The bicycle wheel: Students often come to me concerned that due to some circumstances in their life, be it injury, career, family/personal, they have to reduce training. Their concern is that with reductions in training time they will lose the skills they had worked so hard to develop. Don't be concerned. Skills take tremendous work in order to be CREATED OR IMPROVED, but very little work in order to be MAINTAINED AT (OR CLOSE TO) THEIR CURRENT LEVEL. My friend, Jean Charles Skarbowsky, used a fine metaphor to express this idea. remember when you were a child playing with a bicycle? You could prop the bicycle upside down and spin the front wheel with your hand. When you first began to spin the wheel, it took a fair amount of effort to get it spinning quickly – you had to overcome the inertia of the stationary wheel through effort. BUT ONCE THE WHEEL WAS SPINNING QUICKLY – YOU COULD EASILY KEEP IT MOVING AT SPEED BY PERIODICALLY BRUSHING THE WHEEL WITH A LIGHT TOUCH OF YOUR HAND. Realize this – YOUR PHYSICAL SKILLS WORK THE SAME WAY. Once they are well developed, even minimal efforts will maintain them close to their current level. Have faith that should life and circumstances take you in directions that mean you have to reduce training time – don't despair. Just stay in the game to the degree that you keep most of what you worked so hard to gain. THE ONLY TIME I SEE PEOPLE DRASTICALLY LOSE SKILLS IS WHEN THEY COMPLETELY ABANDON THE GAME BOTH MENTALLY AND PHYSICALLY. All the time I see athletes keep ninety percent of their skills with just minimal upkeep for extended periods of time. As soon as circumstances change favorably you can get back in the saddle very quickly and then devote the extra time and effort to making improvements and innovations- which require considerably more time and effort. Whenever training time gets compromised let the metaphor of the bicycle wheel be your guide.
