I can remember how much I used to stress during the summer about how I needed to be in top condition when 2-a-day practices started.

If you played football, I’m sure you can relate.  That is if you actually gave a sh*t…

Some guys on my team in college came into 2-a-day camp way out of shape.

It was like they didn’t even set foot on a football field.

They were slow and sloppy.

Pissed me off!

I wanted to win championships!

The summer time was the time to do it and make it happen!

For me, 2-a-day’s  was a way to show off just how freaking hard I was working during the summer.

It was my time to MAKE A STATEMENT!

I’ll never forget the time when I was a freshman, I was coming into college football for the first time ever!

I was so freaking nervous I was working my butt off double time during the summer.

I had NO idea what to expect.

All I knew was I needed to be prepared, if anything OVER-prepared!

I ran sprints like it was my day job!

I did gasers til I dropped!   Ran hills until the sun went down.

Sometimes I would purposely go out on the hottest day and run hills without bringing water with me.

It was sort of my way to punish myself I used to think.

I used to say to myself – I must run these hills without any water.  That way when it comes down to being in a game and its crunch time, I would be OVER PREPARED and READY!

I used to do all sorts of things like that.

I would bring a stop watch and time myself to see how fast I could get up the hill.  I would have “mini challenges” against myself making me beat my time every week.

If I ran a slower time, I would do more hills until I beat my best time.

I would get so frustrated sometimes I couldn’t beat my time.

I remember there were marks in the grass where I used to start because I would dig my feet into the ground so much that it just wore away and there was only dirt there.

I would start from that point in a 3 point stance and sprint up the hill until I passed a sprinkler head in the ground.

Those were my markers.

Oh those times were great!

I can surely attest that running those hills each week, helped increase my speed immensely!   NO DOUBT about that!

the bottom line was I didn’t want to leave ANYTHING left to chance.

I wanted to show up to 2-a-day practices in the BEST DAMN SHAPE EVER!

My freshman year, the Seniors kind of got mad at me as I was running my sprints too fast.

We had to run 16 80 yard sprints in splits of 18 secs.

I was running mine in 10 secs.

They were getting pissed because I was “making everyone look bad”…

It’s not my fault I came in over prepared!

Being over prepared is GOOD!

Live Aggressive and Get Strong!

Travis


PS – Thanks for the emails and comments!!!

Keep them coming!

For questions – email me at theforgedathlete@gmail.com