I've made some poor decisions as of late and although I can't go back and change them, I am pissed because I know better. This has put me in a bad mood. On top of this today was hot. Not mid August hot but hot as hell for Ohio in May. I was pissed off all day and have been stressed to the max. So what relieves stress, hard ass training.
I started with 6'' block pulls. I got to 500x5 and my hamstring was pulling really hard. I shut it down and this pissed me off even more.
I went to Goodmornings with Yoke bar supersetted with seated hip abductors. These went well but I was still really pissed.
I did pullthroughs and ab pulldowns and then I realized I was running out of time, so I went to conditioning.
I haven't been conditioning and need to start. So I picked 125lb sandbag for 2 shoulders ea shoulder, 25yard walk with bag in bearhug and dragging the bag back backwards.
This sucked. It was as many rounds as possible in 7 min. I got 4 rounds. I am fat and out of shape so I was happy with this and I laid on the ground for about 5min when I was done.
Then my football players came in a few hours later. They usually do Lateral Alactic conditioning work on Thursday and it's hard so they aren't huge fans. So when they came in I told them they didn't have it. They were happy until I told them that they had to do what I did for conditioning and if they didn't beat my rounds, they had to do it twice.
By the time they got to The Spot Athletics it was a solid 15 degrees hotter in the gym than when I did it. They did more volume in their workout but they are 17/18yrs old and in great shape so this shouldn't have been that hard for them to beat me.
Well one of the athletes was a little sick and he started to really struggle after the second round. He misjudged one of the shoulders and I told him it didn't count. He kicked the bag and said he was done after being bent over for a few seconds. I told him in a voice that only few ever hear, "he was not done and there is no quitting in this gym", he was walking away and I got in front of him. He got the point and went back to the bag and beat my rounds.
We had them do the conditioning, not because it is football specific, not because it's was working the proper energy systems, but because they need to learn to push past mental limits. All athletes need this from time to time to remind them that limits are far beyond what is in our head. If we do this periodically then we create athletes who have no limits and will push till their bodies fail and not their minds. This is a learning process that creates winners.
I have trained this athlete for 3 years. Since he was 14years old. I love this kid and would do anything for him. I've known his dad since the kid was 5years old. To me he is more like family than just another athlete and that is what allows me to know how to push him to his brink and further.
When we were done Nic came up and said he thought that I was going to fight with the athlete. I don't know what would have happened if he would have refused to go back to the bag, but I know that he didn't want to find out, so he went back to the bag and finished like a man.