If fitness is a skill, then by definition, it can be improved by improving its component skills. Let's take a look at what they are and how to improve them.
1- Knowledge
2- Mindfulness and Self-Awareness
3- Self-Compassion
4- Humility
5- Discipline and Habit Building
Knowledge is simply the evidence-based understanding behind training and nutrition. It allows us to create a plan and execute it.
Knowledge can be either basic, like understanding the tenets of calories and how they impact your weight, or it can be relatively advanced—correctly incorporating a carbohydrate refeed in order to raise leptin during your diet, for example.
You can improve your knowledge by reading sites like this one. Find a credible fitness pro to trust, and absorb their encyclopedic knowledge.
Beware, however. Knowledge of nutrition and fitness is very important, but paradoxically, it can be used to mislead. There is more information about fitness now than ever, thanks to increasingly-easy access to scientific research because of resources like PubMed. Because of this, knowledge is often glorified and romanticized. A modicum of truth can be exaggerated into a misleading fitness tip. Many, in fact, actually think that knowledge is the only fitness skill, a fatal mistake when it comes to improvement.
Knowledge can easily be overdone. After all, what good is understanding the optimal meal timing to optimize muscle protein synthesis if you cannot, say, stop binge eating. But this is where mindfulness comes into play. READ MORE...