If you are involved in some form of athletics, whether it be gymnastics, crossfit, triathlons or even just working out, it's quite possible you love the competition or results aspect (if we are speaking of just working out in the gym) of your sport and maybe have a love/hate relationship with the training aspect.
Self confidence plays a key role in the success of any athlete, especially gymnasts. Since gymnastics consists of high flying, often scary skills, it is so important to possess this vital attribute.
One of the hardest things in being a young athlete today is dealing with the harsh criticisms of others. These days are especially challenging with the existence of social media which allows ones words to spread far in a matter of minutes.
Most of the best athletes in the world have not only developed superior physical skills in their sport, but more importantly, they have developed the ability to perform and display these skills in the most challenging and pressure filled situations.
Here is some really good news for you! You are actually capable of performing perfectly every time! Do I have your attention? Great! Now I will finish that statement. You can perform perfectly every time...in your head.
If you are in the sport of gymnastics, I’m going to assume you are sticking to it quite simply because you love it. Let’s face it, gymnastics is not for the faint of heart. Typically, those starting out find out pretty quickly if it’s the right sport for them. It takes a very dedicated athlete to tolerate having hands like a lumber jack, constantly bathing in chalk, doing massive amounts of strength training, and spending 3 to 4 hours a day in a gym.
I can't tell you how many times I've talked myself out of something or convinced myself I wasn't able to accomplish a certain goal. This is all chatter in my own head, and most of the time I listen to the negative, self-doubting side of it.
We are all guilty of this. For some reason, anything short of perfection for competitive athletes is unacceptable. Regardless of how long we have been doing our particular sport, we constantly have these ridiculously high expectations of ourselves and we beat ourselves up when we don't perform as we feel we should.
I remember back when I was training, I ran in to a major issue with a skill that I had already acquired and was performing well. It was a dismount off parallel bars that was fairly simple for me. One day during practice, I was just slightly off on it and hit the bar pretty hard.
Do you love or despise the Grind? According to Dr. Jim Taylor, the Grind is the point in your athletic training when things get tiring, painful and tedious. I struggled with this very thing as a gymnast. I got to a point where I realized my motivation was gone, and the grind had gotten the best of me.
