You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.
– Chuck Yeager
Risk is a topic that we all need to face. It relates to every aspect of our lives. This particular piece is about risk in training. In every activity there is risk, and of course training is no exception. There is risk of failure, there is risk of injury (or worse), and there even is risk of success. Risk of failure and risk of success both have large psychological components that can affect our egos in many negative ways. Risk of injury of course affects our bodies, and in some cases our minds as well. Trust me that being laid up for months and unable to train can certainly play tricks upstairs.
We all have various tolerances for risk. There are many ways of managing and mitigating risk, but this article is just going to focus on the reality of risk. You have all heard the catch-phrases… nothing ventured, nothing gained; no pain, no gain; you pays the man your money and you takes your chances…etc. And that’s all very true as far as it goes. At the end of the day however (or maybe better at the beginning of the day) you need to decide if the reward is going to be worth the risk.
Some of the hard training methods I ramble on about are… well… hard. And as such you can severely fuck yourself doing them. You either do them wrong, or you do too much, too soon, or you have some biomechanical weakness, or genetic disposition to injury, or perhaps there is some environmental factor that gets in the way, or more than likely some combination of the above. If you train hard enough, long enough, it’s probably only a matter of time before you get hurt. You need to realize that, and not just conceptually either. Many training related injuries are simple to avoid and simple to fix. Just as many are not. Many are complex and may require long layoffs or surgery, and long rehab to repair. Some you may never recover to full potential from, and some you may just die from.
The other side of the coin however is this: You shouldn’t be paralyzed by risk. Just because there is a risk doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do something. There is risk in everything. If you tried to avoid all risk then you wouldn’t get anything done.
You need to look in that mirror every single day and honestly assess what it is that you want from your training. Your training goals and your training methods and your risk tolerance must be harmonized if you want to make it through okay. No one can make these decisions for you. Likewise the consequences of your training choices are your own responsibility as well. If you are successful in your training activities (whatever that means) then that is all you my friend. Likewise if you screw up…
Being able to do a real one arm push-up is pretty cool; not as cool as a one arm pull-up maybe but still pretty impressive. You can really mess up your shoulders training for this if you don’t do it right. Really… is doing a one arm push-up that important? An impressive show of strength for sure. But what is it really good for other than bragging rights? I don’t know that… it’s up to you to decide.
Socrates said that it is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.