The Super Bowl may be the biggest television sporting event of the year, but you’re not going to be glued to the screen if it’s an incredibly lopsided match as one team runs up 30 unanswered points and the other tries desperately to hold on and not to get completely trampled. Good sporting events feature close matches, surprise comebacks, fair play, and a back-and-forth struggle to gain an edge throughout the game. Winning is one thing, hard-earned victory is another.

While it may not gain national prime-time television coverage, your own competitive endeavors can take a note out of the book of good sporting events. Competition is a powerful motivator, and while you may not consider yourself the archetypical “competitive type,” I’d wager that deep down, you have some competitive tendencies, and you should. The key is directing your competition productively. So in the same way that a lopsided Super Bowl game or a tennis match between Serena Williams and some kid on a high school junior varsity tennis team wouldn’t really garner the best that competition has to offer, setting yourself up in competition against someone who is completely out of your league -- whether with much lower or much higher capacities -- doesn’t make for good competition. And while it certainly helps to have a training partner that has equal capacities and skills as you, that’s not always in the works.

The good news is, all you need is yourself. Cliched though it may sound, setting yourself up in competition with the you of yesterday checks all the boxes for classically good competition. You will always be evenly matched, neither you nor your competition will have an unfair advantage, there will be no foul play, there will always be room to fight to gain that edge, and best of all, your victories will always be something earnable and within reach.

It’s true that having an equally-matched friend or three to compete against will always raise the bar on your efforts, but don’t forget to take on the competition that’s always there, ready for you -- that’s always evenly matched, that improves as you improve. Competing with who you were yesterday sounds like a perfect recipe for finding new ways to get better, forever.

- PS

8/16/18

• 8 1-minute rounds of:

• 30 DUs

• Max rep hang power snatch (135/95)

• Rest 2 mins between rounds

• *record total hang power snatch