Strengthen the Chain

The old saying about weak links in a chain is the truth, we all recognize that. The hard part is setting ego aside and working those weak links.

At the CK-FMS workshop last weekend Gray Cook talked about ignoring weak links as being analogous to driving over a pothole at a high speed. If you go through it fast enough, you barely notice it, but it is still there, waiting to break. This way of thinking, coupled with his assement of my right knee: "You're about a year out from a scope if you don't fix it...", has changed my approach in my own training quite a bit.

Over the course of the weekend much was said about how training is not meant to be entertainment (Although I do find it to be just that) and that as professionals we should give our clients what they need for improvement, not what they think they want for entertainment.

Of course I must extend this to myself.

So today's perscription for me: Get-ups, slow and controlled, pausing in different spots, working back and forth in those spots, finding depth. I am reminded that mastery is simply finding depth in the practice of the basics.

It's humbling to drop back in weight and do Get-ups perfectly each and every rep, pausing in the weak parts, hanging out there, finding the exact alignment required to stimulate the desired nervous system response. Today I rolled around in the park with a 16kg kettlebell doing just that. Just because I can do them heavier doesn't mean I should.

My priority number one in training at this time is strengthening my weak links, particularly my right knee and wrist. I want my chain to be unbreakable.