A note to All who do sports in a group.

First of all, let me introduce My real blood related brother, KH. And also a short story followed by what happened today that triggered my thoughts to write this entry.

He is a really really nice guy... and even though he never speaks out front to me (cos he's a rather quiet guy about his emotions), I knew deep inside he's always trying very, no, extremely hard to live up to my expectation. Or rather, the expectation that he thinks I have for him.

How I knew about this "expectation" thingy is like this...

Yrs back before I started swimming, I was a rather established ball player around the courts and my brother seem to naturally picked up balling.. I was hoping that my reputation didn't affect him and how the rest view him... Subsequently, I backed off from balling... then one day, I saw him on the court and decided to have a game.. he flunged and it seemed like he haven't even know how to dribble or pass the ball properly. I noticed there was this pressure when he played with me.. I didn't like that.

Anyway. this so called expectations or training I've given him has pushed him pretty hard and got him to be pretty much fitter today at his age group compared to his otherwise sedentary gamers/geeks circle.

So, today we went for a long ride together with 2 of my friends.. I went at a relaxed pace as I just wanted the ride to be a relaxed one.. but this very bad weakness of mine is that I always fail to curb the training devil inside at just pass half way of the rides. As usual, I let loose a little and pushed the pace.. he then tried to follow despite being already quite tired from the first half of the journey.. To keep story short was that the Result was that he bonked out and got pretty severely dehydrated - which in my opinion, is rather dangerous.

So here comes the note... I'm gonna keep it straight to the point. Header, and pointers.
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Issue:
People who train in a group which consists of players who are stronger tends to push themselves harder than usual due to several reasons. Now, I personally feel that this formula works:

Healthy dose of challenge in a group + LOADS of self-body-awareness + Ability to STOP yourself when you know you've come REALLY close to the limit or beyond and is not feeling comfortable to continue.

Combination of the 3 elements will lead to tremendous improvement. But without any of them, things can turn ugly.

Reasons that people pushed themselves in a group.
- To feel like they belong
- To live up to expectations (male homosepians are such egoistic living things, we always think that every other one out there have an expectation on what we do and how we should perform.) The fact is that 90% of the time, no one really care about how good or bad you are performing, except for yourself and perhaps your teammate if its a team sport and also your coach/supervisory personnel.
- To overcome a limit and have a breakthrough
- To show off or boast ability in a practice
- To see how much one can push themselves.

Problems that may occur.
- When you get dehydrated, body's ability to perspire and release heat through evaporation will be severely messed up. Thus overheating may occur, and then heat stroke or heat exhaustion will follow. Tiredness and inability to continue even at steady state will be among first symptom to hit them hard and make them realize they're digging a endless hole. Dizziness and even Fainting can occur soon after that. Also, in extreme cases heat problems CAN be deadly if the person did not sound out and stop to get rest or rehydrate/refuel.
- Reaching the limit (training at max RPE or near) is always risky, that is why base training intensity is always at 70%to80% Max Heart Rate or lower. So as to reduce risk of training.
- Fainting/Dizziness can poise a very serious danger in any group sports that are require forward moving all the time. Especially cycling. Imagine fainting off the bike. Imagine you're drafting someone and that someone suddenly just fades and fall in front of you at 30KPH.

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My advice:
To constantly look for the limit is good. But make sure you know your body well enough through long progressive training sessions before you plunge into it. Always be careful, be safe than sorry in terms of sports doing.

Whether or not another has expectation on how you perform, it is ULTIMATELY YOU who're the one performing. Nobody will smack your head and say "WHY YOU SLOW DOWN?!" when you first raise your concern about your ill feeling. Whether or not the group is competitive or leisure, the first priority should be your own safety. We should all be responsible to ourselves before thinking about how we should be responsible to others. And by doing that, we're also ensuring others' safety in a group exercising environment.

I mean seriously, it is nothing wrong to voice the concern about your own body and just ask for a short rest if something went out of control or you find yourself in an alien environment where you don't know how your body is exactly reacting or the symptoms seems awfully new to you. I doubt any group will say "You.. slowed down just now.. we dropped you so you're OUT of the group.. DON'T COME EXERCISING ANYMORE.. SLOW POK.".. A group like that will not be worthy for you stay anyway.

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I know that this entry will seem to be targeting my brother solely, but I believe those who read this will find it applicable too if you do exercise in a group someday.

Keep in mind the formula:

Healthy dose of challenge in a group +
LOADS of self-body-awareness +
Ability to STOP yourself when you know you've come REALLY close to the limit or beyond and is not feeling comfortable to continue.

Achieving all 3 is difficult in every sense, but it all will come with practice and progressive training and personally, I believe I'd rank self-body-awareness and understanding top priority in any sports anyone do. Share with me your sentiments personally if you feel that I'm wrong.. we can all learn. :)

Cheers,
Coach KK