At the end of 2009 Gant had a solid idea to force some of you to commit to…something. He called it “Letter of Intent Day”, and it was supposed to incite some of you to figure out what your training goals were for the near future (first half of the year at least). A lot of you responded with quasi-vague goals that sorta pissed me off. Go to the bottom of this post and read Gant’s goals for 2010 (for good measure, read the second post too). His goals were specific to the point that there was no question whether or not he would accomplish them or not. He didn’t set a time line for his annual goals (the goals were varied to the point where they couldn’t all be done at once), but most of you should.
Also notice how the emphasis is on competition. Lifting in your local gym or your garage is okay, but it doesn’t place demands on you the way that competition does. It requires that you funnel your training into a single event that is judged by officials who have a standardized way of critiquing you. Even if you were to compete in mountain biking (one of Gant’s goals last year), you would still be put in a vulnerable position where you are competing against other people…for real. Right before the starting gun you will feel a surge of adrenaline and increased heart rate whether you are about to start pedaling, squatting, or running. Do yourself a favor and commit to some kind of competition related goal this year. How you place is irrelevant; it’s how you perform under duress and how you improve. Gym PR’s are not the same thing as meet PR’s. It’s time that you learned why.
Post your specific goals to the comments. I don’t care about hearing that you want to squat 400 or 500 pounds this year — tell me what you plan on doing in a meet. Training is irrelevant — by definition it implies it’s simply the process of working towards an end goal.
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena…who strives…who spends himself…and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
–Teddy Roosevelt