Overtraining - Don't do it!

Physical Symptoms Of Overtraining

• Elevated heart rate
• Weight loss
• Muscle pain or soreness
• Elevated resting blood pressure
• Gastrointestinal disturbance
• Delayed recovery from exertion
• Loss or decrease in appetite
• Severe fatigue
• Overuse injuries
• Disturbed sleep patterns
• Immune systems deficits

Psychological Symptoms Of Overtraining

• Loss of self-confidence
• Drowsiness and apathy
• Irritability
• Emotional/Motivational changes
• Sadness
• Anxiety
• Anger/hostility
• Confusion
• Concentration difficulties
• Boredom

Sports scientists are suggesting that training loads are increasing by what some estimate as 10 to 20 percent every five years!

Mark Spitz, won his seven gold medals in the 1972 Olympics by swimming 9,000 meters per day. Within 20 years, the average COLLEGE swimmer was swimming more than this and by 1995, Olympic hopefuls were swimming a whopping 36,000 meters PER DAY.

That’s no wonder why elite athletes are complaining. 28% and 10% of 1996 Summer and 1998 Winter Olympic athletes cited overtraining as the reason for their sub-optimal results. Trying too hard didn’t work.

Michael Phelps 8 Gold Medals

It’s not a question of poor sportsmanship, winging or sour grapes.

I mean c’mon 36,000 meters per DAY… I can’t even fathom that thought.

That’s what it takes to be the best.

Unless you’re a professional athlete, the question is a valid one with a simple answer.

Train as much as you can, focusing on diminishing returns COMBINED with the value you place on your non-competitive activities and commitments.

Simply put, I teach my business clients that to make $100,000/year, you need to VALUE your time at $100/hour.

If you want to make $250,000, you similarly have to VALUE your time at $250/hour.

For sport, it’s no different – at some point you’re going to hit diminishing returns on the court/field or in your life.

It’s a balancing act that you need to control – I suggest you do it with the VALUE attribution and allocation you place on your sport.

Consider everything it gives you and takes away.

VALUE you it FINANCIALLY and you’ll remove the emotions from the equation, even though the VALUE is a qualitative value.

Go ahead and give it a shot – I do this exercise with my clients in my programs. It’s not something that can be done on a blog.

I can tell you without a doubt it’s necessary to get the life-balance that so many people crave and complain they don’t have.

I’ve always had it, albeit to varying degrees.

I’ve been a competitive hockey player when I was younger and now as a top 20 world-ranked Masters Squash Player, I’ve managed to achieve that while growing multiple businesses, being an employee for few years WHILE I completed not one, but two post-graduate degrees.

The KEY is to know the VALUE of your time.

Only then can you determine HOW MUCH YOU CAN AFFORD TO TRAIN!

That’s a different question that how much you SHOULD TRAIN isn’t it?

Aren’t you glad you’re subscribed to this blog?

Imagine how much I could help you if you joined one of my programs….

In my programs, I explain concepts and strategies to prevent this from happening or what to do to overcome ‘burnout’ or what’s called ‘overreaching’. Additional distinctions and clarifications make all the difference. By the way, I have products that start at $27 and on-going coaching programs that start at $97/month. If you’re committed to your sport, you really should consider it. Enough said since as a CHAMPION, you’ve already decided to step up and make it happen.

The word is accountability. In sport, competitors are held accountable to the sports rules, regulations and rankings. The higher the level, the more exacting and demanding the accountability becomes.

If you don’t hold yourself to that standard, guess what? You lose, you fall in the rankings, game over.

Accountability

It’s brutal and harsh.

The saying you don’t win the sliver medal, you lose the gold says it all.

There is no room for second best in the world of sport.

It’ll prove it to you. Usain Bolt won the Men’s 100 and 200 meter sprints in the 2008 Olympics.

Can you name the Silver Medal Winner?

Can you name the Bronze Medal Winner?

Can you even name anyone in the final race?

Can you name anyone who even competed in those events at those Olympics?

Sport is a lot like sales – the numbers say EVERYTHING.

Accountability is the cornerstone of the Mindset Of A Champion – then it’s closely followed by orientation, attribution and perspective – all points I’ve discussed in this blog.

Accountability however is where it all starts.

I see it with my squash. Some people I play are not accountable to anything or anyone – they are social or casual players. They play for fun.

Then there are the pennant players who get together and play regularly – so they are accountable to the pennant schedule and their team mates.

Some of the best of the pennant players become competitive players and compete in tournaments. They are accountable to a higher standard of play and much better refereeing where ‘playing the man’ won’t get you any cheap lets.

Of the best competitive players are the elite athletes who play at the highest level and hold themselves accountable to the sport and in addition – nutrition and the mental aspect of the game (self control and awareness).

The penultimate are the champions who devote themselves to their craft, holding themselves accountable to themselves without compromise – cross training, learning, developing, pushing the envelope, getting training, coaching…

It’s all about accountability.

Without it, even the most ambitious person can fail – Mike Tyson is an example.

Within the rigours of competition – what had to be done was straight forward and exceptionally demanding. Outside the ‘ring’ – it’s a free-for-all.

No one cares.

I see it with business people all the time. They don’t hold themselves accountable – at all.

Because no one cares, you can slip and no one will notice.

In sport, the minute you slip, you either lose the game, the match or your ranking suffers – IMMEDIATELY.

In life and business, that’s not the case.

But if you maintain the Mindset Of A Champion, you can become a champion in sport, in business and in life.

It’s that simple.

Hold yourself accountable to a higher standard. Raise your bar and KEEP RAISING IT.

Perspective is in the eye of the creator of that perspective!

3 Components Of A Champion Perspective

1. The best performers know who they are, they have a diverse, all-encompassing identity and strong self-acceptance with the accompanying self-awareness.
2. Importantly, they know where their support is. They have strong, meaningful personal relationships with people who are with them unconditionally – not because of their accomplishments, but because of who they are as a person.
3. The know how they want to live and compete. They are humble, grateful with strong personal values, principles and attitudes. They are champions because they enjoy the process and responsibility of being a role model.

What role does perspective play? Let me give you an anecdotal reference: NBA Hall Of Famer Magic Johnson was asked how he handled the pressure… His response: “What pressure? I’m just so glad so many people are interested!”

Of course you can sit there and say to yourself “Sure that’s easy for you to say…” You’re already successful…

But think about it – HOW did he become successful?

Hmmm…..

Something to think about…

That’s why the Mindset Of A Champion is part of my Personal Mastery Program curriculum. You can’t be a chump and a champion.

The better person you are, the better champion you will be.

I don’t care what you think of Mike Tyson, but he was a brutal boxing champion – if you have a chance to watch his autobiographical movie, you’ll understand that to get to and remain the champion, he had to have the Mindset Of A Champion. What’s happened since is well what happens when you stop doing WHAT WORKS.

In sport, it’s ‘easy’ to train and perform at the most elite level – why?

That’s the topic of my next blog post – It’ll explain what happened to Mike Tyson and countless others – stay tuned!

But this is not a commercial for my products and services. If you want to get the Mindset Of A Champion, you can click the hyperlink and get it – it’s electronically delivered.

This blog is all about introducing you to the concept of the Mindset Of A Champion. I try to fit in at least one blog per week into my busy schedule, so as a subscriber you’ll get as many as 50 tips and ideas – ALL FREE.

If you don’t want to wait and want to win sooner, just contact me and join one of our programs or start with a product and go from there.

Today, I just wanted to let you know what my clients know that YES! you can change your orientation – if you are ego involved, it’s going to be a struggle, but it’s a battle worth fighting – the war for your mind.

That’s a war you want to win.

It’s an on-going battle for all of us – casual, social, competitive and professional athletes alike.

That’s because we’re HUMAN.

Once we understand and embrace that, then we can start to USE and LEVERAGE that to our advantage. Therein in lies the Mindset Of A Champion – learning to think, perform and win like a champion, by using everything that’s available.

Often it’s one little thing that will make a BIG difference. Stick around and I’ll prove it to you in future blog posts.

If you want to purchase an inexpensive product and you’re a squash, tennis or badminton player, you’ll really enjoy Squash Lessons For Marketing.

Competitive Performance Mentality

Competitive Performance Mentality: Dimension #1 - Self- Challenge

This concept is independent of orientation and has two dimensions.

The first dimension is self-challenge and it reflects the opportunity to strive to be the best according to your current ability and, as the foundation for feelings of personal success and accomplishment, MUST be the primary focus.

The second dimension is the game-challenge which is set by the sport, the competition.

Champions assess the self-challenge FIRST AND FOREMOST and only after this is complete do they assess the game-challenge.

This is a mechanism to remove the athlete’s feelings from the equation as much as possible. (Easier said than done!)

Of course it’s enhanced when performed with a coach or confidant – someone you trust and who knows what you’re doing at the LEVEL you’re performing. A spouse, parent or best friend is NOT the ideal partner is this assessment.

This process is especially important for you if you are an ego-involved athlete, for self-evident reasons.

We all come to hit the little black ball
some like to smash it against the wall
Others are so gentle
using angles and the feel.

We extend our bodies beyond their range
and in the mornings feel quite strange
for when the feet first hit the floor
us oldies stagger in pain to the dunny door.

The game is played indoors from the sun
but rain, hail or shine we do have fun
squashies are all very sincere
at the end sharing a beer.

Squash players come from far and wide
on a court there is nowhere to hide
the swing of the racquet heralds the start
throughout the rallies they try and stay apart.

At the front a drop shot squatting so low
as the opponent races in they’re struck by a blow
line an invisible wall
they crash in and try not to fall.

You miserable cad they let fly
tears running down their cheeks they cry
“Let please” the appeal to the referee
that is cheating as it all wafts free.

From the previous post, how task-involved athletes primarily differ from ego-involved athletes is that with an ego orientation, the athlete will show (off) their ability at the expense of effort.

Owch! if you have an ego orientation, but KNOWING you have this orientation is more than half the battle.

This is where your maturity and self-awareness come in to help you or leave you to fend for yourself.

This is one of the key reasons so many very talented athletes just don’t make the grade into professional sports or on to the podium.

Ego is a powerful force – it might be what gets you up at 4 AM to practice and train, but it can also be what prevents you from ever winning or achieving your ultimate goal.

I know how that must hurt, but let’s face it. You either want to hurt now or hurt later.

Your choice.

Give this some thought the next time you’re showing off OR when you’re not putting in 100% effort when you could and SHOULD.

I won’t name names, but there was a top 10 professional tennis player in the 1980’s who would, when he was losing, just give up and throw the match. Recently, in the top 5 Men’s tennis, there was a player who was ‘accused’ of doing the same thing. I am sure his coach and/or sponsors explained in no uncertain terms this is not an option, but the point I am trying to make today is that the SOURCE of the problem is his orientation.

Chances are he doesn’t know what you and I know.

You can’t cure a disease by trying to treat the symptoms. That won’t work.

You have to search for and FIND THE CAUSE.

In sports, your orientation is the SOURCE, the CAUSE of everything that you do.

Once you’ve identified it, accepted then and only then can you cure yourself from the Mindset Cancer that can kill your dreams of athletic excellence.

Stay tuned for future blog posts in the next few weeks and months. If you’d like to get more information, more quickly, please consider one of our Personal Mastery Programs or my product which encapsulates the equivalent of more than 2 year’s worth of blog posts – it’s called The Mindset Of A Champion.

In my programs, I get into a lot more detail, for example, in this instance, I would explain that a task mastery orientation means an athlete will use feedback as a constant process of information analysis to help them perform better in the next few seconds or minutes of a task DURING a match and competition whereas an ego involved athlete’s focus is on how he looks, how he’s performing for the crowd, etc. The BIG advantage a task mastery orientation gives the athlete is the proactive nature of THINKING AHEAD, planning what to do BEFORE it happens, rather than look back on how ‘it looked’.

I understand this is a nuance, but one that has been shown repeatedly to take lesser talented athletes and enable them to out-perform their much more talented peers. One prime example is Brad Gilbert. He’s honest about it in his bestselling book “Winning Ugly“.

I’ll talk more about Brad’s great ideas in a few weeks – he’s nailed the Mindset Of A Champion like no one else in professional tennis. I highly recommend his book.

Flow - Being In The Zone

When this relationship is 1:1 between difficulty and ability, the door opens and you can step into the flow. Because this is a balancing act, it’s a fleeting and rare experience. When the balance tilts with external challenges surpassing aptitude, anxiety is usually the result and conversely, when the balance shifts to your talent outpacing the demands made of you, you get bored, even sloppy.

You know you’re in the zone or flow when:

• Your movement is effortless.
• You lose your sense of self (I’ll talk about self in more detail in a future blog post).
• Time transforms – slows down mirculously, magically, sometimes standing still if only momentarily – it seems like forever.
• Clarity of vision is razor-sharp, so much so that you might even have the sensation of being able to see ‘everything’.
• In some cases, objects will be distorted.
• Your thoughts converge with crystal clear clarity, focus and attention

Don’t worry if you’re constantly chasing it – ALL athletes chase it, in fact it’s one of the greatest intrinsic motivators, so use it, leverage it as much as you can.

So what can you learn from this?

I’ll tell you what I learned from it – getting the balance right means playing or training at the exactly right pace. Not trying too hard or too little. Before understanding the balance aspect of flow, I wasn’t sure what I was trying to DO to experience it. Now I can create more instances where it can occur – naturally.

The one thing everyone agrees about is that you can’t force it – the minute you do, it’s gone.

All you want to do is create MORE INSTANCES and OPPORTUNITIES for it to occur.

As you do that, enjoy it, because as we all know, it’s existence is short and soooo sweet!