Olympics, not getting enough fuel in, resulting in a lowering of testosterone which cause his bone density to drop which ultimately resulted in multiple stress fractures (one before London, two before Rio!)
- Training is a privilege! Back on the 9th September we linked a podcast and wrote about training and racing is something you can all afford to do and can. This is a lesson Vincent learnt when he had a “meltdown” after Rio. He almost quit the sport but went on a trip to Kenya to see how they train (live and survive). He learnt:
- They train simple – no technology, have limited / worn / damaged equipment and clothing, do no drills or skills, have limited food sources, etc
- They are relaxed and accept the conditions they have, not knowing any different – the roads/tracks they use are perfect, their equipment is serviceable until it is literally worn out, they know they must become the best to have success, etc
- He needed to stop being materialistic and change his perspective of his life, his opportunities, is strengths, his weaknesses, etc, whatever he does or has, there is ALWAYS someone worse off
- Sleep is prioritised – bed by 8pm up at 6am; 10hours sleep each night!
Vincent does a great job of being honest and humble; confidently shedding light on his past mistakes and mindset, so that the listeners can learn from them.
Probably one of the best Pro Athlete interviews we’ve listened to. Enjoy and take on board what he has to say.
