Happy New Year everyone, hope all have had a decent start to 2026. With it being only days old, hopefully at the least it’s not gone too far sideways for you.
 
Some of you may recall some writing of mine a few months ago about how to become more athletic in the gym. I have something that’s up that alley, yet a slightly different flavor for today. I’ve coached athletes in the gym for 10+ years (14) and on the field for the better part of 10 years at this point in time. In those 10-14 years of experience, here are 3 things (not the only 3 things mind you) that can make an athlete better which take zero talent.
 
1) Show up consistently- You can have all the talent in the world and still be very good at your sport while doing the bare minimum. To truly be over the top, you need to show up to training and practice consistently. A little in and out over a few months will do you next to nothing. Even if you’re hurt, going to practice for the mental reps helps, and any strength coach worth a lick will be able to tailor a workout around an injury, bar a few such injuries. Those with less talent absolutely need to double down on this. As the saying goes, hard work can beat talent when talent doesn’t want to work hard.

2) Show up on time- It’s a life skill that carries over so it’s worth learning for every athlete (person). It’s a simple point, show up on time means you have more time to workout and/or more time to learn. Not only that, coaches note it either mentally or literally and when push comes to shove, you’ll get the benefit over someone else that was constantly late (or worse).

3) Watch and listen twice as much as you talk- As my first rugby coach said, you have two ears, two eyes and one mouth, do you know why…? (Answer is obvious) Especially as a coach of a team sport, nothing will make me mark a demerit mentally faster than when a player is constantly the one talking while I’m trying to teach something. I can tell you first hand when I had a 50/50 choice between such a player and another that was always listening, I picked the player that was clearly paying attention (or at least was smart enough to keep his yapper shut).
 
As I stated before, this is not a comprehensive list and I’m sure I’m not the person to write these exact three things down. Still, comes from my perspective and that’s what I have for you. Thanks for reading all and have yourself a 2026!

I find this post to be appropriate given the time of year that we are in with the holidays throwing a monkey wrench into most people’s routines and such. Consistency is one of the hardest things to find during this stretch here in the U.S., from Thanksgiving to the New Year (and whatever the following Monday happens to be). Consistency is also one of the biggest rocks that the fitness field tries to convey to our clients and potential clients. If you’re consistent, good things happen, not over night, they happen still.
 
With that, I decided to set myself a little goal way back in the summer, I would hit 3 workouts a week for 16 weeks. I have always been one to hit lifts consistently for 8-10 weeks and then the wheels would find a way to fall off. I’d get sick, some big incident with First XV or my home life would overtake the week, and a number of other roadblocks that I can’t currently think of.
 
I decided that instead of chasing numbers on the bar for a bit, I was just going to focus on being consistent. Get my lifts in from August 19th until December 5th, 3 times a week. For those keeping score, that’s 48 workouts in total. Also, those that can recall, life really threw some curve balls at me before August 19th, so I really wanted to start feeling better about at least something, this consistency goal was a low bar for me to hit, it felt at the time.
 
The Start- If you’re reading this post, you probably know how the start feels. You’re able to hit your workouts for 3-5 weeks, no problem, life is easy here. I was always able to find the time and hit my lifts hard in those first 4 weeks for myself. As I said, this is the easy part, in my opinion at the least.
 
The Change- Those reading this also might recall I moved my schedule around, from waking up at the absolute ass crack of dawn (and earlier) to coaching at night. When I initially set my goal, I thought this would be a bit of a speed bump. Turns out, it was the best thing I could do for my goal. I continued to get my lifts in at Core Collective around the same time of day as previously except one thing, I was coming in fresh as a daisy. Well, as fresh as one can be with an 18-month-old at home. Point is, I was not getting my lifts in after coaching for many hours straight and just doing my best not to totally gas out by the end. I was coming in with a full tank and ready to rock.
 
Working Out Through Illness- It’s not completely impossible, but it’s rare to go 16 weeks without some sort of illness or health issue. Those chances are halved when you have a kid that brings germs home from school or daycare. However, I did manage to get through workouts even when feeling a little under the weather. What did I do for this? I dialed down my weights, took my sweet ass time to get through the workout and if my energy tapped out or was pushing that, I kicked the rest of the workout and called it. I’ll say I mostly had coughs and head colds, nothing like a flu or stomach bug. I was mindful of the days I lifted too, if I had 0 energy when I woke up, I would push the workout to the next day, even used a break glass in case of emergency Saturday workout as a last resort. If it’s not clear, I rarely workout on the weekends, trust me, chasing Lachie around is enough.
 
Working Out Through Injury- Another thing that’s almost always going to happen is a little tweak or twinge from one of those workouts. It doesn’t mean you pack it in and say, well guess I’m not training, unless you are so much pain you can barely move or have absolutely 0 energy from managing your injury, then yes skip it. This reared it’s ugly head one week with me, I had a slight twinge during a lift one day and was able to finish with some modifications, but what exacerbated it 10x was an incident at home where I tried to put our AC unit away and got into a very awkward position with a significant weight in my hands. After this I started having acute bouts of pain in my adductor. I had good help from some friends (thanks Gabby and Nick) and got myself a plan to address it. In the meantime, as Tony Gentilcore will tell you, find your trainable menu. I figured out the things that I could train and hit them hard while respecting my injury and avoiding things that would cause me pain. Any coach with a pair of brain cells to rub together needs to be able to at least have this in their locker, figure out what movements someone can do when they pick up an injury, not just say skip it and rest.
 
The Holiday- Some of you probably did the math on those dates I mentioned earlier and realized that I could have had a stumbling block with Thanksgiving falling within those 16 weeks. Yes, it could have been. We were not spending that holiday locally, we were heading to my Mom’s place, north. This is something we’ve done regularly though and I’ve managed to get lifting in before. Suffice to say, this was old hat for me and knew I could get a lift in. Of course, it helps when your Mom hooks you up with a day pass from the kick ass gym she gets her training at, thanks for having me Jacked and Jilled.
 
What Happened?- In the end many good things came from me finding this consistency in 16 weeks. I was able to kick an injury a little quicker than most would, being strong already, certainly helped, still. Remember, strong people are harder to  kill.  Yes, I got stronger, in general I just felt good, had some confidence in myself, my energy was improved, found a better sleep routine (I attribute much of this to my schedule change though) and I just found some self belief, more than before.
 
That’s what I have for you, I didn’t mean for it to get into this doozy of a post, sometimes I can’t help it though. Happy holidays to everyone and thanks for reading fam!

There’s something that I need to put down in writing that’s been bugging me for months (maybe years) and it’s a narrative circulated by many (uninformed) people that don’t have the first clue. As you probably guessed, I’m talking about the "Kids these days are soft" BS. A claim that has been having a run for years, and frankly it’s annoying to hear. In an era when kids face more challenges than ever. The idea that today’s youth are somehow "softer" than previous generations is not just outdated, it's just plain wrong.
 
I would argue kids today are actually tougher than ever before. There may be an exception here or there, as there usually is. The notion that kids are somehow lacking in resilience doesn’t hold up when we consider the things they face today. Consider just this, the infinite judging from others on the internet. Social media means that every action, every mistake, is under a microscope from their peers. Imagine having your every move critiqued publicly—at a time when your identity and emotions are still developing. This constant exposure is draining for adults, never mind a developing young person.
 
From my experience, some of these youngsters have better emotional maturity than I (and many of us) did at their age. They can have chat with me and ask me for a day off, granted the world itself has shifted to that being a normal thing, still it does take some sort of emotional strength to conjure that. It’s never been about suffering in silence and just dealing with it, that ends poorly the vast majority of the time, so these kids are learning that’s not the answer and taking action to go with it, kudos to them.
 
When we think of other things our young people have the pressures of many of us did not when growing up, think about college (university to my friends beyond North America). It’s no longer an amazing achievement to get into and finish college, the expectations are to get into THE BEST and only THE BEST (see Operation Varsity Blues for some proof of that). These expectations are beyond what many of us ever experienced and this ever-growing pursuit of perfection that society (and yes parents) puts on them does not make things any easier.
 
Final point, most people that are babbling this manure about youngsters not being tough or resilience have not spent any significant time around them (apart from MAYBE their own offspring). I would challenge anyone to speak to a high schooler on a daily basis for a few months and not be baffled at the crap they have to go through.
 
That's all for today folks. Thanks for reading today, not totally about coaching this one, but not not about coaching either. Back again soon with more goods. Have a day friends and Happy Thanksiving to all here in the U.S.