After two glorious sun (and rain) filled weeks away, I’m baaack! The holiday was a great one on so many levels, not all of which were training related (shocking I know!). In what is by now probably all too predictable (for me), I spent lots of time thinking, about lots of things. Two of the recurring themes were ‘balance’ and ‘diversity’; concepts I regard as related and, to some extent, each requiring the other. If you only have or do one thing, you do not have diversity. Similarly, to have balance would seem to require having or doing more than one thing – if not, what is ‘balanced’?

Whiling away time poolside (or seeking shelter from the CRAZY rain…)I thought about my training (as I frequently do). What was I going to do tomorrow in the hotel gym, which although good (by typical hotel standards), didn’t have a lot of the equipment I was used to; what could/should I do that wouldn’t bother my knee; what sort of strength loss would my holiday, different training and knee issue have generally; how would all of this impact my involvement in any upcoming competitions? Then it hit me, training (and training related thinking) was dominating my life!! I could be wrong, but would hazard a guess that not many people around the pool or walking around the theme parks were thinking about training!

I’ve always been pretty focused, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that (I actually think it’s a pretty good characteristic to have, but, I could of course be somewhat biased??), but I’ve come to see that focusing on any one thing too much, or to the exclusion of other things probably isn’t wise. It’s akin to ‘putting all your eggs in one basket’ or failing to diversify your investment portfolio.

If you were to put all of your resources into the stock of one company and it were to go bust, you’d lose everything. If you spend the vast majority of your time thinking about training but are not able to train, what happens?? Conversely, if you were to spread your resources amongst a variety of companies in various industries, in various regions, you would spread the risk and greatly reduce the likelihood of losing ‘everything’. If you diversify your focus and/or approach to training, if you’re unable to train (eg injury, lack of equipment, facilities, etc), or train with a specific purpose (eg to compete) or in a certain way (eg no loading of lower extremities), you’re very unlikely to lose ‘everything’ (ie you’ll either spend time focusing on another of your interests, or find a different purpose for, or way to pursue your training).

Although I am still extremely passionate about training, what ‘training’ means, how, where and why I train can, and no doubt will, change as I try to strike a slightly different balance. Enough focus to do and achieve what I want, without forgoing a diversity of interests. A delicate, but important balance.