Trade off

Let’s talk about trade off.

With great power comes great responsibility” – Spiderman.

If you’re a young thriving athlete who is besting everyone else in your gym, winning competitions everywhere and having the opposite sex throwing their undergarments at you everywhere you go, fair play. Just one thing, how sustainable do you think that is?

Honestly, it may sound like I’m having a stab at people. I am and I’m not. I’m trying to install a thought.

If you play computer games, have a good time, wind down for an hour and have a laugh with your friends outside then go and meet up with them later, that’s cool. If you start playing games for fourteen hours a day, can whoop anyone’s ass and all your friends live in different countries and you don’t know what any of them look like outside of their profile picture… then we’ve got a problem.

Too much of anything isn’t sustainable and eventually something will give.

There is nothing I love more than seeing a weight category dominated by someone and immense amounts of weight shifted, amazing feats of strength displayed that can only be seen in Marvel movies happening before your very eyes, its jaw dropping. However, in the world of strength training, there are methods and certain substances (if you are in to that kinda thing) that cannot be maintained, they just can’t.

My plea to everyone is not to bury your head in the sand. Everyone knows that lifting heavy every day will eventually cause injury, everyone knows that skipping on your flexibility work will cause imbalances, everyone knows that taking gear long term makes your nuts shrivel and mess with your hormones. So if you’re going to do it, do your homework and have your plan to keep your body healthy for off season, in case of an injury or when you decide you just no longer want to do that any more.

It really upsets me when someone comes to me after losing all passion for what they do because of pain or constant injuries

It really upsets me when someone comes to me after losing all passion for what they do  because of pain or constant injuries, the sheer enjoyment of what they do taken away simply because no one ever showed them how to stretch or check their shoulders and hips. I’m not saying you have to do yoga, just learn how the body works and educate yourself better on what you are overdeveloping.

I hope this doesn’t come across as scaremongering, I genuinely love strength training and seeing people do amazing things, my passion is just to see people being able to hit their full potential and really be able to give it their all instead of their career being cut short by a completely avoidable mishap.

You wouldn’t fly a plane only learning how half the controls work. Find the balance in your sport and encourage your training partners to do the same. Don’t be the person that won’t stretch just because your mates don’t.