You may have heard or read some variation of the following statement, “The only person you have to worry about beating today is the person you beat yesterday – yourself.” Sometimes it’s “The only person you have to worry about beating today is the person looking back at you in the mirror”, and I’ve even seen “The only person you have to beat today is the person you gave in to yesterday…yourself.” The bottom line is this. Real competitors, REAL champions ALWAYS look within to see what they can draw out of themselves. “How much more can I go?” “What else can I do to better myself?” “Can I push harder? Get one more rep? Go 5 more minutes on cardio? Tighten up my foods a bit more?” “What do I have to work on to make ME better?”
I was helping a competitor with his mandatories and ¼-turns yesterday. I pushed him hard.
“C’mon…bring those quads in! Drop your hips and pull in your hip flexors and Sartorius muscle! Pull your glutes in! ROTATE!”
After several minutes he softly replied, “Sorry Dave, I did legs this morning and they’re tired…”
I replied, “Dude, seriously? That’s the best time TO pose…when they’re tired, heck, when YOU”RE tired! If you can build your conditioning and ability to hold your poses when you’re exhausted and de-carbed, imagine how easy this’ll be when you’re fully carbed up and had a couple of days of rest! See that sign over the mirror? What does it say?”
He looked up. “Practice doesn’t make perfect. PERFECT practice makes perfect.” He nodded.
“Exactly! You practice imperfectly, you’ll perform imperfectly, whether it be during your mandatories, ¼-turns, presentation, routine, anything! You CANNOT put a half-assed effort into posing and expect to be perfect come game day. The body remembers its strongest habit strength. That’s what it will naturally revert to when on automatic. You cannot recall what you don’t know. You can’t execute what you haven’t practiced. You wanna pose perfectly onstage? THAT. STARTS. HERE. You have a show in a couple of weeks. Do you have your routine down?”
“Uhhh…mostly….”
“MOSTLY??? What the hell is ‘MOSTLY’? You’re two weeks out from your show, you’re exhausted, and at the point when you feel your worst you’re still working on your routine?? Lemme tell you what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna walk out onstage, halfway remember your routine, look up to access memory, look down because you’ve forgotten something, stop, regroup, and ‘tell’ the world “I don’t know my routine and where I’m at” through your facial expressions and actions……is that what you want?”
“No…”
Dude, I edit my music at 12 weeks out, listen to it over-n-over-n-over for a week or two until I’m dreaming it, spend a week choreographing the routine, making sure it’s EXACTLY how I envisioned and wanted it, and then every single morning after my hour of cardio, I’d run through it a minimum of 5 times. This is at 8-10 weeks out. Starting 4 weeks out I run through it twice a day for 5 times each. Two weeks out I make it three times a day 5 times each. By then it doesn’t matter how I feel or how tired I am. I’m on automatic. Cardio. Posing. Clockwork. THAT’S how I’ve won over 50 Best Poser awards during my career. I’m willing to do the work each and every day. Do you want your legs to fade onstage? Keep posing soft. I guarantee they’ll fade, or you’ll shake uncontrollably because they exhaust out. Be tired. And pose harder. Let them hurt. And Pose HARDER. Reach the point to where you’re hating what you’re doing. AND POSE HARDER! Because this is no one’s challenge but yours.”
This principle applies to all divisions in our sport. You wanna be your best and do your best? You’ve gotta THINK AND TRAIN like the best! Find out what the best are doing and duplicate it. Don’t hate. Appreciate!! Seek out that person who WON’T let you off the hook because you’re tired. Seek out that coach who will challenge you to dig deeper, and pull something out of you YOU didn’t know existed.
“You’ve got to force your mind to stay in the moment” Dawn Staley, South Carolina Head Basketball Coach. This is so true in our profession. You may want to take a break, skip a day, or go less hard, but now is not the time to do that. Right now, with 5 weeks to go until the E-Cup, you have to dig deeper. You’ve got to go to ‘that place’ where few are willing to go. That means doing today what needs to be done. That means doing what others won’t. That means only one thing in my mind. Be Perfect Today.
Doc
