Holding You're Ground ?

The most difficult thing in the world to overcome is fear. This is, of course, only my opinion but I believe that I am correct (as always). One of the biggest mistakes I see made all of the time, and for that matter make myself, is letting fear run things in an effort not to lose the ground that has already been gained. It is so easy to get caught in the trap of playing not to lose rather than playing to win and for most of us the fears of losing in some way, shape, or form can seem very real. As an athlete, this was one of the most difficult concepts for me to wrap my head around and this is an example of why. Let's say that there are two minutes left on the game clock and we are on the team that is marginally ahead. Tensions run high, the stress of competition that was already there elevates for both sides, and victory is in sight if we can just hang on. This is about the time where stress takes over and clouds judgement on even the most basic of maneuverings. Some people are able to rise to the challenge while others fall off, but what makes the difference? I had a coach once tell me that the problem that most players have in a game is that they believe that there is a clock. I disagreed with him vehemently, pointing out the obvious clock on the sideline that was keeping time, and asked him if he'd always been this crazy or if he had just recently lost the plot. Thank God the coach was patient enough not to kill me before he explained that to be a great player, in sport or in life, you have to ignore the clock all together and just try to give everything you have for that moment, damning the consequences. He told me that sports always mimic life and there is no exact clock on how much time we have in life, only what we do with the moment that we are living. "This concept will always make the difference, but you can't just try to hold your ground. If you do that, you let your side, as well as yourself, down. Don't by into the commentators hype about clock management. There is a reason that they are not called players. Just do all you can in the moment that you are living and be ready to keep doing that for as many moments as you have." I have found that when you look at things from my old coaches perspective there isn't much time left for fear of any kind to creep in and things are a lot more fun as well. Just a few thoughts to work over as you work out...

J

5 min warm up
Stretch
2x 20 wide grip push ups
2x 20 squat to overhead press
2x 20 narrow grip inverted rows
2x 20 meters of lunges
4x 45 sec. planks
2x 25 neg crunches
2x 25 side swishies (each side)
5 min. cool down
Stretch