Georgia Stanway shares five tips on preparation, pacing and mindset ahead of ATHX Liverpool at Exhibition Centre Liverpool on 3–4 October.
Ahead of October’s ATHX Liverpool competition, England midfielder Georgia Stanway shares five practical principles for preparing well, managing the effort and resisting the temptation to change everything at the last minute.
The person disappearing ahead of you at ATHX Liverpool does not need to become your problem. Georgia Stanway’s advice for competitors is to know their own pace and resist the urge to chase somebody else’s. Adrenaline, in her assessment, is quite capable of making an enthusiastic mess of a sensible plan.
Ahead of the hybrid fitness competition at Exhibition Centre Liverpool on 3–4 October, the England midfielder has shared five preparation tips through her role as a CELSIUS ambassador. They cover pacing, gradual training, practising the demands of the event, mental focus and sticking with familiar choices on the day.
Her advice applies to first-time entrants as well as experienced competitors. There is no elaborate sporting secret here. Much of it concerns the less glamorous business of making a plan and remembering it when the competition starts.
Let somebody else win the opening rush
“Adrenaline will try to make you go too hard, too fast,” Stanway says. “Know your pace and ignore everyone else’s – flying past early doesn’t win you anything.”
That distinction matters in an event where, as she points out, competitors switch movements while already tired. An ambitious start still leaves the rest of the challenge to complete.
Her recommendation is to stick to the pace you have planned and keep enough in reserve to finish strongly. Another entrant’s opening burst tells you very little about how you should manage your own effort.
For someone making their debut, that offers a useful focus: the plan they brought with them. More experienced entrants receive much the same reminder. Familiarity with competition does not make the temptation to chase disappear.
Make the unfamiliar part of training
Stanway also argues for practising what the competition will ask of you, including the parts you would rather avoid.
“It’s easy to stick to what you’re good at – competition finds what you haven’t practised very quickly.”
For ATHX, she identifies the switch between movements under fatigue as something to become familiar with. The purpose is to arrive with a clearer sense of what is coming, rather than having every transition feel like a fresh surprise.
That principle extends beyond the movements themselves. Her separate advice on kit and food is deliberately plain: use training to establish what suits you, then keep those choices familiar on competition day.
The new kit can wait. So can the last-minute experiment with food. In Stanway’s approach, the event is the occasion to use what you have already worked out.
You cannot squeeze weeks into a few days
With Liverpool approaching, the temptation to make up for missed preparation deserves particular attention.
“You can’t cram weeks of training into a few days,” Stanway says.
Her advice is to build up gradually and trust the work already completed. For this event, that means accepting the preparation you are bringing to the start. For a future competition, it means allowing the build-up time rather than relying on a late burst of enthusiasm.
She does not prescribe a detailed training schedule. These are principles drawn from her own approach to competition, with consistency at their centre.
Give your attention to the next task
Stanway’s mental advice is similarly practical: stay in the moment, break the challenge down and focus on what comes next. When the effort becomes difficult, she suggests remembering your reason for entering.
That leaves room for different ambitions. A first appearance and an experienced competitor’s attempt to improve can both matter without sharing the same measure of success.
“You don’t have to be a professional athlete to set yourself a goal,” she says. “That’s one of the things I love about events like ATHX – everyone taking part has their own reason for being there and their own version of success.”
CELSIUS is the Official Energy Drink Partner of the ATHX Games, with the partnership having launched at ATHX Birmingham in August. Its involvement includes branded experiences and product sampling at competitions.
Stanway acknowledges the distinction between her job and the challenge facing those entrants: “While there are of course differences between preparing for professional football and taking on a fitness competition, a lot of the fundamentals are the same.
Preparation, consistency, knowing what works for you, and being able to keep going when things get tough all make a difference.”
