Is Your Season Cancelled Because of COVID-19?
I just want to give my thoughts on athletic seasons being canceled in different sports, such as the CFL, university, etc, due to COVID-19.
It’s very unfortunate because a lot of athletes thrive on that competition. They thrive on that preparation to compete and for them to be not playing their sport because of the unfortunate situation that was going on with COVID-19, it’s tough. It’s heartbreaking. I understand that. And what am I about to say, I’m not going to minimize that feeling, but the way I look at it is you have to shift that into a positive. This is from the heart. Everyone has something they need to work on. Every athlete. What you have to do is utilize that opportunity to address your weaknesses, whatever those weaknesses may be.
I understand that gyms may be closed, certain facilities that you need to use may be closed, but there is something you can definitely do to help assist your weaknesses. A hundred percent, when this COVID-19 pandemic hit and we had the closed zone, I told all my athletes and clients, Hey, let’s do this. Let’s do push-ups every day. Then I got an idea to do a Herschel Walker challenge.
The reason the Herschel Walker challenge came up because when I was a young man, I would go to the library and read sports illustrated in Georgia Bulldogs, Herschel Walker article. I’ll never forget this guy did a thousand or two thousand pushups a day. That stuck out to me and to this day, that is my foundation. So what I did was just use that simple method of just doing push-ups every day. Some athletes did a hundred, some did 500, and so on. I think I did 300 to 400 a day for two or three months. We changed into warrior push-ups or whatever it may.
The main message is you have to pay attention to what your needs are, utilizing the tools, what you have access to. There’s a lot of athletes around the world where I’ve traveled that they don’t have access to much, they’re training in the dirt. There’s no excuses. You don’t need the most fanciest tools to dominate. What you need to do is focus, work hard, dig in.
I understand it’s mentally tough. One of the reasons is because we have everything at our fingertips, everything we have an access to. My belief, some of the best athletes around the world are built in the toughest conditions.
When I went to Dominican Republic for a international competition, I seen kids with sticks in the field, in the park, hitting baseballs. You understand? It was amazing. I was watching these little kids, older kids with not a baseball bat, but sticks, just hitting baseball in the Dominican Republic. From far as I know, there’s tons of amazing baseball players that come from the Dominican Republic. I was in Cuba, the training hall, this my gym is a palace compared to their national training center and they have some of the best athletes wrestling, weightlifting in the world, from Cuba.
So I go back to the point is I am not diminishing the fact that you want to compete, but what I do want to emphasize is for the athletes get better. It’s mentally tough, I understand. Maybe training the stresses of the world, the unknown, the uncertainty and so on and so forth, but that is what’s going to separate you from the rest. Either you take this time to get better elevate or at least stay in shape, so there’s no excuses to miss training.
If anything, you train more. And this is not coming from a financial situation, it’s just for you to be mentally strong, which in turn will make you physically strong, ’cause some of the best athletes I know it’s not all about physicality, it’s about what’s up here—mentally.
The grit to dig deep, that is key when it counts. That’s what you need right now is a time to dig deep. You have to find that grit, find that rhythm every day, do something that’s going to contribute to you being a better athlete.
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