Never stop trying? Don't do this at home

I came across this and it made my heart sink. I maybe was able to watch 45 seconds before i had to stop, too horrible on too many levels.

I don't think under the non-life or death circumstances of competitive exercise this kind of thing should be glorified.

Some may disagree with me, but i don't believe this is what sportsman/womanship is about.

http://games.crossfit.com/features/videos/never-stop-trying-heather-scaglione

I have some mixed feelings about it. I Think her will and desire to win or compete is amazing, because I know I would never do that, but I think it is misplaced as well. She obviously has the drive, but continuing on after an injury like that is just asking to never be able to compete again...

Live to train another day, IMO.

Her rep counter was cracking me up. Love the intense stare on his face. HAHA

Professional and other athletes do this sort of thing all the time. Playing with sprains, tears, minor breaks is pretty common and I use to tumble on a sprained wrist all the time (it eventually snapped after I held onto a pull up bar and did some swings). A high school buddy of mine played through a game with a broken arm (he thought it was just a bruised), a college diver kept on diving with a dislocated shoulder and a bunch of tears in her upper back the whole year not just one competition (when surgeons were recommending surgery to fix everything up and no diving for the rest of the year). And I am sure that most on here heard or saw a girl at the olympics vault on a broken ankle.

Weather this should be glorified or not is another issue but as long as people's drive to win remains, this will be a part of sports. Personally I don't care weather it's glorified or not but like I said if you are in an athletic environment this will happen and happen often. Also the video says shoulder dislocation, honestly a dislocation hurts like hell but it is unlikely that there will be any permanent damage from her continuing going unless there were tears.

My first thought is, wow, that is really stupid. But on the other hand, I understand it. Modern life for most adults, speaking in generalities here, is lacking in challenges. Carl Sagan says it better than I ever could, as is usually the case:

“For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled. Even after 400 generations in villages and cities, we haven't forgotten. The open road still softly calls, like a nearly forgotten song of childhood.â€

I think we long for that sense of challenge and adventure, and we all find it in different places.

I can possibly understand this in professional athletics, as the high paydays often pressure athletes to compete while injured or not fully healed. I can also understand this if it was an Olympic athlete who had trained their whole life for a moment, not to be taken away by injury, as they may never get there again.

However, I simply do not understand this during recreational activity or the Crossfit games. No big payday. It may seem like "heart" during, but a few months later no one remembers and that girl's shoulder will never be the same. I do think it is stupid.

In nature, any self-injurious behavior in animals that is not life saving or preservative is considered abnormal. I don't see it applying differently in humans, even for competition. Common does not mean normal. Yes, it's possible that there are once in a lifetime situations for Olympic athletes; and those most be weighed carefully by the individual. However, it is poor logic to say that because this situation exists, the behavior can become acceptable across the boards--most especially to individuals who do not have the means to seek the best help in recovery available.

Yes, backing off an injury in professional sports often means a lost contract or sponsorship. Does it mean the end of a career? Not as often as you might think. The gentleman who first got me into sports performance training required many of his elite athletes to take time off when they began skirting with injury. Some of them lost their job, but it ended up turning around for the better when they either got their spot back or were picked up by a better contract. Shane drilled it into me that it's financially better to avoid the injury and make yourself into better shape than to ruin your body and eventually a career. If it isn't, the athlete probably doesn't have a quality strength coach or medical team.

My point is that when you engage this sort of behavior, it's trading a short term potential reward for longterm vitality. Will she recover? This time, likely. But all she has done is created (or continued) a negative feedback loop in her mind.

Injurious Behavior = Cheering/Pat on the Back/Etc = Trying Harder = Biochemical Rush

Think of it like an adult yelling at their child. The child listens initially and does what the adult wants. The adult receives a "reward" of the child obeying and learns to repeat that behavior in order to get the child to obey. Over time, the child learns to ignore the adult, so the adult has to scream louder, the child ignores higher levels of yelling, and so on. In training, we want positive feedback loops in order to be effective longterm athletically. An example would be Coach's tally system with his athletes.

Doing One's Best = Reward (tally in that event)

It reinforces a certain quality of athletic performance and turns on positive SEEKING emotions rather than activating negative RAGE or FEAR ones.

Or to repeat Coach's simple advice: Don't Strain.

Coreathlete I disagree with your opinion pertaining to negative feedback. What I believe she has done is create one hell of a positive feedback response to her "mental toughness" that will germinate throughout the rest of her endeavours. She is not a quitter! end of story! , regardless of which arena she chooses to sacrifice herself for -Crossfit or the Olympics, the end result is the same. She has solidified in her mind without vacillation, under extreme conditions, she will not quit!.

AlexX said:

Professional and other athletes do this sort of thing all the time.

I agree. When doing a sport is your chosen career, you sometimes have to push yourself through things like that. I remember a 45 km regatta, which i rowed with a broken right hand.

However, that sort of stupidity (much like steroids, in my opinion) should be reserved for professional athletes, who often don't have a choice.

While I understand that movies love to glorify the winning at all costs mindset (drama does make $$), it's important to separate winning at all costs from pushing yourself to do things you didn't think you had in you. Coach posted an excellent video a while back called the "Heart of a Champion" in which a football coach pulled the personal best out of an athlete who thought himself incapable of a great feat. This is laudable, and the duty of a great coach to inspire athletes to a best. "Mental toughness" in the positive sense is simply doing your personal best.

I take issue with the negative sense of mental toughness where one ignores consequences for a potential, temporary gain. In the reality of sports life, there isn't the movie ending. As an athlete you may get away with pushing through an injury for a time, but it will catch up to you. This is what I mean by a negative feedback--I use it in the behavior sciences sense. The athlete in question has trained herself to ignore signs of the body that present themselves for reasons of long-term health. And not only that, she has received a "reward" of people cheering and pats on the back, and a temporary rush. So behaviorally she has created a file in her brain that says "pushing through injury = praise." And so she'll push herself again and again like that until she really does beak. Mental toughness is an abstract term that doesn't go into the equation because it's not objectively quantifiable. The athlete didn't graduate from a 6 to a 7 on the "mental toughness" scale in her brain. Understand what I mean?

I don't train Olympians but I do have enough teams I've worked with on the collegiate level to speak from practical experience. The athletes who take the attitude of this woman get injured and miss games. It isn't fun for them. It isn't fun for the team to have them out when needed. On higher levels, Charles Poliquin has made his career and structural balance model on the whole rehab-balance-strengthen to prevent injury realm. He works to prevent injuries, not push through them. That's why he can charge $1000 an hour.

I'm not saying that it's bad to take risks--life is full of them. I enjoy snowboarding, skydiving, and all kinds of activities that

something might happen in. But it's short-sighted to take a single game or competition and make it so important in your mind and get so emotionally caught up that you will win at all costs. That isn't mental toughness, it's silliness. A really good movie to watch on this idea is "Peaceful Warrior." Winning a gold medal, a championship, or such will not magically make you happy. So why make yourself unhappy for a while afterwards nursing back to health?

Coreathlete, Again I disagree on many of your points. It appears you take a very preventative approach to life. To each his own.

Winning a gold medal, a championship, or such will not magically make you happy

Excellent point.

If you are lacking as a person prior to winning an Olympic gold, you will still be lacking afterwards. A fact of life that many Olympians learn the hard way.

It must always be remembered that all athletes, no matter how great, eventually retire. And if all you have at the end of the day when that moment arrives are shelves full of medals and a collection of faded newspaper clippings; what have you really accomplished?

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

People learn from the hard way that objective of life isn't achieve physical or economic feats, but to progress spiritually, progress to be a better human being... :roll:

Interesting discussion. The video suggests that it takes "heart" not to stop when the pain and the risk of a long term injury tells you to stop but the cheering crowd urges you on to continue. Watching the video, I almost had to laugh when I heard somebody in the background tell the young woman "Careful, don't hurt yourself"; the lonely voice of reason. Like mr. Brady I did not want to watch it all till the end. Why? Because it disturbs me when I have to watch a mob that is cheering on an individual to self destruct. "Heart", "true grid", "mental toughness"? I don't think so. In my personal experience it was just me being stupid and arrogant to continue to push when I already felt the acute pain of an injury. I think now that, I did not have the mental toughness to stop. Just to put it differently. I love to watch top athletes showing "heart" and "mental toughness" by being able to keep competing at their highest level, even when they are physically and mentally exhausted and have to come back from behind. However, I also admire those same athletes when they can decide to stop because they risk a serious injury. But that is different, don't you think? I feel for the young woman in the video, because she was not given a chance to decide for herself; too much pressure from her peers.

I think its hard from someone outside a particular sport / modality to probably appreciate the worldview from someone inside it. I am not a particular fan of crossfit myself, though i have tried it. Sure its recreational and we are not talking about making the Olympics, but for her its probably everything. If i compare it to my time rock climbing, i never met a climber who wasn't obssesive about it, that did not have dozens of nagging injuries and tendonitis because they simply could not face not climbing for 6 weeks to let it subside.

Hell i used to sit in a harness route setting for 6 hours at a time in 40 degree heat and loved every minute of it.

Having said that, i don't think it shows heart at all to continue once your are injured in this fashion and its not something that should be glorified. What should be glorified is intelligent and measured training modalities that would have prepared her shoulder girdle more adequately for the event and prevented it dislocating.

Of course as i write this i sit here having mostly rehabbed an old rotator injury from my rock climbing days that occurred from overuse and poor scheduling of my training

There is an old saying: "Better is a living dog than a dead lion". I know that many people (including myself many times) love the "lion" posture, but I think that this old saying of King Solomon is a great truth and also a great advice.

On the other hand, a person is not only "heart", but also "mind". Just look at combat sports and you will see what I mean. I know a local guy who said that he sensed the adversary who stood after the corner in order to start an attack. Poor man, maybe he sensed the one after the corner (which I seriously doubt, anyway…), but he didn't sensed the one from the ring, just in front of him, so he got knocked-out after just a few seconds from the start of the match. So, heart is good, but knowing how and when to use it, that's a life time science. Put some pepper into your meal and it would taste great, put half a kilo and you won't be able to eat it.

I liked very much what Coach Sommer wrote and that was really the most important point of this thread, and that is actually the most important point with regard to everything we're doing here or anywhere else. Someone can spend the entire life doing something and even believing that he/she is something (why something and not somebody, by the way…?), but if that doesn't help that person to become a better one, that's a complete loss. And if somebody loses himself/herself as a person, that's the biggest lost ever.

So, thank you Coach Sommer for reminding us what this is all about.

Coach, Respectfully, how many champions have you coached that in the heat of competition are actively thinking about retirement? And if you believe the value of those faded newspaper clippings and shelves full of medals are baseless why should one try at all? Try watching the video again with the mute on. You wont hear the cheering, how can we assume she heard it as well. She "chose" this arena, that called forth her spirit of sacrifice, to be her mental and physicial proving ground and I believe it does tally as a victory that will mark her therafter. "Live to train another day" what happens when that day comes and again instead of pushing foward, quitting and excuses become the norm. We focus so much on the physical development we have no idea how to truly train the mental. I do not condone one to actively push beyond ones capabilities and hurt themselves. But I can see this specific accomplishment for what it is " a mental victory" and in the long run I would rather have a physical scar that will heal instead of a mental deficit that will permeate throughout ones future endeavours. Respectfully, to all on this forum, this is just another viewpoint an my two cents.

The pursuit of excellence is a personal quest and not something that is entered into lightly for the entertainment of others. Hopefully all of my athletes keep this in mind. And when they fall short, I am there to guide them and keep them on track.

In the case of that young woman, what may have appeared noble from the outside was in reality nothing more than a loss of discipline and the inability to plan for the future. Yes, after 30+ years of coaching high level athletes, I certainly understand far better than most how young athletes prefer to live/compete in the heat of the moment; however the reality is that at best her behavior will have derailed her training for a number of MONTHS to come or at worst brought that same training to a premature end.

In athletics your body is your tool, and unless that tool is in good working order there is no athletics; regardless of the perceived fire which may be burning within. This young woman made a bad decision due to a lack of competitive experience and improper guidance from her coaches. A decision that she personally is going to going to be paying for for quite some time to come; unlike the crowd who so enthusiastically urged her on.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

Well said Coach!

FritsMB said:

Interesting discussion. The video suggests that it takes "heart" not to stop when the pain and the risk of a long term injury tells you to stop but the cheering crowd urges you on to continue. Watching the video, I almost had to laugh when I heard somebody in the background tell the young woman "Careful, don't hurt yourself"; the lonely voice of reason. Like mr. Brady I did not want to watch it all till the end. Why? Because it disturbs me when I have to watch a mob that is cheering on an individual to self destruct. "Heart", "true grid", "mental toughness"? I don't think so. In my personal experience it was just me being stupid and arrogant to continue to push when I already felt the acute pain of an injury. I think now that, I did not have the mental toughness to stop. Just to put it differently. I love to watch top athletes showing "heart" and "mental toughness" by being able to keep competing at their highest level, even when they are physically and mentally exhausted and have to come back from behind. However, I also admire those same athletes when they can decide to stop because they risk a serious injury. But that is different, don't you think? I feel for the young woman in the video, because she was not given a chance to decide for herself; too much pressure from her peers.

I completely agree, that's what i saw too.

I'd like to add my 2 cents worth with one of my favourite Coach Sommer quotes:

Coach Sommer said:

There is no distinction achieved by developing the ability to blow yourself up.

Breaks said:

I'd like to add my 2 cents worth with one of my favourite Coach Sommer quotes:

Coach Sommer said:

There is no distinction achieved by developing the ability to blow yourself up.

Sooo true