Contest Prep
Intro
I know what you’re thinking, “What could a guy that has only done one contest possibly know about contest prep?” Although I may not have a lot of experience in CF contests, I have experience preparing for contests and high intensity auditions so I’d like to believe I have some tips to share. So without further ado, here are my contest prep tips!
Practice.
There’s no other prep that’s as effective as practice. A study conducted by a
very prestigious researcher that 100% isn’t me found that there’s a direct
correlation between deliberate practice (post on that here c;) and rating. To prove that claim, I’ve included a
very real, accurate graph to illustrate the relationship.
All jokes aside, practice truly is the most important part of prep and comes before anything else here, but you didn’t need me telling you that.
The E Word
That’s right, I’m about to try and argue to fellow nerds that anerobic exercise is important to your performance. To try and prove this to you, I’ll use chess as an example, as both chess and CP require long periods of mental exertion and complex problem solving. If you take a look at the top players in chess, you’ll notice two things: they’re not that bad at chess and they’re fit. Let’s take a look at Fabiano Caruana (#2 as of the time of writing) as an example. According to him, he runs, plays basketball, and swims on a regular basis. All of these aerobic exercises help him destress while boosting his confidence and stamina for upcoming tournaments. Now for the more observant readers, you’ll be quick to point out that Caruana is only #2 in the world. So if exercise gives such a huge boost to performance, why isn’t he #1? Because Magnus Carlsen (#1 as of writing) also is a huge exercise proponent. He has said that staying in great shape through playing soccer and yoga is just as important as chess practice. The beauty of exercise is that you don’t need to be a marathon runner to reap the benefits! Even just 20 minutes a day of light exercise to work up a little sweat goes a long way towards improving your memory and thinking abilities.
The W Word
Ok, ok… I’m done with the “X Word” headings now. As obvious as it might seem, being hydrated is essential to strong performance during contests and practice. It’s scientifically proven that a hydrated brain is able to “think faster, be more focused, and experience greater clarity”. I find that when you’re working on a problem that requires a lot of thinking, taking a quick break for water helps you refocus and refresh.
New Series!!
Before the end of the blog, I just wanted to announce an upcoming series I want to start on the website: Mini Lectures! So far, it’s just been blog posts about broad CP topics and my progress on the challenge, but I’d like to start sharing knowledge on more technical matters. Every 2/3 weeks, I’ll be writing about a topic that I’ve learned in that time period such as bitmasks or dp. These won’t be comprehensive, as I’m only a beginner myself, but hopefully the bite sized chunks of information along with my terrible comedy can help you guys learn something new too. Since I’ll be concentrating most of technical knowledge in the Mini Lectures, the blog is going to be more of a weekly progress check and whatever topics interst me at the time.
Conclusion
If you guys have any topics you’d like to see me write about, feel free to email me or message me on CodeForces! :) I hope that you’re able to take away something from this post to improve your contest prep and that you enjoyed the blog this week. Until next time!