I watched a little of the Olympics a few weeks ago and from
most of what I watched was the majority of Swimming & Gymnastics. The
female gymnasts just destroyed opponents left and right and in my humble
opinion none of them shined as much as Gabby Douglas. She embodied what a
gymnast should have,
grace, power, strength and above all fierce balance.
Gymnastics is by far one of the toughest sports there is, both Male &
Female competition, the training is fierce and it gives you a whole new perspective
on Animalistic Bodyweight Training. The closest to Gymnastics would be the
Animals although you won’t see a Tiger on the balance beam or a Gorilla on the
Pummel Horse but the resemblance is uncanny and like an animal in the wild, you
have to be
quick, fast, coordinated and extremely strong.
Swimming was the other sport I couldn’t take my eyes off
cause our American squad just took over with a
vengeance in just about every event both men and women. Michael Phelps
was the dominant king but the dominant queen in my opinion was Missy Franklin
who was no more than 17 and won many gold medals. Just to swim at an incredible
pace takes conditioning to a level you can’t even imagine. Like Gymnastics, Swimming
takes up your entire body from head to toe and each event looks more grueling
than the other the toughest being the Butterfly I think. That sport became a
favorite to watch and wasn’t much of a swim fan in previous Olympics but after
learning many forms of exercise and conditioning I had a new found respect for
certain sports.
We all know that some athletes have used steroids in the
Olympics to increase their performance and chances of winning but it comes with
a price. Steroids for personal gain is just plain stupid and there were at
times when some of them didn’t realize they were on it because Roids don’t
always come with a needle, comes in creams, pills and all sorts of stuff and it’s
just plain dumb to even put athletes on it. I realize there is pressure among
coaches, families, teammates and the organization to an athlete that they are
expected to do great things and many of them are duped into being as perfect as
possible even taking serious health risks for seeking that perfection. It’s
really tough to avoid that kind of thing when you’re a world-class athlete
whether an Olympian or a Professional so to really avoid it, do your research,
learn alternatives that bring you
more health instead of decreasing it and
find that power within you that gives you the strength, speed and endurance
naturally and show it that you don’t need Steroids or P.E.Ds (for those playing
the home game that’s Performance Enhancing Drugs). This is a suggestion not a
general way to do things.
Training at the highest level of Competition takes practice
in ways you can’t imagine unless you’re in your specific sport. One of the
greatest amateur wrestlers of all-time Kurt Angle was an Olympic champion,
World Champion, NCAA Champion and a profound man on his intense level of
conditioning. While he trained for the Olympics, he
ran hills as far as 200
yards,
lifted weight in very high numbers, once he went to the University Of
Iowa where Dan Gable was still coaching and once had a match with one of his
wrestlers, this wasn’t your typical hardcore 4-3-3 minute rounds, this was a
40-30-30 minute rounds that made you realize how far you’re willing to go to
keep going. That’s not hardcore training, that’s pure insanity and the will to
fight to keep up with yourself. I have been in a wrestling room and for a 3 day
period, it was till this day, the longest 3 days of my life as an athlete. It’s
not just wrestling, it’s every sport you’re in, if you want it bad enough, if
you want to be the very best, than you got to train harder than anyone else,
you won’t always be the strongest, biggest or meanest cat in the gym or in your
field but the will to bust your ass in practice makes you an athlete with the
highest of honors and that’s fighting for what you love and smiling while you’re
doing it. The hardest part isn’t the training, training actually is the easy
part, and the competition is your toughest part because the training you
already bled sweated and gotten through, now you got to put that to the test.
Out of everything you do for a sport, no matter how many opponents
you won or lost to, there’s that one opponent that will always come after you
and that’s the same one you see in the mirror every morning. The other guy is
just another athlete that you’ll face time and time again or face him/her only
one time but fighting yourself is the one thing you face every single day. If
you can learn to grapple yourself and overcome the challenges you face every
day, the rest is a cake walk. After watching some of the Olympics and reading
about the other athletes, it’s safe to say with every up and down, won or lost,
defeated and conquered every single athlete down to the very last place did
everything they could to make it to the highest level of competition but many
of them still need to find that one thing that brought them there and make it
consistent otherwise, they will become just another athlete with the word Olympian
attached to their name.
