Monday, August 29, 2011

You Can't Build A Reserve If You Constantly Empty The Tank

Yes, it's true that you have to spend money to make money, but you'll never save up a million dollars if you are constantly running into the red.

It's also true that, in training, if you are constantly "emptying the tank" you will run out of gas and likely break yourself.

I know many who think that if you aren't nervous going to the gym, then you aren't training hard enough. Every session must be a battle. The brutal truth is that those people have more testosterone than brains and only some combination of youth, drugs, talent, inexperience, and dumb luck have kept them in the game this long. They are often the same people that believe that there is no such thing as overtraining, only under-recovery (and/or under-eating).

8 comments:

Petr said...

Funny :), I think about htis very subject for weeks now. Been there, done this, totally agree. But I guess it's a experience thing - you have to try it to understand it or be wise enough to prevent it at the first place.
I have to say I'm bit jealous that people could work SO hard with so much volume sometimes. And I'm not. But on the other hand, I've stopped to compare myself with anybody else than myself.
I guess I'm just getting older :)

Boris said...

I was meaning to write about this at some point - who knows when I'll get around to it, but what you're getting at (IMO) is this:

How you assess risk changes with age (and experience).

Absolutely.

Anonymous said...

And this is straight defamation: "only some combination of youth, drugs, talent, inexperience, and dumb luck have kept them in the game this long".

Sorry, buddy, the he's-a-genetic-freak and/or he's-on-steroids refrain in the interwebs is starting to sound more and more like bleating.

Say someone queried your very fine million pound squatting achievement. When he says "It can't be done", he means "I won't do what it takes to do that, but I'll rationalise away Boris' efforts by saying he's a juiced up freak of nature. No fair.

Boris said...

I think you missed the "...in training" part.

Bustin' Ass and Kickin' Ass are two different things. If you "bust ass" all the time, you won't kick any ass except your own.

Anonymous said...

"Overtraining" necessarily refers to training, so, no I didn't miss the "in training part".

The Broz/Bulgarian point - they are the ones who say there's no such thing as overtraining - is that one must train SUPER HARD ALL THE TIME: daily max and beyond, up to multiple times a day, 365 days a year. I don't know whether you'd call that "bustin' ass" or "kicking ass" but it straight out contradicts your point and they have the results to prove it.

It may be - I don't know - spiritually healthy? to follow what you recommend, but it is not the way to excellence of performance.

Boris said...

"It may be - I don't know - spiritually healthy? to follow what you recommend, but it is not the way to excellence of performance."

Really? I've known a lot of elite athletes over the years and none of them were the hardest workers. In fact, some of them were even called lazy by their teammates. They were certainly intelligent workers - they did what they had to do and not much more.

Boris said...

Fwiw, [some] people have been saying there's no such thing as overtraining for decades.

Anonymous said...

Boris have some valid points here.