How to Get Better
A mini-guide to improving yourself physically.
To improve at a sport or essentially anything, you need to develop the following areas: Intensity, Volume, Frequency, and Recovery. The first three are not my idea; I read this on some website or magazine about running. Maybe it was even in this thread, I don't remember. However, I quickly realized the same principles could be applied to any sport, whether it's basketball, cricket, tennis, fencing, snowboarding, or even mental sports like chess and computer games. And then I added Recovery, because nobody would improve without it.
Intensity: The effort you put into what you're doing. A jog is low intensity, a sprint is high intensity. Working at high intensities can often help you improve your abilities across the board. For mental sports, try playing speed games to boost your intensity. Try to sustain a high intensity level for as long as you can.
Volume: The amount of time you spend doing this activity. Although runners often use distance as a similar metric -- e.g. I ran 18 miles last week -- time is actually more informative and more important to build. Keep a log and tally the number of hours per week.
Frequency: The number of times per week you perform the activity. More is usually better, but if your activity puts stress on the joints you have to be careful to step it up gradually.
Recovery: It's very important to recover efficiently because it prepares your body for the next time you perform. Although many people just let their bodies do it naturally, there are ways to speed recovery. And if you speed your recovery, you can increase your frequency, which will help improve your ability. Recovery techniques are often sport-specific, and there is a lot of "folk lore"-type remedies out there. Do your own experimentation and find out what works for you. If your joints are stressed, you can use a cold bath or ice packs to recover quickly. If you like supplements, then take them, but nutrition is far more important. Just finished a high-intensity speed session in Starcraft? Go make a cup of relaxing tea and take a walk. If you are building muscle, eat a lot of protein an hour or two after your workout. And perhaps most importantly, listen to your body. If your knee is really hurting, perhaps you should skip the high-intensity sprint session and just jog for a while.