the little things.

Finally, today's rest day! Gonna teach James how to gym in 30 minutes time though..

Later in the afternoon gonna train sam in the track....

Tired!

Anyway, was sharing with sam regarding refining the littlest of things and seeing heaps of improvements to come.

It started with me telling sam that she is much stronger this time and thus an improvement.. then she went like "no... yadayadayada... the curly hair lady's stroke is smoother than me!..."

Then I told her.. I thought I was frustrated when no matter which ang mor it was who came to training in the same lane as i do.. i seem to always, yes i meant ALWAYS, lose to them by 1 lap!
Then Nicole's words kicked in.. "You're training for yourself!".. even though those words were meant for Marcus on track session but it rang a bell quite deep inside the competitive me.

Then sam realize that yeah she's been comparing herself too often than not to the people around her instead of looking at how exactly has she improve in the simplest way - aerobic fitness.

Which ultimately boils down to why I brought her to do tri..
Reason no.1 is simple: Lifelong fitness goals!
no.2: A hotter bod!
no.3: better self confidence!
no.4: something to do together!
no.5: A reason that should be in no.1 but I shall stop being a boring man... but here goes.

We often neglect the smallest of things in life to see the so called BIG picture. And then for most of the time when we look at the BIG picture, we'll see SMALL missing pieces scattered all over the place. It may just be 1 piece, it may be 20. But the key thing is that it is often that smaller pieces in the BIG picture that will make it complete.

Triathlons and endurance sports teaches that. Especially swimming and anything that is 80% technique focus. It is the most minor of the details/technique parts that when you improved, will help you gain free race time from the entire leg of that sport! ]

And if you're able to apply that to your life, I believe if you're serious in living your life as a person as serious as you ALREADY ARE in triathlon (assuming you're serious in tri), then probably you're another a person like me who live life to 150% because we get the FULLEST and MOST completed out of life compared to those who just walk the big picture and talk the big picture and moving on to next one never finding what is missing because they're too small and couldn't be bothered abt it.

Another good teaching that triathlon has...
How often than not do we compare to the rest around us needlessly? Like yesterday's training, we were looking at people around us who're chasing each other's asses down like crazy and then we go like "damn..we're damn lousy compared to them.." even if there're only 2 who's chasing each other in the whole group of 20... and we neglected the other 18 who're swimming as well as we normal human beings do..

In the first place, we joined triathlons for our own fitness endeavours and to add on to our own lovely things to do other than sex and movie and dinner and... coaching?.. If we look back at that very reason, why are we comparing and stressing ourselves out? Being competitive is good. Especially good for improvements in aerobic and anaerobic stuffs.. but definitely bad in ways that involves techniques of ours which are not exactly mature yet.

Thats why i told her.. to work on the smaller stuffs.. we don't chase people down the water by splashing more water.. hone your swim strokes techniques and before you know it, you'll be right up there with her. I've already proven technique wins at training more than 2k and above.
Most people's technique falter and their hips went right down and so did their legs.. thus they can't swim no matter how fit they are!

Applying it to real life..
When sam coach, when I coach.. how often than not, do we compare our kids swimming to those out there in the same pool as us but under another coach? Or compare my PT client's performance compared to the rest in the gym? I always believe to find out what is correct in the books/internet/researches/people and then teach them in DETAIL to your clients... be it small boys and girls or hot babes and sporty hunks. Once they hone the techniques and feel them in their blood and skin.. they'll swim like a fish.. and they'll gym better than 95% of the gym goers in Singapore other than Mr chan and I (yes, call me arrogant but I think I do better than the 95% out there too..)

Lovely post.. gotta rush for PT!

Cheers,
Sinner