To compete at the highest level, your commitment has to be a top priority. This isn't an excuse to be an asshole to everyone and skip every family gathering. If it is a training day – then the cards will fall as they fall.
Look at it this way, going out and partying a couple nights per week will NOT aid in the recovery process. A very simple way this was once described to me was, "Your body can only recover from so much at one time. If you have a heavy squat day on Friday and then go out Friday night and get plastered, your system will begin working on getting all the toxins removed first and then try to recover from your squat session next." While this is an extremely simple explanation and not entirely true (your body will be doing both at the same time) it is partially true and you will not recover as fast as you would have had you not gotten plastered.
I look at this differently. There are VERY FEW genetic freaks and odds are that you aren't one of them. You very well are competing against some of them and they can get away with almost anything and still get better. Life and sport aren't fair, but if you want to even-the-field, then why do anything that wouldn't positively affect your game? I could and still can’t understand how someone can tell me how serious and committed they are and turn right around and tell me about some of the stupid shit they are doing. To me, these people are not committed at all and have no idea what priority and sacrifice mean.
As someone who placed the sport as my number one priority for many years, I can say looking back, I do have some regrets and there were some things I would change. To me, powerlifting was my life and everything else was second. This included work, family, education...you name it. Without getting into details, I would have done a better job of taking care of these things and wouldn't have placed such a large gap between the sport and the rest of the world.
I knew the sport had to be a top priority and was willing to do whatever I needed to do to move forward. I think these things can still be done, while still being responsible in the other areas of your life.
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