December 07, 2022
The PB doom
PB’s used to be things that were talked about rarely as that was the frequency that they were attempted to be set / broken. They were sacred, they were the highlight of ones season, in some cases ones life.
Like many things they are a drug, a natural high and in the era of closer data tracking and more data points across all sports the focus has very wrongly been tied in many cases singularly to ones PB as the measure of success.
It’s paralyzing many but we are addicted and when we see ourselves moving further away from our PB’s inevitably frustration and desperation kick in as we believe we are under performing.
Unless the sport or discipline that we are focusing on our PB for is our life endeavor or put’s food on our table then the tact has to change.
The fall outs of always chasing a PB (aside from of the psychological ones above) can be catastrophic from a physical stand point as we are trying to drive the high spec human being of a super car at max speed all the time, it just does not work.
Thus leading to more “down time” in our training / sport / endeavors (which is supposed to make us better at life) than “up time”. And with more down time of course comes less training and a further shift away from the PB that we have yearned for so much!
Welcome to the 80% rule to be applied on two levels.
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What would your achievements be if you were able to train for 80% of the weeks of the year? Very different is the answer as your consistency would be off the hook!
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What if you were able to ammase more training hours at 80% rather than weekly trying to shoot for 100%? Answer is that you would attain the consistency from shooting for point 1 above.
The new age PB mindset does not allow for the 80% rule as athletes across all sports seek to PB weekly. However the 80% rule allows for PB’s on the right timelines to continue to rise as well as making the process of training more meaningful and therefore of course more enjoyable.
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