| Focus November 1, 2004
|
Although Mindi's rise to
the top of the fitness world seems rapid, it was preceded by years and years of dedicated
and consistent hard work.
(photo July 2004 by Doug Schneider) |
|
Consistency Counts
On October 29, Mindi O’Brien, the 2004 Canadian
Fitness Champion, competed in the 2004 Fitness Olympia competition in Las Vegas. The
Fitness Olympia is the world’s most prestigious, professional-level fitness
competition, and a dream to compete at for any fitness athletes in the world. Mindi placed
in the top ten at the Olympia, which is an amazing accomplishment for any first-year pro.
Mindi’s rise to prominence in 2004 appeared to be one
of the fastest ever. Seemingly out of nowhere, she won the CBBF Canadian Fitness
Championships in July, followed by the SW USA Pro Cup in August (her first pro show, and
the first-ever pro win for a Canadian fitness competitor). And then, of course, there was
the Olympia – the top contest of them all. Would-be Mindis, therefore, might look at
her seemingly rapid rise and think, "Maybe next year I can do that." The
thing is, it’s not quite that easy, and not nearly as fast as it first seems.
At the end of August we started a unique spin-off-type site
from SeriousAboutFitness.com called TheFitnessFiles.com. It features Mindi O’Brien. Weekly, for about
eight weeks, Mindi updated the site with her thoughts and feelings as she prepared for the
2004 Olympia. It’s really fascinating stuff, particularly if you’re interested
in following the mind of a top-level competitor. For myself, I learned a lot; in
particular, there were two things she said over the weeks that stayed with me and lent
some insight into just what it takes to get where Mindi is. I’ll share them with you
here.
The first was in her October 3 journal entry where, in the
"Random Thoughts" section, she pointed out how many hours of her life she’d
spent preparing for this, the highest level of competition: about 20,000. Say that over
and over to yourself to let it really sink in: twenty thousand hours. That’s a
lot, but when did she do it? The answer is in the "Ask Mindi" section in a
question titled "Motivating myself." This was the second point that stuck with
me. Those 20,000 hours were spent over a 20-year time span. Mindi is about 30 years of
age, and what that means is that since she was about 10 years old she has been involved in
some kind of intense type of training – gymastics, weights, etc. – for about 20
hours each week, consistently.
On the surface, particularly if you look at the 2004
season, it seems like Mindi accomplished her goals in quite a short time. Behind the
scenes, though, it was really much longer – much longer than most people think, and
much longer than most people are prepared to spend themselves. It’s important,
though, to understand this in order to figure out where you are on the timeline.
Countless fitness magazines talk about weight-training
programs and diets, but very few talk about one of the most important aspects of all: the
time needed to reach your potential. And not just time, but consistency too. After all,
training once a year for 20 years isn’t going to do much. Training consistently for
20 years, though, will.
While 20 years may seem like a long time to get somewhere,
don’t let it scare you away from starting out or from continuing on. The point is
this: for anything to work you have to put in the time to allow it to work. No matter how
good the training program or diet is, it won’t change you overnight. You won’t
get in shape in a day or two, but you will start feeling better in a week or two, and you
can make noticeable improvements in a month. And after six months you can make such a
drastic change that you will turn people’s heads. After a year, or two years, or 20
years, the difference you can make can be staggering
There’s usually no such thing as an overnight
sensation when you dig deeper in a person’s history. The top people in any sport
started somewhere and labored long and hard to be where they are today. What we see is the
end result, not all the work it took to get there. Quite simply, there’s no
substitute for going at it day-in and day-out, year after year. Consistency counts –
just ask Mindi.
...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com |
