Learn the ropes, and then conquer Rome.

This is a chapter from a great book called “Start Where You Are” by Chris Gardner of “The Pursuit of Happyness” fame. Even though this is written more from a business perspective, I think it has great application to sports.

Many of us go out and pick up a new sport –jogging, cycling, etc. and develop a basic proficiency at it and then stop there. I have known runners that run with same speed, style and sometime same route for many years. And same is true with many cyclists that I have known-after many years, they have not changed group levels, not gotten better on hills or long rides.

This is where “learning the ropes” comes in hand. We (myself included) all have the very strong tendency to get in a routine (rut) that feels good, not threatening and “gets the job done”. The hard part is breaking out of that routine to learn the different aspects of your sport/hobby. Like doing specific training for hill climbing, learning to have faster foot contacts/spin rate, how to accelerate in short distances, etc. All these things that time and some good coaching to learn and even worse- it means giving up our usual habits in order to make time for new learning. Lots of cringing!

BUT, once you have learned all these little aspects of running/cycling/etc. you are now a much more complete athlete and you will be amazed at how much of a jump you make in performance. The brief amount of time spent “learning the ropes” is insignificant compared to the months or years you spend doing the same old, same old to get the equal amount of improvement. Which leads us to the point-

Train mo smarter!