Save It For The Last One: Just Go Home

Save It For The Last One: Just Go Home

By: Will Hitzelberger
I will personally pick you up off the ground and carry you home if I need to, but don’t save it.

EVERYONE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT.

We were recently training a women’s team on Friday that does some interval conditioning after their lift. Last week we completed 100 yard sprints on a 20 second interval, and we did 3 sets of 3. The team definitely gets into this and most of them get pretty competitive about finishing first in their group. So last week this one particular athlete finished last in her first 6 sprints. On the last set she starts to creep up towards the front, and on the last sprint she goes all out and smokes everyone. The rest of the team had been working hard and giving it everything they had just to watch this girl save her energy to smoke them in the last sprint.

This week we would add a rep to each set. The conditioning would be the same 100 yard interval, but we would do 3 sets of 4.

I watched the same girl half ass the first set. She was in a smaller group where she was only running against one other athlete. After the first set, I casually walked up to her during her rest time and told her to finish first on the next two sets (8 more sprints). In a pathetic manner, she told me her legs felt awful. It was a hard week for the entire team.

“I don’t care. Finish first on the next two sets.”

“NO!!!!! THE NEXT TWO.”

I then casually walked over to the other girl she was running against, who was unaware of our conversation, and told her, “Don’t let her win.”

Set two.

They go at it. My girl, who wanted to save it for the end, wins all four in set 2.

Going into set 3 I yell at her to do again to make it publicly known amongst the team now. I also yell at the other girl to not let her win.

My girl wins the first, loses the second, wins the third and can barely cross the finish line on the fourth.

I could not be more excited. She gave everything she had. She left it all there. She pushed herself and got better.

I YELLED, “EVERYDAY!!!!!! YOU HAVE TO TRAIN LIKE THAT EVERYDAY!!!!!! THAT IS HOW YOU GET BETTER!!!!!!!

“HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND.”