Spirit and strength of it never really comes into people’s minds when it comes to exercise.
When you think of sport, you tend to always think of spirit because its emotion that often decides critical moments in any game.
Take the England versus Wales game last week, when Wales has seemingly won the game in the 75th minute with that Scott Williams try, England came back strong and almost scored a possible try to draw the game (if the resulting tough conversion had gone over).
The reason why they didn’t was because individual welsh players showed incredible spirit, even when a score seemed a certainty.
Leigh Halfpenny, the welsh full back was on the other side of the field as England spun the ball out wide, and official records he took just 6 seconds to get to the other side of the field to initially “stun” david strettle with a match winning tackle, which jonathan davies followed up with rolling him over the wrong side, to keep the ball off the floor.
This showed incredible spirit to get from one side of the other in such an incredibly short time, and won the Triple Crown for Wales.
Its moments like these that professional athletes train for.
Its occasions like these that makes their workouts seem like ultra-intense efforts, and the pain of these workouts worthwhile in the end.
It’s the spirit that drives the champion athlete so succeed even when the chips are down, or it’s a dark weight cold night, and theres 30 sprints up a ridiculously steep hill to do.
Conversely, I have seen rugby players at regional standard which is lower obviously than the international standard, not put the same effort in, and this would explain why one player is reaching the heights with Wales, and the other struggling to maintain a regional contract.
One takes the hard road, the other takes the easy route. The difference is the rewards.
Applying a different sort of spirit and purpose to your own workouts will automatically bring much better results, because you will be giving it more, achieving more workout to workout, and take yourself to a whole new level of conditioning.
Mindset is vital and is often the difference between winning and losing, being in mediocre physical condition or in superior condition.
Your choice!
