August 3, 2016
I love Track & Field. Not only was it my favorite sport growing up, but the breadth of events and variety of athleticism is truly incredible. The last few weeks I’ve enjoyed going home and watching the Track & Field competitions and this year was truly struck by Ashton Eaton’s second consecutive Olympic gold medal in the Men’s Decathlon. It struck me how the announcers dubbed Eaton as “The World’s Greatest Athlete.” At such an event with all the world’s greatest athletes, a title like that gets your attention.
The Decathlon has been viewed historically as the pinnacle of athleticism because it combines the scores of the following 10 different track & field events:
If you look at that list it’s incredible the range of skills on display from strength, explosive speed, rotating power and stamina you need to compete at an international level. It’s also incredible to think that the athletes completed the above list at the games in just two back to back days.
I am inspired by the variety of movements displayed through this event. It’s what inspires us in Gymnazo when we program. We don’t just want to train our athletes to be the best in one plane of motion or a predominant set of movements, we want to train athletes to be well-rounded. We want Eatons not Bolts.
What was fascinating to watch was that Eaton didn’t have to rank first place in each event to win overall. It was the combined score of each event that earned him the title. This is more similar to life.
Whether at work, at home or in the gym, we don’t need to be the very best in all challenges life presents us. We strive to be well-rounded at the end of our time, to combine all our little wins into one big over arching win in life. So we encourage you not to lose sight of all the ways you display dedication, achieve goals, mend relationships and care for the community around you.
May you count each win in life, at work, with your families and of course let us help you count them in your workouts. Life is more like a very long decathlon and each day we have the opportunity to accomplish little successes that in hindsight add up to huge wins in life.
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