When athletes commit to their sports, they give up a lot in terms of time, energy, and choices. There comes a time where you have to fully commit to your support in order to be successful. and one thing that has to be fully committed is your body.
Most people think that this means just instilling healthy habits and overall a great body. However, this is not at all true. Most athletes barely have the time or resources to effectively feed and take care of their bodies.
The most overlooked aspect of sports is the science behind them and how hardly any sport is specifically comparable when you consider which muscles each sport works.
In each sport, in order to improve outside of your sport, you have to strengthen the muscles you intend to be using while competing.
This goes back to what most athletes give up.
Most males are more upset about what they can't lift or improve on their body because if certain muscles get too large, it could result in injury or hurt how they compete. For most women, your body type is the opposite of all of your typical dream body types you see on the internet. For cross-country, you have to be lean to run the long distances, while swimmers need to have larger arms in order to help pull yourself across the pool.
When you decide to commit to a new level of competition, you find yourself sacrificing more than you intended when the 10-year-old version of yourself decided you loved this sport years ago.
This becomes hard when your body is constantly being put on display versus all your competition, seeing how far ahead or behind you are than most. You are never working for the body everyone loves and raves about. You are working to become stronger in order to be successful.
Although it is an incredible thing when you see what you've created through hours of hard work while reaching your goals, it is a tremendous sacrifice that is made daily until your career is over.
To all the athletes who beat down their body to create successes for your teams and yourself, it doesn't go unrecognized.
Regardless of how your body changes to fit your sport's requirements, it's incredible to see what the human body can undergo and sustain after all the work you put it through.
Even though it's difficult at times, love your body.
Sheetal Tadiparty
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