Easy

Human perception of easy is that it takes little effort. The opposite of easy is hard. We are always told that the harder we work the better we will become.

Therefore if easy is little effort and the opposite of hard then it will not progress us will it?

I have been playing around with this rather contradicting set of statements for some years. Various wars with my own subconscious, other debates with coaches and those that are authorities on certain things, be it physical training or other. I am not sure if I am at the conclusion quite yet but I am highly confident that I am making progress as I continue to collect my research data from my own life and that of others that either ask me to do so or I am able to do so with unbeknown to them.

(Note you do not have to tell everyone that you are collecting data from what you are doing, ha!)

The main issue is the perception and or interpretation of easy. Stay with me here! I have been programmed the same as you when it comes to “hard work brings results” and “hard work is always hard.” However my research confirms that getting a human to “go easy” is far harder from their stand point as well as from a coaching stand point.

When it comes to training (and life for that matter) the 80% (easy training) 20% (hard training) split is not an overly new concept. However I am yet to meet (or to be) an athlete that follows it to a T. Why? Super simple….because it is so hard. It is against what we have be programmed to know true and with the advent of peer approval from various forms of social media the greatest interactions (and therefore dopamine hits) on any posts are coming from images and times that are the split second before we pass out. Few get excited, capture and therefore post about their easy sessions. Society wants dopamine and the “easy” brand of post releases little.

I’m a junkie like you, the feeling of being in the red, the dopamine from the comments, the full nine yards have fulled me from running pyramids in rugby pre season to throwing up in a bucket at the side of my turbo trainer. But 20%? No chance!

In the last twelve months I have written and coached just shy of 20,000 hours of “training” in some way shape or form and participated in over 800 hours of my own training. At least 80% of those hours of training have had the word easy associated with them in some way shape or form. Those that have picked up on the word and executed it have seen far better results than those that have not.

I will continue my research and update you as I go, for the meantime. Keep it easy when it is supposed to be easy always knowing that easy can be very hard and when it’s time to go hard yes that will also be hard.

So your “hard box” is getting firmly ticked any which way!