Ok so I have been wanting to unload some of the random thoughts and opinions that swirl around my head for some time now. It’s taken a while but sure now is as good a time as any to start I guess.
So.. my first rant or Blog is about a particular bugbear of mine and that is the one about Genetics…
Over the past 4years I have routinely heard ‘yeah but you’ve got good genes’ ‘yeah but your a genetic freak’ ‘yeah but you’re blessed with good genes’ ‘Oh if I had your genes’. And the more I have heard it, the more I have wanted to say….F$*K OFF.
And this is the reason why…
Yes, I have good genes, but that has not been the sole reason I have achieved as much as I have to date.
I didn’t just crawl outta bed, swallow a breakfast roll and walk onto the platform back in March and squat 215kg, wink at the crowd and say yep that’ll be the goods genes right there…No. I had to work hard for it.
I didn’t achieve no1 ranking with a 422 wilks in the 90+ category plus become ROI and Ireland’s Strongest Woman, and set history in powerlifting just because my DNA said so.
No. I had to work hard and dedicate myself to my training. I had to set a goal and focus on it. When shit was going down in my personal life and work was driving me literally insane..I trained.Hard.
I never left sight of the goal. I not only followed the programme I believed in it, and I listened (and argued from time to time) with my coach, who in turn listened and argued back.
When my son was rushed into hospital with appendicitis and I sat with him until 4 am, slept for 4hrs,sat in the hospital for hours until he was out of surgery and still had to train that day, I went to the gym at 1030pm that night and trained the majority of my deadlift session. Although I felt like collapsing.
Yes,I chose to do that…and possibly my ‘good genes’ allowed me to do that on minimal sleep and food, but it was my desire to hit my goal that drove me on.
Now, I’m not sharing that for a medal or for you to say WOW! Isn’t she great, but for you to understand that It was my passion and drive that pushed me forward when most would have skipped that session and gone home to sleep.
Now..in saying all that, there are factors that I know have helped me from a genetic perspective but they aren’t necessarily a good thing…
For example, being able to do all I have done on days when my nutrition was very poor and I was dehydrated, after travelling all day and only having 4 or 5 hrs sleep…but what I have learned from this is if I actually fuel myself correctly and consistently,get good sleep and hydrate properly, just how much better can I be?? But that’s another topic for discussion 🙂
So in a nutshell…
It doesn’t matter how genetically gifted you are…you are only as strong as the work you put in.
‘Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard’