Unity

Earlier in the week I posted a blog about training partners that double as good friends outside of the gym. In that blog I referenced Ecclesiastes 4 where Solomon tells us that three strands united together are not easily broken. On that same idea the necessity for unity amongst athletes inside of the training program is essential.
Simply put a program designed by one or three coaches where the athletes completing the program are not 100% supportive of and behind that program is destined to fail. I have been through that process and seen it work well and fail miserably multiple times. The simple truth is that any good program has multiple, united coaches at the top filtering programming down towards their athletes.
A united front both from a coaching standpoint and between coach and athlete is a requirement for success. Anytime a program is divided and there is dissent ion amongst the coaches or athletes there will ultimately be disunity when it is time to perform.
We saw this problem rear its ugly head in high school football our junior year. The offense took great pride in its ability to score and perform well. Along the same line, our defense labeled themselves the Black Knights and took great pride in their bbility to stop great offenses. While this camaraderie and inner-team rivalry was good for a while it began to turn into disunity. We saw the defense take such great pride in their abilities that they disregarded the abilities of the offense and vice versa. In the long run this created a team that was not unified around the same goal. The coaches were wise enough to spot this early on and remedy the situation however there were a couple games where the offense blamed the defense and the defense blamed the offense for a lack of success.
This can happen still inside of gym programming, Olympic lifting teams, and competitors completing the same program. It is important that coaches and athletes are always on the same page, always chasing the same goals, and are unified around their desire for success. If there are athletes who struggle to completely support the program they’re on then they must either give feedback to the coaches doing the programming and find a way to believe in it 100% OR they must find a coach that allows them to believe in the program 100%.
Unity often is the intangible element that creates championships. A unified team who is willing to do unimaginable things for each other is extremely hard to beat. Furthermore, a unified coach and athlete will also create a relationship that is hard to beat as well. Unity matters. Make it a priority and create it regardless of the sacrifices that need to be made.