I was just pondering the aspects of motivation. I think that it is easier to go out and do something when you are really good at it. In High School, before I “ran track” I was really into powerlifting. I was the strongest lifter in the school (doesn’t really mean anything I could barely apply that strength onto a playing field) so when I was maxing out people would stop and watch. It was easy to push myself hard, because I was good, I won an award at a football camp and my team looked up to me in the weight room. Now that Im doing track, everything I do seems so mediocre. People get ragged on for running high 11s and I havent broken 12, 23′ isnt good enough to get a scholarship and I havent broken 19, and my pole vault and hurdles are just downright embarassing. I see high School athletes beating my marks with no training, they just show up one day and do it. I think to myself, I KNOW I work harder than him, I KNOW I am stronger than him. I KNOW I know more about overstriding, race strategy, etc. Why can’t I do it? My juco coach was nice enough to give me a track scholarship because I worked harder than almost everyone on the team, and because we had a really small team, and because I have good grades. I try to tell myself that it isn’t about winning, it’s about learning about yourself, and pushing yourself, and staying in shape. But when I get onto that track, its still the same thing, coming up short. When is enough enough? Have I done enough? Ive already attempted more than most athletes ever will in their lives, switching to the opposite spectrum of the field, an offensive lineman trying to become a halfback. When does the journey end? One more hill, one more rep, one more hurdle, one more jump. Cooldown, stretch. Dont eat that, go to bed, wake up, do it again. Am I improving? Am I working hard? Hard enough? Smart enough? Im not sure anymore.
You will be amazed by how much you can improve by learning to do things right. You can drop a ton from your 100m time just by learning to run properly without necessarily getting in a better shape. You have to try lot’s of possible sprinting cues and find out wich one works better for you. You will probably end up finding it “accidentally”, but with the extense trial / error system the odd of having that “accident” are determined by you.
Example? I went from 11.8h to 10.9h on a bend just by learning to run. When I ran the 11.8 my clean max was 70kg and had better speed endurance. Had some injuries, started from scratch, tried 1000000 possible combinations of cues, “accidentally” figured out the real relaxing thing and learnt to run, clean barely at 75kg and with no SE at all everything more or less clicked and voila, 10.9 on a bend. That’s virtually a one second drop just from learning to sprint correctly.
I am pretty sure I am not the only one that has experienced this. Doing one thing wrong can slow you down a lot from you physical potential.