Week 6, the initial excitement of being back in training is turning to a daily slog of labs, assignments, surprise extra class and training. What started out as friends understanding you do something extra is turning to friends questioning your sanity and demanding more of your company.
This is the point that a large number of athletes water down the intensity to 'cope' with the various stresses. This can be done in a number of ways, for example accepting a lower objective at the end of the season by rationalising that no higher goals are possible given the excuses that one can line up.
It is a tipping point, one of many in the season. This is made harder by the lack of references available to the athletes here, there are no U23 medalists, there are no seniors, there are no ex-junior internationals. It is made harder by a culture that encourages young people to drop sport when challenged elsewhere by life. A message that I passionately reject, it is a message that says when the going gets tough, drop something. This is wrong, all over the World there are students not only managing but excelling academically and athletically. The high profile event on the Thames every Spring is one example but there are examples all over the UK and the US that smash this mindset into smithereens. For good measure there is also now some decent research on the subject too:
Dawn Aquilina
Ian Henry
Coping with the work/training balance is hard enough, coping with the constant fatigue on the body compounds the issue, especially as a tired, poorly fed mind and body quickly becomes an emotional wreck. As has been stated there are no experienced athetes to look to, it is therefore one of my greatest responsibilites to get the programme right, to communicate the volume and intensity well in advance, to ensure that as much information as possible is got through so that the willing can keep on keeping on.
Those that do get it all right will find that occasionally they are broken, occasionally they do not know how to cope with it all...
This is the point that a large number of athletes water down the intensity to 'cope' with the various stresses. This can be done in a number of ways, for example accepting a lower objective at the end of the season by rationalising that no higher goals are possible given the excuses that one can line up.
It is a tipping point, one of many in the season. This is made harder by the lack of references available to the athletes here, there are no U23 medalists, there are no seniors, there are no ex-junior internationals. It is made harder by a culture that encourages young people to drop sport when challenged elsewhere by life. A message that I passionately reject, it is a message that says when the going gets tough, drop something. This is wrong, all over the World there are students not only managing but excelling academically and athletically. The high profile event on the Thames every Spring is one example but there are examples all over the UK and the US that smash this mindset into smithereens. For good measure there is also now some decent research on the subject too:
Dawn Aquilina
Ian Henry
Coping with the work/training balance is hard enough, coping with the constant fatigue on the body compounds the issue, especially as a tired, poorly fed mind and body quickly becomes an emotional wreck. As has been stated there are no experienced athetes to look to, it is therefore one of my greatest responsibilites to get the programme right, to communicate the volume and intensity well in advance, to ensure that as much information as possible is got through so that the willing can keep on keeping on.
Those that do get it all right will find that occasionally they are broken, occasionally they do not know how to cope with it all...
'Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated
can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra
ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even'
Muhammad Ali
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