Accountability and the fitness game

My, but this blog has been getting a bit dusty around the corners, hasn’t it? But that’s off-season for ya – kit bag kicked under the bed, boots shoved in some corner where hopefully the smell won’t bother anyone, and rugby pushed, if not to the back of my mind, then at least less constantly at the front of my thoughts.

Instead, like any dutiful rugger, the off-season brings for me a new obsession: fitness. Lifting, core workouts, sprinting, nutrition, when can I get to the gym?

After all, this is my first off-season as an Official Adult, without finals or new classes or shuttling back and forth between home and campus. No traveling to foreign countries and (knock on wood) no long, drawn-out illnesses to keep me from finally focusing all my energy on Being the Fittest Rugby Player I Can Be. For the first time, I should really be able to set some serious goals and meet them… right?

But it’s been harder than I thought. There are the usual distractions – after all, now I’m earning a paycheck which can be spent on Happy Hours and new books and Netflix – but that’s not it. I also can’t blame the cold weather or my new neighborhood not being safe to run in at night or my mysterious shoulder injury for making me skip workouts or shave the end off of my sprints or occasionally eat a bag of popcorn for dinner instead of a well-balanced meal.

It’s a lack of accountability.

See, back when I played for American, we spent the off-season playing The Fitness Game. Workouts had a point value, and at the end of every week you’d add up your points and send them to a team leader to be totaled and reported in a summary to the rest of the team. I’m sure that some people cheated, gave themselves points for workouts they didn’t do, or “forgot” to report their negative points (incidentally, a three-drink minimum doesn’t result in less drinking, merely VERY strong drinks) – but the cheating didn’t make a difference. The thing is, everyone knew – we were all in the game together. We badgered each other to go to the gym or to go running between classes, we noticed who was getting the highest point totals and talked about who was slacking, we could tell during that first week of practice who had been keeping up their fitness in the cold or the heat. Even after I graduated, I spent the summer in a house of ruggers and we dragged each other to the gym and sprint workouts before sevens practices.

Now instead of heading to the university gym, I come home and lift in my laundry room. Instead of sprint sessions on the track, I try to find a well-lit park somewhere in the neighborhood. Instead of tallying my points once a week and having to admit to someone when I’ve slacked off – well, no one knows the difference if I go home and watch TV on my couch instead of going into my freezing cold laundry gym. And without that accountability, it can be awfully hard to give into temptation.

So what’s a rugger to do?

At first, I just got frustrated and criticized myself for not doing better. Don’t I have more willpower than that? Aren’t I committed to being a better rugby player?? Skipping workouts makes me a TERRIBLE PERSON and I should be ASAHMED OF MYSELF for being such a PITIFUL EXCUSE FOR A RUGBY PLAYER.

But yeah, that didn’t work. Turns out I’m not a great self-motivator.

So now I’m trying something new. After all, there’s still plenty of ruggers in my life, and we’re all on Gchat all the time anyways. If every morning, Caboose and I agree to talk about our workout plans for the evening and whether we did what we’d meant to the night before – then she’ll know if I slack off. If I make gym and sprint dates with my teammates and the DCers I know from the U23 team instead of going out for a drink – well, there’s temptation gone and it’s not like I’ll stand anyone up for a gym date.

It’s a new fitness game. It’s sort of like being a responsible adult. And so far, it’s working. Which is good for me, because after all – there’s that first spring practice coming up. And no matter what happens in the off-season, there’s still those fourteen other players on the pitch that I’m accountable to as soon as the season starts.