A few years ago, back when Conor McGregor still had my respect, he and his coach John Kavanagh came out with the phrase
“Upgrade the software without damaging the hardware”
Which is brilliance.
Why has that sprung to mind today?
Well I’m just back in WG-Fit after meeting with a former member for a consultation session.
I say former, as he, like many, always keep in touch, no matter how infrequently, they know that they can get my help whenever they need it.
He was asking for a short term program to help his Rugby playing. But as we chatted, it became clear that he didn’t need a gym program, his training in that respect was already on point and he was pretty much as he needed to be at this stage in the season.
He didn’t have a hardware problem.
He had a software problem.
He’d recently changed position on the field. Different position, requires different tactics. Tactics are a software issue. He hadn’t uploaded the new software, he was still running the old program in the new position.
Once this was pointed out and we covered what he needed to do to fix this, his face lit up. It made perfect sense.
Then he said, “You’ve just done yourself out of a load of training appointments!”
Which is true.
But more importantly, he’s not going to waste his time trying to fix his software issues with hardware.
Note the irony of me, a self confessed neanderthal who struggles with computers writing a computing analogy
Lets play spot the difference..
Anyway, back to the story
So rather than booking him in for a dozen sessions of Deadlifts, agility drills and sprints. We laid out a plan, a plan to address his mindset and re frame how he viewed his role on the pitch.
It starts with taking a dispassionate view of the problem.
We used to call this a helicopter view. You must zoom out, disconnect.
Imagine you’re working this out for someone else, not yourself. In his case, I told him to act as if he is the team manager writing out the role of that position for a new player.
If you’re not a rugby guy, the process doesn’t change. You simply look at the end product that you want, figure out what it should look like?
Once you have that, and only when you have that, can you start to reverse engineer to find out what you need to do to create that end product.
If you haven’t done an impartial SWOT analysis, you can’t develop a plan to eliminate weaknesses.
Many times with athletes and high performers, their hardware is great. Their software requires the work.
Does yours?
Regards
Dave Hedges www.WG-Fit.com
Comments