Don't Do it If You Can't Give it Your All... Monday, June 24

One of the main differences between Snickers coaching me and my former coach, Junior Mint, is that Snickers is all about training when you "feel like training" whereas Junior Mint was all about "training regardless".  I remember preparing for fights, training seven days a week for 1-2 months prior to fights and often it meant Junior Mint making me train twice a day at the boxing club, heading up to a local mountain for hill training or out to a local fitness center for weight training.  He was an all or nothing kind of coach.  And then I remember when Snickers joined our UP team -- there were obvious clashes between his training mentality and Junior Mint's.  It drove Junior Mint absolute bonkers when Snickers would sleep the day away or not show up for training and, of course, he'd vent to me about it.  

Snickers justifies skipping out on training not because he understands his body needs a rest but because he rather be 100% totally there mentally instead of just going through the motions.  Sometimes a day or two off training is really all you need to bounce back from a training rut too so I totally understand.  Well, today I had one of those ruts -- a moment when I really didn't feel like training.  I had grabbed all my gear -- skipping robe, sandbag gloves, kettlebells -- and then I threw on my sauna suit.  Five minutes into skipping I realized I just wasn't into it.  I wasn't focused but instead just going through the motions of training.  I knew I was out of it when I clued in that many of my G-Boys were standing there staring at me.  

Apparently I hadn't even noticed one of my all-time heart-pumping beats was blasting over the speakers -- Let's Get It On, by DMX.  The guys are used to me by now bust out some silly dance moves at training whenever this particular song comes on.  Sometimes I'll even go so far as to make them dance a chorus or two or I'll kick off my training by playing this song.  

Off went the sauna suit, away went the kettlebells, and back on the shelve went my gloves and robe.  Training was a no go for me today.  

I was quite frustrated with not being in the zone so I opened the club's side door and sat on the stairs.  Snickers came and joined me a bit later and asked me about why I was sitting there.  I've never really not been into training -- training hard is my thing -- but tonight I just seemed overly distracted and struggled to get into the zone.  I've been seeing a lot of success with my new training regime even though it's been less than a week and I've had countless members and friends note the changes in my body.  Tomorrow I'll be weighing in so let's see just how much difference I've really been experiencing but, for tonight, it was a no  go for training for me.