ASSESSING YOUR PRIORITIES

Every athlete needs a break from their sport at some stage. It is important to ask why.

SPORT raises many issues in life. With the year coming to a close, there are quite a few questions that can be asked.

Questions like: “What will happen to the Year 12 athletes who are graduating? Will they continue in their sport? Will work, study and the next stage of their lives interfere with their commitment, training and involvement in sport?”

Having been a teacher and coach for many years, I can say that finishing school is a “definitive’’ time where we will see young people either continue or finish in their chosen sport.

I have many times seen a talented young athlete give their sport away due to work, study and peer pressure.

Can you change their minds? No. Ultimately, they are the ones that really need to do the work, therefore it is their decision.

It is their choice to either continue or finish training and competing. But you can encourage and support them to continue to be involved.

Funny, when I was 17 and finished school, there were only two things I wanted to achieve in my life. One was to be a physical education teacher and the other was to represent my country.

I was lucky enough to have travelled and represented my country in my final year of school but it was that little “bite of the cherry’’ that kept me going. I wanted more.

In the years following school, I trained, studied, worked and competed. I missed qualification for the Moscow Olympics by five points but I had my studies to complete and I hoped that there was more that I was going to achieve.

I had bigger dreams. Year 12 students will make many decisions at this time of their life, some of which will be life affirming and some they may regret. It is essential that graduating students think through their choices clearly so that five years down the track, when reflecting, they do not regret choices made in the heat of the moment.

One thing I never wanted to do was to ask myself the question, “I wonder if I could have achieved that, only if …”

As a parent, as a coach, as a mentor, it is important to sit and listen and ask the question, “Why?”

Of course, every athlete needs a break from their sport at some stage. Whether 12, 15, 18, 24 or even 40 years of age.

A break allows you to take stock of what you have achieved, where you are heading and how to address issues that have

been raised during your competitive period. It is also a time to allow the body to recover.

Issues of overtraining, staleness, injury and expectation are all reasons to take “time out’’ and stock of where you are.

To be able to assess your sport priorities are essential. Time to appreciate your sport – to leave what is your “norm’’ and try another sport in your active rest period.

It is all about doing some activity if you want to and then, doing nothing if you

want to – resting, recuperating and resetting. It is all about getting your drive back that is essential to continue.

My breaks while young were not planned – they were forced upon me by injury. Maybe this was another lesson that I should have learnt. Before my body breaks, I need to take a break.

It is funny, when people ask me to reflect on my career and what I might have done differently. My response is, “if I knew back then, what I know

now, I would be dangerous and a completely different athlete.”

Having said that, I don’t think I would change what happened, however, if I was an athlete today, I would have trained differently.

To have the knowledge of strength and conditioning, body maintenance, nutrition and other topics that we provide for our athletes in the Academy, I am sure I would have been a more dynamic and prepared athlete for international competition.