Die Young!

6 January, 2021

My mentor had a saying, "when we all will be 90 years old, we have to train like we are training now". At first, I was skeptic about it, I couldn't understand how could you do kettlebells being that old. I even forgot about it until recently when it hit me, he was not talking about the weights, he was talking about the form, the intensity you put into it, the injuries you avoid, the fragility you overcome. It makes perfect sense, those are things you can control; so why not bring that mentality to the present, in the now when you have plenty of time to build a strong foundation that you will benefit from event when you are 90 years old.

Your worst enemy is the fatigue you experience due to over-optimistic planning, which may lead to too many reps, rests that are too short, too much focus on a muscle leading to overwork, among others issues. When this happens, you start to compensate by cutting corners on the form, reducing intensity and just going through the motions. This behaviour is not acceptable in the practice, better to skip half a practice than doing a whole practice that will lead to injuries.

Remember, there is no ego in the practice. You do it for you and the benefits you get from the effort that goes in. The only measurements that matters is how much better it makes you.