Celebrate Consistency
- Celebrate Consistency -
As coaches, we hear every reason under the sun for why a person wants to start exercising. Increased performance, to be able to play with their kids, grandkids, overcome aches and pains, and even just to be “consistent”.
What’s that mean? Well, it turns out being “consistent” means something a little different to everyone.
This is what consistency means to me, and how I’ve started to adopt it in my view of my personal health and fitness.
I started seriously training when I was 15. I learned what Personal Records were, and the mindset of performing and earning a spot on the varsity team created a way of thinking that wasn’t conducive to rest days or playing the long game. It was all about train hard, and come back again the next day. Eating, sleeping, and recovering wasn’t really a priority.
At 17 when I graduated high school, I was hyper focused on PRs, calculating in a spreadsheet how many days I could workout in a year, how many double days, and how many PRs I could hit per month and per year. A few years of this aggressive “train train train” mindset and being so focused on growth, I was now in a position where my body was at a breaking point.
But…
I did get extremely good at a few things very fast - I went to nationals in Weightlifting, I gained skills and built strength in a short time frame. I also got very injured. Everything was great, until it wasn’t! Major soreness, rhabdomyolysis, sprains, pulls, hand tears, tendinitis, surgeries and physical burnout eventually arrived.
I experienced huge emotional swings because all I wanted to do was train and reach my goals and perform TODAY - I wasn’t concerned about performing tomorrow. Here’s what I learned:
When it comes to being the best you can be, consistency matters more than intensity.
That’s the hard work. Consistency across years and decades, not intensity across seasons and months. Train in a way that you’ll be able to train again at your near best tomorrow. Practice that for years, and you’ll one day arrive at a level of fitness that you couldn’t even consider as a possibility for yourself when you started your fitness journey.
Eat, sleep, train, have grace. Recovery practices are as important if not more important than training practices.
Go put in the hard work where it counts.