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Monday, September 26, 2011

Consitency

When i originally sat down a couple of years ago to try to figure out what was required for one to be a successful endurance athlete i came up with three things - confidence, a knowledge of suffering, and will. A lot of time was not on the list.  I was reminded of the issue of time last night as i watched the beginning of an infomercial on some '10 minute workout' craze by the makers of P90X. 

Its amazing how well this stuff sells - a package of information that doesn't contain anything new:  Work out really hard.  Be consistent.  you will see results.  This is like a law of nature.  Action and reaction.  Nothing more.  The motivational speaker may change.  Artwork on the box may change.  the pumping beat designed to somehow get you through the pain may change.  But the message doesn't, because it can't.  There's nothing more and nothing less.

But of course there's still an epidemic of obesity, so whats going on?  come on - 10 minutes a day people.  But what they don't tell you in the sales pitch is that for alot of people its 10 minutes too tough.  it's 10 minutes of extreme discomfort.  There are lots of ways people could improve thier lives in 10 minutes a day.  10 minutes of mediation.  10 minutes of gorging on fruits and vegetables (preferably split into 3 minute chunks and put before every meal).  10 minutes of stretching.  10 minutes of listening to your spouse.  10 minutes of journaling.  We're creatures of habit though, and this is the hurdle that is simply too high to overcome for most people who set out to make any change, even a 10 minute one. 

But 10 minutes is certainly better than 60 - people don't even try to add 60 minutes of exercise to their day - that sort of idea doesn't even register as a real possibility in concsiousness - it doesn't stand a chance.  But 10 minutes gets people to try.  And some succeed.  Its like some human form of quantum tunnelling - some small probability of folks can actually change their lives when the energy barrier is really too high, but just by a little bit.

Alright, i'm digressing.  The point of all of this was to mention how important consistency is for success any sort of athletic training program.  and consistency doesn't happen (or doesn't happen consistently (:  ) when there are too many competing needs that can't all be met.  this is why a low volume program has a better chance to get you where you want to be - because maybe, just maybe, you can be consistent with it. 

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