The Problem With Shortcuts

The problem with shortcuts are that they don’t exist. Success in sport and life revolves around and is decided in great part by your mastery of the most fundamental basics.

I had the opportunity to work with Chad Vaughn and his Coach Richard Fleming, also of CrossFit Plano, at Chad’s last training session before he left for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Chad competes in the sport of Olympic Weightlifting in the 77kg weight class. Chad weighs about 170 pounds, and yet his Snatch is around 147kg (323 pounds), and his Clean and Jerk is routinely around 180kg (396 pounds).

At his final training session, Chad successfully completed a routine lift and proceeded to add 2 kg to the bar. “Sensing” that the weight was heavier, he did what most people do and “tried harder”. Unfortunately, in his “trying harder”, he got away from the basics enough to miss the lift because he had not developed enough vertical momentum on the barbell. He had made the very same mistake that lifters new to sports make all the time by not going to full extension on the jump.

I found it very interesting to see Coach Fleming telling an elite level athlete the same things I am always telling my novice athletes: “Get tall! Make sure you fully extend!”. All of us have a tendency when we think the weight is heavier to “try too hard” by pulling back instead of up when we know logically that the bar has to go up if we are to get under it.

This is not a critique of Chad, nor is it a treatise on Olympic Weightlifting mechanics, rather, it is simply one example of how all of us, even those of us who are the most experienced, can maximize our results and accelerate our progress with an uncommon dedication to mastering the basics.

Coach Greg Glassman, co-founder of CrossFit, Inc. in the August 2005 edition of the CrossFit Journal refers to this uncommon dedication to mastering the basics as Virtuosity. Virtuosity, he says, “is doing the common, uncommonly well.”

Virtuosity

The difficulty with attaining Virtuosity separates the good from the great. It takes commitment and hard work, and a willingness to fail. Not many people are willing to constantly learn from their failures or do the work required.

Virtuosity is difficult because as humans we generally crave quick fixes and early successes. We want to feel good about ourselves, and it is our own egos that often blind us to reality. We often need perspective, a vantage point from outside ourselves, in order overcome our shortcomings and walk the lonely road that is Virtuosity; doing the common, uncommonly well.

When Coach Fleming gave Chad corrective feedback on his Weightlifting form, he was essentially changing his perspective. He was putting him back on the road to Virtuosity. It is in this way that athletes of all levels and anyone serious about their training benefit from the coaching process.

I am often asked (or told) about the “great benefits” of using “XYZ” supplement, to improve performance, or weight loss, etc. I do acknowledge that there are very few supplements that can accelerate the success process, but they are typically illegal, and yield undesirable side effects. There exists a lot of marketing regarding the use of supplements. They tend to play to people’s emotions and “quick-fix” tendencies.

In reality, you get your greatest improvements from the daily lifestyle choices you make like sleep, nutrition, movement and exercise (unless you are specifically deficient in something that is essential – which is typically remedied when you improve your lifestyle choices). These lifestyle items are all in your power and control to improve and are all typically free.

Only by dedicating yourself to Virtuosity in all aspects of your life will you find lasting, side-effect free success. I have never seen anyone achieve something great who has not paid the price in hard work, sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears.