WINNERS DON'T CHEAT, CHAMPIONS DON'T LIE!

By Dr. Goldberg

Is "winning" really that important that athletes at every level are all too readily willing to make a deal with the devil and sell their priceless good name, character and integrity for the worthless thrill of an ultimately meaningless victory? 

Bottom line: When you cheat and "win" you've distinguished yourself as a LOSER! You've corrupted your character, corrupted your name, disrespected your opponents and tarnished your sport! And when you LIE TO YOURSELF and others about this, vigorously insisting that you didn't cut corners and instead played by the rules, then you've further cheapened your good name and made a mockery of the spirit of true competition.

Now I'm not just talking about LANCE ARMSTRONG here! This week the 7-time Tour de France "champion" was formally stripped of all of his titles for doping. The mountain of evidence against Armstrong was irrefutable and growing, yet Lance continued to vehemently deny any wrongdoing, insisting that ALL of his accusers were either "crazy," "misinformed," "jealous"  or "disgruntled!" What I'm most sad about here is how Armstrong's corrupt character and willingness to win at any cost has tarnished the name of a wonderful cancer fighter, The Livestrong Foundation. Of course the cancer organization he once founded has now distanced itself from Armstrong's name.

It's funny how everyone wants to be associated with a champion, but not one who cheated in order to get there!

Once you've sold your soul and good name to the devil, there are no refunds! You can't just immediately get it back!!

Sports are supposed to be about battling on a "level" playing field. They are supposed to be about true competition, which is a "seeking together," where equally matched opponents lift each other's level of performance to far greater heights than they could hope to achieve against weaker opponents.In the spirit of "real" competition, your opponent is your partner and someone to respect! He/she is someone who will challenge you, stretching your limits in the process and making you better as an athlete and as a person!

CHEATING IS THE POLAR OPPOSITE OF THIS! There is NO RESPECT for your "opponent-partner" when you cheat! Only massive disrespect! And those who cheat show tremendous disrespect for themselves in their dishonesty! 

In our winning-crazed society, somehow this true spirit of competition has gotten displaced by the compulsion to be #1 at any cost. The process of how you get to your victory has become much less important than that you get there. And as a result, we have junior athletes across all sports cheating, calling balls out, changing their score, lying, doping, etc  all the while their parents "watch," yet allow this corruption to continue!  

WINNING IS NOT THE ONLY THING! In fact, it is NOTHING if you cheat to get there! If you're going to call yourself a champion, a REAL CHAMPION, then you have to be able to look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and know that you got there the RIGHT AND ONLY WAY, with class, integrity and respect for yourself, your opponent and your sport!    

Taken from Dr. Goldberg’s BLOG found on his website at www.competitivedge.com

How to Push Past the Pain, as the Champions Do

By GINA KOLATA

Published: October 18, 2010 www.nytimes.com

My son, Stefan, was running in a half marathon in Philadelphia last month when he heard someone coming up behind him, breathing hard.

To his surprise, it was an elite runner, Kim Smith, a blond waif from New Zealand. She has broken her country’s records in shorter distances and now she’s running half marathons. She ran the London marathon last spring and will run the New York marathon next month.

That day, Ms. Smith seemed to be struggling. Her breathing was labored and she had saliva all over her face. But somehow she kept up, finishing just behind Stefan and coming in fifth with a time of 1:08:39.

And that is one of the secrets of elite athletes, said Mary Wittenberg, president and chief executive of the New York Road Runners, the group that puts on the ING New York City Marathon. They can keep going at a level of effort that seems impossible to maintain.

“Mental tenacity — and the ability to manage and even thrive on and push through pain — is a key segregator between the mortals and immortals in running,” Ms. Wittenberg said.

You can see it in the saliva-coated faces of the top runners in the New York marathon, Ms. Wittenberg added.

“We have towels at marathon finish to wipe away the spit on the winners’ faces,” she said. “Our creative team sometimes has to airbrush it off race photos that we want to use for ad campaigns.”

Tom Fleming, who coaches Stefan and me, agrees. A two-time winner of the New York marathon and a distance runner who was ranked fourth in the world, he says there’s a reason he was so fast.

“I was given a body that could train every single day.” Tom said, “and a mind, a mentality, that believed that if I trained every day — and I could train every day — I’ll beat you.”

“The mentality was I will do whatever it takes to win,” he added. “I was totally willing to have the worst pain. I was totally willing to do whatever it takes to win the race.”

But the question is, how do they do it? Can you train yourself to run, cycle, swim or do another sport at the edge of your body’s limits, or is that something that a few are born with, part of what makes them elites?

Sports doctors who have looked into the question say that, at the very least, most people could do a lot better if they knew what it took to do their best.

“Absolutely,” said Dr. Jeroen Swart, a sports medicine physician, exercise physiologist and champion cross-country mountain biker who works at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa.

“Some think elite athletes have an easy time of it,” Dr. Swart said in a telephone interview. Nothing could be further from the truth.

And as athletes improve — getting faster and beating their own records — “it never gets any easier,” Dr. Swart said. “You hurt just as much.”

But, he added, “Knowing how to accept that allows people to improve their performance.”

One trick is to try a course before racing it. In one study, Dr. Swart told trained cyclists to ride as hard as they could over a 40-kilometer course. The more familiar they got with the course, the faster they rode, even though — to their minds — it felt as if they were putting out maximal effort on every attempt.

Then Dr. Swart and his colleagues asked the cyclists to ride the course with all-out effort, but withheld information about how far they’d gone and how far they had to go. Subconsciously, the cyclists held back the most in this attempt, leaving some energy in reserve.

That is why elite runners will examine a course, running it before they race it. That is why Lance Armstrong trained for the grueling Tour de France stage on l’Alpe d’Huez by riding up the mountain over and over again.

“You are learning exactly how to pace yourself,” Dr. Swart said.

Another performance trick during competitions is association, the act of concentrating intensely on the very act of running or cycling, or whatever your sport is, said John S. Raglin, a sports psychologist at Indiana University.

In studies of college runners, he found that less accomplished athletes tended to dissociate, to think of something other than their running to distract themselves.

“Sometimes dissociation allows runners to speed up, because they are not attending to their pain and effort,” he said. “But what often happens is they hit a sort of physiological wall that forces them to slow down, so they end up racing inefficiently in a sort of oscillating pace.” But association, Dr. Raglin says, is difficult, which may be why most don’t do it.

Dr. Swart says he sees that in cycling, too.

“Our hypothesis is that elite athletes are able to motivate themselves continuously and are able to run the gantlet between pushing too hard — and failing to finish — and underperforming,” Dr. Swart said.

To find this motivation, the athletes must resist the feeling that they are too tired and have to slow down, he added. Instead, they have to concentrate on increasing the intensity of their effort. That, Dr. Swart said, takes “mental strength,” but “allows them to perform close to their maximal ability.”

Dr. Swart said he did this himself, but it took experience and practice to get it right. There were many races, he said, when “I pushed myself beyond my abilities and had to withdraw, as I was completely exhausted.”

Finally, with more experience, Dr. Swart became South Africa’s cross-country mountain biking champion in 2002.

Some people focus by going into a trancelike state, blocking out distractions. Others, like Dr. Swart, have a different method: He knows what he is capable of and which competitors he can beat, and keeps them in his sight, not allowing himself to fall back.

“I just hate to lose,” Dr. Swart said. “I would tell myself I was the best, and then have to prove it.”

Kim Smith has a similar strategy.

“I don’t want to let the other girls get too far ahead of me,” she said in a telephone interview. “I pretty much try and focus really hard on the person in front of me.”

And while she tied her success to having “some sort of talent toward running,” Ms. Smith added that there were “a lot of people out there who were probably just as talented. You have to be talented, and you have to have the ability to push yourself through pain.”

And, yes, she does get saliva all over her face.

“It’s not a pretty sport,” Ms. Smith said. “You are not looking good at the end.”

As for the race she ran with my son, she said: “I’m sorry if I spit all over Stefan.” (She didn’t, Stefan said.)

Reprinted from The New York Times

10 Swimmer Goals for 2013

1/3/2013

BY MIKE GUSTAFSON//CORRESPONDENT

A friend of mine does not make New Year’s Resolutions. “Studies say that most New Year’s Resolutions are broken after a few weeks,” she told me. “So, instead, I make New Year’s Goals.”

The New Year is a perfect opportunity to better yourself or accomplish something you’d like to do, no matter if you label these “Resolutions” or “Goals” or “Happy Fun 2013 Opportunities.” If you’re a swimmer who practices one-handed breaststroke turns, doesn’t listen to your coach, frowns, complains, or cuts yardage during warm-ups and warm-downs, you might still get best times at the end of the season, but imagine if you did the little things right? How fast would you be then? How much more enjoyable would the entire swimming season be? The commencement of a new year is a great excuse to change some of these things, focus on self-improvement, and become a better swimmer…

Here are some New Year’s Resolutions/Goals/Happy Fun 2013 Opportunities for swimmers:

10. Embrace cold water.
"Ahhhh." That’s the trick. Instead of staring 10 minutes at the cold, deep puddle of blue, anguishing how cold the water will be when you dive in, instead, audibly sigh, like you’re entering a nice warm hot tub, “Ahhhhhhhh.” Then leap in, and do it again. “Ohhhh that’s the good stuff.” Embrace that cold water. You’ll be shocked how your practices improve with this simple trick. During the first 100 of warm-ups, I imagine I’m somewhere on the Equator and jumping into this 75-degree-pool is the only way to cool off. Once this becomes habit, you’ll soon be leaping into freezing pools with a smile, and confused onlookers will be standing there, ogling at you, “That guy is so weird, he’s a cold water fiend.”

9. Listen to your coach, especially during taper.
Swimming is largely an individualistic sport. Swimmers take pride in their bodies, training, and tapers. This individualistic pride can sometimes backfire. Swimmers don’t know everything about swimming. There’s a reason you have a swim coach: Most likely, he or she knows more about the nuances of the sport than you. Listen to them. Especially during taper. Once, I thought my coach was leading me astray during taper. We were practicing harder than I thought we should have been. I had a few terrible practices, and then complained in the showers. An older, wiser teammate sternly approached me, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You think you do, but you don’t. You have to trust our coach. This taper will work for the season and training we just did.” I took his advice, embraced our coach’s practices, and had a great taper and dropped lifetime bests. I never imagined such an aggressive taper would work, because that was not what I was used to – but it did. Listen to your coach. Simple to do, but some swimmers don’t.

8. Understand every practice.
In the above point, I advocated listening to your coach. However, you must also ask your coach questions if you don’t understand something. There’s nothing wrong with asking questions if you ask to acquire knowledge (and not to complain, or be sarcastically indignant.) Every set -- and every yard -- should have a point. Swimming is like nutrition. There is no room for junk food. So if you don’t understand why you’re doing a particular set, ask your coach. He or she should explain to you the exact purpose of the particular set or drill or exercise. (And that explanation should be beyond, “Because I said so.”) Coaches: swimming is a two-way street. If you want a team of robots who do exactly what you say, you’re not helping your swimmers grow. Swimmers need to understand exactly why they’re doing certain things. If they do, they’ll embrace your coaching more, and you’ll see better practices.

7. Stop comparing yourself to others.
My father used to tell me, “Only worry about what you can control.” Easy to say, hard to do. Stop worrying about so-and-so from across the state who is a 13-year-old prodigy breaking every record. Don’t stress about the person in the lane next to you standing 6’8’’ and taking out a 400 IM under world-record pace. Swim your own race. Practice to better yourself. Unless you’re Michael Phelps, there will always, always, be someone faster than you. Once you stop looking around at others, you’ll focus squarely on yourself, and that’s when true self-improvement comes.

6. Work on your weakest part.
You’re only as strong as your weakest link. Work on the weakest aspect of your swimming. If you have terrible turns, spend extra time after practice to work on them. If you are a terrible kicker, tell your coach you’d really like to spend time kicking. Identify a weak part of your stroke or event, and improve on that. Sounds simple, but I can’t tell you how many swimmers blindly train with no identification of the weakest part of their swimming. When I swam, I always died in the last 100 of my 400 IM. So my coach spent an entire summer giving me long, painful, difficult distance freestyle sets. But it worked. The next season, the last 100 – which was once my weakness – became my strongest ally in my 400 IM. Improving a weakness takes work, but the payoff is worth it.

5. Jump into the pool with enthusiasm.
The more enthusiastically you (safely) jump into the pool, the better your practice will be. This is another one of those tricks that, with time and practice, becomes habit. If you’re the type of swimmer who is last in the water, who spends 10 minutes “fixing” your goggles before practice, adjusting your cap, jogging back to the bathroom, missing warm-ups, worrying about the next two hours, instead try just jumping into the pool with enthusiasm. Be first in the water. It’ll do wonders for your mentality and workout.

4. Stop the before-bed iPhone/Facebook/Twitter/Email usage.
Swimmers are constantly sleep-deprived. Early mornings, long workouts, and huge time commitments mean that swimmers’ schedules are packed. Don’t waste your time checking your phone before bed, playing Words With Friends for an hour every night. A coach once told me your body rests best between 10pm and 2am. Make it a goal to be in bed by 10pm and not check your phone or email or computer before bedtime. You’ll sleep sooner, rest better, and wake up more refreshed.

3. Compliment yourself.
Michael Jordan used to positively self-talk himself to success. Do the same. Tell yourself, “That was a great set” or “You’re a phenomenal swimmer, Mike!” These little internal comments, added up over time, are like a piggy bank of confidence. Make small little deposits throughout your day, and you’ll see your confidence skyrocket. It might sound silly, but it works. Conversely, using the confidence piggy bank theory, if you say negative things to yourself, you deplete your “confidence bank.” Comments like, “You’re going to lose, you’re not very fast, you’re just not a good swimmer” will hurt you. So if you catch yourself saying things like this, tell yourself something positive. With practice, you’ll start to believe it.

2. Smile.
Studies have been released that even if you force yourself to smile, you become happier. There’s just something to smiling. And if you watched Missy Franklin and the rest of the “Smiley Club” this summer, you know happy swimmers are fast swimmers. Even simply forcing yourself to smile, scientifically, improves your mood. When you’re having fun, smiling, and enjoying yourself, you’ll enjoy the process, and likely, you’ll swim faster.

1. Make one small goal a day.
Running a marathon can be daunting. 26.2 miles? Yikes. But if you just concentrate on the first step, then the step after that first step, than the next step after that, eventually, you’ll get there. Make small, easy-to-accomplish daily goals. Actively choose one small thing to work on every practice, like a specific turn, pullout, or stroke technique. This especially works if you are having a bad practice. Don’t give up on the whole practice if you’re not swimming well. Don’t quit if you’re just not mentally into it. Instead, pick one thing – one specific thing – to focus on. You’ll feel more accomplished and you’ll improve, step-by-step. Remember swimmers: the sport of swimming is like a marathon. It’s a long, arduous journey. You might focus on the end-of-season best times and crossing that finish line, but the real magic is in the journey itself. What difference does finishing a marathon make if you took a shortcut to get there? Make one small goal every day. Focus on the journey. Small, little improvements, over 26.2 miles (or an entire swim season), will make all the difference.

Taken from www.usaswimming.org