Wednesday, August 27, 2008

"In Victory, Tighten Your Helmet!"


In Japanese, there is a proverb, 勝って兜の緒を締めよ (katte kabuto no o o shimeyo), which means "In victory, tighten your helmet!". It is a warning to not rest on your laurels and be ready for your enemies to return. Celebrate a win in battle and you may lose the campaign. Pushing onward without reevaluating your position can be disastrous.

Your enemies in training are often fatigue and lack of concentration. After hitting big gym PRs we have to be careful that in celebration we don't push ourselves into overtraining or injury, nor neglect our weaknesses.

8 comments:

Taikei Matsushita said...

I've been playing high school football in states and later in Japan. I may have heard "tighten your chin strap!".

Is it an American version of proverb or possibly I made this up?

Boris said...

I'm sure your football coach might have said that to you Taikei, but, as far as I know, it's not really an American proverb - sometimes we say "tighten your bootstraps" meaning "get ready/prepare yourself" though.

Snizshizzle said...

This might be one of the best proverbs I ever heard. In the past I have done Smolov and other Squatting programs but then "celebrated" after completing them and took about 3 months (or more) off from squatting. Needless to say, when the enemy came back (the squat rack), I didn't have my helmet tightened.

Boris said...

I think Smolov has a way of loosening your helmet... I always seem to get injured soon after about 3-4 successful weeks on it.

Taikei Matsushita said...

Yeah, probably it was a proverb I made it up. I replaced Kabuto with football helmet.

RhinoMight said...

This is an awesome proverb for sure :-) Nice post, B.

Franz Snideman said...

"After hitting big gym PRs we have to be careful that in celebration we don't push ourselves into overtraining or injury, nor neglect our weaknesses."

Agreed!I have been so guilty of this in the past it's a joke. The ego in us can absolutely be our worst enemies.

Slower gains are sometimes better over the long run!!!

Great post!

manuelorellanarubio said...

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