Do not take a break from athletics.
I made the mistake of not taking my training seriously throughout college and suffered for it.
Cross country and track were the my sports in high school. I was in great cardiovascular shape but I was skinny and starved for muscle. I loved Bruce Lee and knew of Muhammed Ali, Conor McGregor, and other boxers, but I was not nearly the combat sports savant I am now. They were something I was incredibly intrigued by but did not act on despite wrestling for over 5 years as a child.
In my freshman year of college, I struck up the nerve to try out for the boxing club. My cardio base was a HUGE advantage. It was the reason I passed the grueling tryout. Most kids had dropped out.
I fell in love with combat sports.
Even though I never competed, I LOVED training. I was small but fucking shredded. I felt like an absolute beast. Fast, lean, and mean. I developed competent hand speed and I felt like a world beater despite not being able to pull the trigger in sparring (see this article: ). It was fucking exhilarating.
Then I let it all go to shit.
I suffered from a poor work ethic and fried dopamine receptors. I constantly allowed “schoolwork” to get in the way of my training. I made excuses for myself that I didn’t have time after practice to eat dinner, do my schoolwork, shower.
I had MORE than enough time throughout the day to get work done and eat dinner after practice. I took the easy way out and stopped going to boxing my sophomore year.
What a fucking loser I was.
I SHOULD have kept boxing. I started delving into MMA my sophomore year and I wasn’t even training! I would be a weapon if I had kept training, and I lament the fact that I cut boxing out of my life, and the same is true of wrestling at a young age.
Thank God I am not that kind of person anymore. I am on the path. Do not make the same mistake I did. Movement is MEDICINE!
Whether you are in high school, college, the work force, or an old freaking man, you should never stop moving, and you should seek to move in as many ways as possible.
This past year I’ve committed to my physical health in a way that I haven’t before. I always FELT committed, but now realize I wasn’t doing nearly enough. Lifting like a madman, a year of submission grappling, and training to dunk: My volume is higher than ever. Playing sports (volleyball, baseball, and basketball) and swimming have also been impromptu additions to my routine. The more modalities of movement I incorporate, the more I understand my body.
I’ll start any sport practice the same way: I’ll throw on a podcast or some music. I repeat the movement, and the voices from my phone or speaker grow more distracting by the second.
The obsession to master the movement overrides my child-like need to feel entertained. Once the distractions are gone, I can hear what my body is trying to tell me.
When I’m swimming underwater for one breath, I start realizing how much energy I’m wasting by not completely extending my arms. Short, bent levers don’t produce nearly as much force as long straight ones. Same holds true for punch power.
When I’m hitting a baseball, I can see that I hit too straight on where the ball is, rather than bringing the bat up from below and to hit where the ball will be.
When I’m approach jumping a hoop for dunk training, I feel my back tighten and my body seize up in anticipation for the big jump. Once recognized, I focus on breathing into my ribcage and breathe out all the tension in my muscles. Make it come naturally. Stay loose so I can flow between positions with ease. This holds true for fighting, and especially my submission grappling. I am my most athletic when I flow, so why impede that? Once I release the tension I’m holding physically and mentally, I am unburdened. I float when I jump, attempting to jump past the hoop rather than to it.
Release the tension to realize you can exceed your goal, rather than meet it. Unlock the child again. The one who played every sport without fear of failure. The one who moves for the sake of it. The one who is in touch with his own body so much that playing any sport doable, if not natural.
From simply a year of committed training while trying new movement patterns, I feel like I am actually listening to my body for the first time since my freshman year of college. I’ve picked a few movements I want to get better at for fun (hitting a baseball, dunking + layups, underwater swimming), and am slowly trying to perfect them while my main focus remains on submission grappling, lifting heavier, and dunking.
Play sports, play every freaking sport for that matter. The more ways in which your body moves, the more ways in which you will adapt to those movements. Not only will you see significant physical benefits from doing so, but learning the technique behind a movement pattern that you ENJOY is both fulfilling and exhilarating. Moving in more ways will also inform your primary goals as well. My tension during jumps gave insight that I might not have had when rolling. Learning to relax without air and focus on swimming underwater allowed me to realize something more about striking, and experience consequence from not executing something correctly.
If you have stopped engaging in athletics for any reason, or are going off to college, start adding in sports to your training. Even if its rec sports in college, or a local rec team in your town. The more ways you move, the more you find out about your current goals, self, and body.
As Socrates said:
“No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.”
So go out and move, your body will thank you for it.
