One of the key principles to successful competition in any sport is the necessity for flexibility. In this case, I’m not talking about the ability of your muscles to stretch and retract. I’m talking about flexibility in your training scheduling.
A perfect example is what happened in my training today. I was able to get my morning work in before school without any problems. However, as I was leaving school and heading to the gym this afternoon, my wife had an unforeseen hiccup at work that kept her from being able to get to the house at normal time. The ripple effects of that one little hiccup man I got the opportunity to go home first to take care of the baby. The baby, who is normally extremely cooperative and naps around our training time, decided she wasn’t going to nap. Thus at 5:00 PM it became apparent that only one of us was going to get a workout in. This is where your priorities really have to put on flesh. I constantly tell myself that my family will always come before my training. If I had decided to train, that would’ve meant starting closer to 5:30 PM likely getting me home an hour later than normal. I’m not able to cook for my family nor am I able to spend time with my family like I normally do in the evening. The priorities I had previously set had to take precedent and and I had to lean on them. That simply meant I didn’t get my afternoon session in today.
Many of you would look at that and say that’s why I don’t have kids or that’s why I’m not married yet or that’s why you live the lifestyle that you do. My response to that would be simple. My training and my weightlifting goals garner me far less joy than time with my family and for sacrificing those goals for my family is not drudgery or done with disdain. It’s out of desire for greater joy.
However, I will have to make up what I missed today along the way. That means some other pieces of my life have to be flexible and different parts of my week have to shift a little bit. This is where the flexibility comment comes into play. The best athletes in the world know how to move things around and be flexible in most areas of their life to allow for success in training. This success in training leads to success on our chosen field of play. All that being said there are three principles every one of us should put into play in our lives in order to allow flexibility.
1- Set your priorities and stick to them. We can all create a priority list that looks ideal on paper. The rub comes when we need to abide by that priority list despite the desires of our heart and flesh. Putting my family above my training sounds great on paper. With one of the biggest meets of my life on the horizon, it would be easy to disregard that list for my own personal desires.
2- Arrange your week with flexibility in mind. My priority last creates the capability for me to adapt throughout the week. I keep the priorities that belong at the top right where they belong and the priorities that belong at the bottom at the bottom. I am able to shift things around doing my weekly schedule according to their priority in my life. Since I missed the training session this evening, something lower on the priority list tomorrow will have to get moved out of the way or scratched off in order to allow me to make up some of the essentials of that training session. I can promise it won’t be my family or my time with The Lord that gets scratched off.
3- Keep the main thing the main thing. When I look at my training and what I missed today, the main thing I missed was some heavy singles and doubles in the snatch. While I also missed some drops snatch and some snatch pulls, the main thing is the full lifts from the floor. Those are a necessity as I approach competition. When I am forced to rearrange my training throughout the week because of different hiccups that are unforeseen, the main things always stay. I may not get those drops snatches in this week or I may not get those pulls in this week but I can guarantee I will complete all of those scratches in full. Keeping the main things a high priority in my training maximizes every training session that I am able to complete.
A friend of mine a long time ago, when I took my first “big boy” job, handed me a dog chew toy of Gumby. He said it was to remind me on a regular basis to always be flexible. Semper flexibility is what he called it. The constant capability for flexibility will not only make our lives more joyful but will keep us from stressing and worrying throughout the week.