Do You Train or Do You Just Say You Train? (RANT!)

-August 10th, 2012-

Maybe I’m grumpy today because my lacrosse team, the Owen Sound North Stars, are down 2-0 in our best of 7 series in the Ontario Finals.

More likely it’s because I broke the attachment to trim my playoff beard and it’s getting pretty out of control (but has a great mustache just waiting in the wings to emerge when needed!).

Either way, over the last few days I have realized there are 2 different types of  players that come to me for help with their lacrosse training..

These players couldn’t be more different, and it doesn’t take long for me to see the true nature of the player.

1. Athletes with a desire to be the best player they can possibly be.

• This player listens to my instructions.
• This player buys into the system.
• This player gives me 100% all the time
• This player doesn’t miss workouts regularly (illness/injury/vacation not withstanding)

2. Athletes who think they have the desire to be the best player they can possibly be.

• This player prefers to still do things their way
• This player’s efforts are hit and miss with every workout
• This player misses workouts or skips entire weeks at a time
• This player doesn’t follow the plan I develop for their training on their own

What upsets me about these 2 different types of lacrosse players is that at the end of our time training together both will go back to their respective teams and say they trained with me.

Athlete 2 did not train with me. Athlete 2 used me to trick themselves into thinking they did everything they could to improve.

Luckily for me the great majority of players I train are Athlete 1, because I can’t stand dealing with Athlete 2.

Athlete 2 is wasting not only their time and money, but my time as well.

I don’t create training programs in a nice Excel file so that we can monitor progress for them to never keep track of any weights they use. Athlete 1 will return to me with their progress easily noted.

I don’t take the time to show up prepared for a great training session only to hear excuse after excuse as to why they don’t want to do a certain exercise. Athlete 1 will say they hate the same exercise, then immediately give their everything on every rep of that exercise next set.

I don’t want to hear the many reasons why you have to miss every other workout. Athlete 1 shows up sick, with a bad ankle, to the point I have to prescribe rest.

You aren’t fooling me, just yourself.

Hopefully if you’re reading this you know which athlete you are.

You either have the desire, or you are tricking yourself into thinking you have the desire.

P.S. NLL MVP Dan Dawson is Athlete 1 to the extreme! Enter on the right of the page and check out his Strength Training Program and see if you have the desire to complete a program like that without skipping a workout and having to workout when you are sore and tired.

Tags: lacrosse training, Rant