The Love of Your Sport
The other day I was training a new client and introducing her to all the movements of CrossFit, lets call her Shanna to protect her identity (although Shanna does not need “protecting”, she is one tough cookie!). Shanna is a fit individual who has been mountain biking for several years and was able to do many of the movements with ease. However, due to several falls and run-ins with cars, she needed some modifications. The session went on and we had to add one more “modification” to her repertoire, Shanna looked at me and said “You must think I’m crazy?” That statement could not have been more further from the truth…she thought that I thought that she was crazy because she had so many injuries that effected her everyday life yet Shanna still continued to ride her bike. In actuality, I was looking at her with the highest admiration because what I had, right in front of me, was someone that loved their sport so much that nothing could keep them from it.
This isn’t something you find everyday and I admire each and every person that “suffers” for their sport…If you are one of those people then this re-post from Brandon Lilly’s Instagram will resonate with you (no matter what your “sport” is) it brought tears to my eyes… If you don’t know who Brandon is, you should, he is one of the best power lifters of our time and you can read more about him at here: http://www.jtsstrength.com/articles/TeamJTS/brandon-lilly/
This sport takes a lot to be successful. A lot of training partners, teammates, and friends will come and go. In the end it’s always you. You vs. Expectation, You vs. Family, You vs. Your Past, You vs. The Bar… But really it’s You today vs. You of yesterday. Some men fight for a while, they try to cling to the spirit that’s dying. Others never even knew they had it. Then there is “us”. The ones who should’ve stopped 5 years ago, or the ones who’ve shed more blood sweat and tears for the insanity we call a sport, we can’t stop. No matter what we lose, what we break, the fire inside won’t go away… With each failure the heat rises, and rises until finally; one day we get that PR, we go one more rep or one more pound… People ask me what that pound means. It means life. It means I got enough heart to drive me to what people told me was impossible. Impossible leads to death. 1 pound is my life….
-Brandon Lilly