Celebrating mediocrity
cyberdad wrote:
Do you really think anyone wakes up at 3am in the morning every day for 4 years and trains for 7hrs per day sacrificing freedom and personal life and battle exhaustion so they can go to the Olympics and aim to beat their personal best for no medal and go home satisfied?
I think the most accurate part of the above is the fact that 7 * 365 *4 = ~ 10,000.
Other than that, it sounds like it was made-up to sound dramatic, by someone who has never really seriously trained.
I do think people practice up to 3-5 hours a day, and up to 4-6 times a week, for much longer than just 4 years. I do think they are willing to make sacrifices to do this, including a loss of money, "freedom" , etc, just to be doing what they enjoy doing. Just being able to do it at all, is "winning".
See, new athletes don't typically train more than 1-2 hrs a day, 3-4 times a week, so they don't injure or fatigue themselves. Even pro athletes don't typically train more than 5-6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Partly so they still don't injure or fatigue themselves, but also because there's a point of diminishing returns, and consistent daily practice is more important than hours-per-day. Seasoned athletes can often train even less, once they've reached a certain level of experience.
By definition, pro-athletes get paid to do it, and typically do it for a living. So that daily practice is also your job, and it's not like you're working for X hours AND practicing for X hours. If you figure, 8 hrs sleep, 6 hrs train, that still leaves 10 hours left to do stuff like have a life or do fun things. And if you're not doing it pro, you're probably also not doing it more than 3 hours a day, 4-5 times a week - if not less - so even if you work a 9-5, you still have a sizeable amount of free-time.
Experienced athletes also know that in order to improve, it is essential to be taught by, and / or competing against, people better than you. If you're already at the top of your bracket, you're not likely to improve further, unless you move to the next stage up - and sometimes that means losing once you get there, until you start picking up what it takes to hang with the rest on that level.
Personally, I think medals are just marks on a wall, showing how much you've grown.
People who are hyperfocused just on "winning" don't usually have the discipline to face the losses and difficulty that inevitably accompany being a novice at something. It often very quickly becomes "not worth it".
TwilightPrincess wrote:
I wasn’t really referring to him “posing questions” or engaging in any other activity although I’m pretty sure you know that. Like I said, it’s juvenile behavior appropriate for middle school.\
Whom? are you talking about trolls who get their jollies attacking women? like UD you seem to be vague on what exactly the issue is?
TwilightPrincess wrote:
She actually has every right to speak about it. There's no law saying she can't. People don't have to agree with her or like her, but they can't make her shut up OR speak if she doesn't want to.
Ok she can speak about it. But my point is she has less right to be "repping" breakdancing (even if she has invested a lo of her life studying it). It would be like an Australian academic who studies Indonesian all their life going to the UN and being selected by some fraudulent process to speak on behalf of Indonesia to the UN.
uncommondenominator wrote:
See, new athletes don't typically train more than 1-2 hrs a day, 3-4 times a week, so they don't injure or fatigue themselves. Even pro athletes don't typically train more than 5-6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Partly so they still don't injure or fatigue themselves, but also because there's a point of diminishing returns, and consistent daily practice is more important than hours-per-day. Seasoned athletes can often train even less, once they've reached a certain level of experience.
Depends on the physicality of the sport. I can't imagine somebody shooting targets with a scope needs to train as much as a weight lifter or 100m sprinter.
uncommondenominator wrote:
Personally, I think medals are just marks on a wall, showing how much you've grown.
People who are hyperfocused just on "winning" don't usually have the discipline to face the losses and difficulty that inevitably accompany being a novice at something. It often very quickly becomes "not worth it".
People who are hyperfocused just on "winning" don't usually have the discipline to face the losses and difficulty that inevitably accompany being a novice at something. It often very quickly becomes "not worth it".
All well and good, but I think you are (to borrow a term from somebody else) "sidestepping the real issue".
I've been around longer than you have and watched more Olympics, for almost all athletes its a dream to win an Olympic medal. If you are selected for the Olympics you are going to try your very best. No wonder for every athlete competing in the Olympics is the pinnacle of their careers.
So now we return to Raygun. She was judged and given zero points in 4 events by multiple judges. Her refusal to acknowledge why she performed at a level when you and I both know she trained and would have rehearsed the moves and calculated how many points she will need to score. Infact based on both her training and knowledge of the sport, one would expect she would know better than the other less experienced dancers (let's acknowledge she's been doing this for many years longer than any other breakdancer at the Olympics) on what the brief was. She literally only had one job to do. So despite your condescending (and somewhat nauseating) sarcasm, the aftermath remains a mystery for me.
cyberdad wrote:
uncommondenominator wrote:
See, new athletes don't typically train more than 1-2 hrs a day, 3-4 times a week, so they don't injure or fatigue themselves. Even pro athletes don't typically train more than 5-6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Partly so they still don't injure or fatigue themselves, but also because there's a point of diminishing returns, and consistent daily practice is more important than hours-per-day. Seasoned athletes can often train even less, once they've reached a certain level of experience.
Depends on the physicality of the sport. I can't imagine somebody shooting targets with a scope needs to train as much as a weight lifter or 100m sprinter.
Olympic weightlifters train around 20 hours a week. Olympic sprinters train for around 20 hours a week. Olympic shooters train around 20 hours a week. That's around 3-4 hours per day, depending on how many days per week.
Your imagination is certainly vivid, but not exactly accurate.
Since watching tv has made you such an expert on olympic talent, don't forget to watch some scooby-doo. It might help you solve some of your mysteries.