Monday, February 25, 2013

4th grader Handball Regional Gold medal and Workout log Feb 25, 2013

Feb 23, 2013 workout log
Started my Saturday early, my two oldest son were competing in the Handball regional competion and had soccer practice later.

Did the mainsite WOD Hope for Kenya
AMRAP 12 min
50 squat
30 push up
15 pull up

did 3 round + 39 squat, no warmup at 6:20 am

then rushed to get the two little guy ready for their tournament. Also important to mention I am the coach of my 4th grader.

So there is that school, Simon-Vanier. They haven't loss a single game in the entire season. Our team lost one and it was against them 7-5. They are ranked #1 and we are #2. The first team is playing against the fourth in semi and we are playing against the third. We all know that winning the semi is going to be easy for both team.

All season we have been talking about taking our revenge against them and we know that this will be our chance. The tension in the team is really high, everybody is pump and wants to win. As I watch the game for the 3rd place, the Simon Vanier team enters the gym. I look at them, they are very relax and seems highly confident that it's going to be another easy one.

5 min before the game. I know that our team improved a lot since the beginning of the season but my legs are shaking. Stress of the game and knowing that right now I am playing to win, not to devellop the kids. All season, for all games I have been using a fair rotations, making sure that everybody had the same amount of time on the court. All the guys are used to that way of working, and now I will change that.

So I go with my best goalie, and the top four player plus one weaker one to start. I still want to make sure everybody will have at least a few minutes of play. I hope we can take the lead by a few goal at some point and put the weakest player in. But that moment never happened. The game finished 11-10 with a goal from our team with 25 sec left in the game. They counter attacked but my son blocked the shot and the buzzer rang. What an amazing moment. I never taught I could be so excited to win a 4th grader competition. At the end of the game I was completly exhausted.

But right after the celebration I started to feel bad, because I realised that our weakest player didn't even played a second on the court. I started questioning my role and the impact my decision to win at almost all cost, would or could impact that child. I also knew that he was cut from the team that was going to the Provincial competition.

I see good and bad from this situation. The impact also depends on the individual and their reactions towards failure. I would say that 95% of the kids/parents where really happy with my call, because we won the competition, but inside this is not a complete victory for me. I wished I would have been able to have the 10 years boy contribute, even if it's just for 15 sec to that victory. Being a coach wasn't easy here. Winning at the cost of demotivating some of your players for the next game and potentially altering the winning chemistry we were able to build.

By taking a step back, I realised that coaching that 4 grader team was similar in a lot of way to what I have been doing for more than 10 years now with adult professional. When you manage a group, they are a lot of compromise to make and no clear right answers. You can't always make the right decision, especially when under a lot of pressure with little time to think, but the important is to be able to take time to reflect on it after, understand the potential impact of your decision and work hard on compensating to restore a positive equilibrium.

Workout log Feb 25, 2013

Wendler cycle 3 week 2 squat

155x5, 195x5, 235x3, 315x3, 335x3, 352.5x4
196x5x10

I finished with grace as Rxd in 6:08. Never dropping the weight from the top. It was hard. I am slowly relearning to push myself even when I think my body can't take it. I almost puked.

It feels almost unatural at time to jump on the bar when your body is telling you that it can't anymore, to eventually realised that it actually could (until you feel like your pre-workout shake is about to come back up). I decided to add 1000mg of vit C post workout, according to some article I read it supposed to be good for recovery due to it's antioxidant properties. Will give it a try and see how it translates to my performance

Post workout I weighted 192 

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