Best Sports & Physical Activities II

"Atlas" by Boris Vallejo

It seems to me that the best approach is to do well in every area. Train in all things, testing your physicality in all aspects. Have no weaknesses. Develop extra ability where you possess need, desire, or talent. Practice exercises and activities from cartwheels and handstands to traveling tuck jumps and bear crawls, among others. Try everything that is out there, if it adds to your overall athletic prowess, practice it. Go for the all-around approach. Of course, make sure to exceed in the standard athletic acts of the bench press, 1 mile run, and so on, above normal levels. This is not difficult to do, so see how far you can go. The hard part will be to do well in comparison with those who train much more exclusively in specific areas. But this is also possible, to match or perhaps even to exceed them, if you are smart and train well. Obviously, one cannot reach the highest level in all fields, in terms of competing in the finals for dozens of events at the Olympic games, but one can develop substantial overall prowess nonetheless. Then you can specialize in whichever specific area or sport you like. You can get good performance and capabilities out of your body. This is the general aim. A state of high fitness is fundamentally a good thing to have. You must be consistent in your training. Dedication to athleticism, the striving for physical perfection, this is the attitude that produces success, if it is willful and genuine. Find a sport to be passionate about, and excel in it. The strength, the speed, the endurance, the reflexes, the versatility and power are all at your grasp if you develop them.

There is an addendum to the Octathlon idea, and that is the change to the 200 meter sprint, and the triple jump for men and women. I think this would be a better set-up because it avoids redundancy with the other multi-sport events. Oh, and also the throwing event will be the hammer for both. In regards to that particular throwing event, there should be some modification. The current Olympic hammer is a wire and ball, but I find the Scottish hammer (from the Highland Games) or cane and ball set-up to be more appealing, perhaps because the chain and ball type item seems chaotic or dangerous in some ways. In addition, I have been considering a maximum height throw rather than maximum distance, as it tests different muscle groups and seems like a nice addition variety-wise for throwing competitions. There could be 2 new events included, both for height rather than distance perhaps. So, perhaps a short hammer and some kind of heavy sack/bag throwing event could be added, which adds variety and which one or both are height throws instead of distance throws. So a current revised model is as follows, Men: 200 meter sprint, 5 km run, triple jump, hammer (perhaps modified to cane), freestyle wrestling, table tennis, weightlifting, 100 meter freestyle swim. Women: track and field same as men, judo, tennis, archery, 100 meter freestyle swim. The structure could be more of an elimnation-tournament style, where perhaps the top 1/3 will continue on after the track and field portion, the top 1/3 again after the 3 non-grappling events, and the top, middle and bottom 1/3 of score totals placed into the gold, silver and bronze medal brackets respectively. Then the final grappling events will determine the medal recipients, with perhaps 1-2 golds, 2 silvers, and 3 bronzes awarded out in total. There will be no weight classes in the Octathlon. Also, I had the idea (which may not be that original) of awarding platinum medals for truly outstanding performance, such as multi-medal winning, multi-olympics spanning achievement. Or maybe a platinum ribbon for record breaking in 3 or more events.

There should also be consideration for diet and health. One should obviously try to maintain a healthy diet and engage in health-promoting activity, not just through exercise. I have been fairly remiss on these matters and perhaps I shall improve in this area.