500 Words a Week - Reflections from a recent competition

Being full-time employed in sport and working with athletes who have major athletic endeavors they would like to achieve, I have found that having my own goals I’m working towards has helped with my training philosophy. Regardless of what it is you are trying to accomplish, be that running a fast 10km, or attempting to squat a certain weight. Embedding yourself in the process of trying to achieve a goal gives many dividends and allows you to look at the work you do with your athletes in a different lens.

I have been competing in weightlifting (very unsuccessfully) for a few years now. Despite working in football, the amount I have learned to compliment my work from weightlifting, or learned from work to compliment my own competing has been significant.

A brief reflection from a recent competition I performed in and how this applies to my work/ the S&C field, is the following:

Time x Effort = Results

While this may not be all encompassing, and I’m sure we all know a few exceptions to the rule who have achieved great results with little time devoted. We must understand these are the exceptions, the majority will follow the path above. The wonderful thing about S&C is that a part of our role is to maximize the time aspect of this equation, we want our athletes to be ready for every training session. Similar to my own weightlifting journey, I can’t expect to try hit the numbers I would like if I take frequent breaks. This is something that should be communicated with our athletes, is one of our centrals goals is to ensure you maximize your availability.

Take the small wins. If we only ever focus on the major big goals we have in mind, the process can become intensely disheartening. We feel we may never get there, for each step forward, our goal seems to move further away. By paying attention to the smaller wins, the little aspects that we accomplish day-day, week-week, we start to enjoy the journey more. Sure I didn’t hit the numbers I wanted to in my competition, but it was still a competition PB, I’m still moving forward even if at a snail’s pace.

This expands to how we view our career development. We can be too harsh on ourselves. On social media, we are surrounded with only positive news of people moving forward or getting roles we could only dream of. No one shares the down days, the days when we feel we are moving nowhere. The days when we question what is it we are trying to accomplish or achieve. It’s in these moments when we feel like this, we need to take the small wins. Look back over your last year when you feel like this and I’m sure you will find several things you can be proud of.