Your Olympic Year

Recently I have been checking in on the USA track and field Olympic Trials. If you are not familiar with the Olympic trials, it is a 10-day track and field meet that is run every 4 years to determine the top three athletes that our country will send to the Olympics. Since the summer Olympics were cancelled in 2020, they are being held this year in Tokyo, Japan. I find it amazing that every year someone breaks an old record. You would think that at some point the human body could only run so fast, jump so high or far, or throw something just so far. Just in these Olympic trials, we saw a 31-year-old shot put world record obliterated with a single throw. A new world record was set in the woman’s 400-meter hurdles. That means that there has never been a person that has walked the face of this earth that has ever performed these events at this level.

Some people could care less about sports, track and field, or world records. I get that, but how about human performance? We are all humans, and we all have to perform life every day. Sure, most of us don’t have the physical make up of an Olympic caliber athlete, but we still have to perform whatever it is we are called to do. Whether it is endurance, strength, speed, agility, flexibility, balance or just coordination, we all can be measured with these parameters, and they are applicable to everyday life. Most people decide to come to see me as a chiropractor, because they are experiencing an unwanted symptom, usually pain of some sort. They have not given a thought to how their performance in the previously mentioned parameters has been declining for years, or even decades.

Think about the time in your life when you could run like the wind. I mean you were as fast as your legs had ever carried you. How old were you? If you were to try and run that fast now what would happen? That is just one example of how your performance has declined. During these Olympic trials we saw a women qualify for her 5^th Olympics. Normally that would span a 20-year career, but this year it is 21 years due to last years cancellation. Certainly, there is something that we can learn from this type of high-level performance that has allowed her to stave off time’s inevitable consequences.

We all know that she has been whatever exercises that people in her sport do. We also can assume that she probably has some type of coach or coaches. She probably also is pretty smart about her food that she consumes. The question that I keep coming back to is what is it that has driven her to stay the course for so long? This is the real question that is important for all of us to get. The answer is one that can help any of us to do better. It comes down to her mindset, her headspace, the thoughts that she thinks about herself, her self-talk or internal dialogue. These are the conversations that we have everyday with ourselves, and most of us are not even aware that we are having them.

What are you capable of doing? What is your potential going forward? Many of us have past the “prime of our life,” but how do you want the last chapters to unfold? Are your standards getting lower, or are you raising your standards?

In the Olympics hundredths of a second matter, millimeters matter, chasing perfection matters. How about in your life? Every parameter that measures human performance involves the expression of our nervous system. Chiropractic care is all about upregulating the brain’s connections with the body. Most Olympians and professional athletes use chiropractic care to hone their performance, not just to alleviate some aches and pains. The reason for their use of chiropractic care speaks to their mindset about life. Are you the best you in the world? When will we be seeing your next world-record performance?

Lombardi Chiropractic Family Health Center
1116 Upper Lenox Ave.
www.lombardichiropractic.com
315-363-4114

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