My friend, Dr. Mike Mackay, calls it, "Feeding The Baby."
When I'm watching an athlete do box jumps, my knees involuntarily flex and pop! – just like I'm jumping with them. You do it, too: teaching your teenager to drive, you pump the "air brake" from the passenger seat as you approach a stop sign. When you're spoon-feeding a baby, you open your mouth with them.
One of my greatest downfalls as a coach: I'm a huge fan. I want everyone to succeed, every single time. I appreciate the value of failure. Absolutely, I do. But if I can steer you around it, I will.
We do big events like Catalyst Games 2009 to push you. And it works: 3 people have achieved their first muscle-ups ever in the last 2 days. Women are getting their first pullups, everyone's linking double-unders, and some are hammering the BCTs like never before. We're getting emails about competitive standards for knees-to-elbows. You're submitting pictures of your pushups. You're changing your facebook status every 2 hours. You're watching dozens of videos to learn how to get better.
It's tough, as a coach, to referee. It's tough to hold the line on standards. Flipping that yellow card over, making you do an extra rep, isn't easy. But it's fair.
Letting you get away with a pullup that isn't high enough isn't about punishing you. It's not about being in "a bad mood," or disliking you. It's about devaluing the accomplishment. Last weekend, knowing that Nancy's status in the Rx class depended on her getting 3 pullups (she'd only done one, ever, before that,) it was very tempting to drop the standard. To pat her on the back and say, "that's okay. You tried your best. Good for you." Instead, I gritted my teeth and held the line. Nancy responded. She did 3 pullups. She's ready.
At 11am yesterday, Jeremy couldn't say he'd ever done a muscle-up. He ran into the gym between clients and hammered until he got one. Then he got another. And another, and another. Now we're working on Brent.
These events are hard. Until you've done one, you can't really appreciate how ridiculous these demands can be. And yet…. we do them. We finish. We push hardest in the final 30 seconds. We empty the tank. We leave nothing in reserve. And then we do it again. And again.
I know it's frustrating to do extra reps. I've been there. But if I give you a freebie, what am I giving to everyone else? More importantly, what am I really pushing you to achieve? If we were like every other gym – hell, like most parts of our wimpy "trying-your-best-is-good-enough" culture – you wouldn't be doing pullups today. And I'd still have a voice left by Friday.
Thanks for being cheer-worthy. Now get out there and push.