Not giving a fuck about what other people are doing takes brass balls. Its scary because you get no feedback from a smiling-sadistically coach or partner. It's all you. And yet, that is how some of the best are forged. It forces you to decide for yourself what you think counts, and what does not. All of sudden, you are the executive decision maker. Judge, jury and below-parallel-perfect-high-bar-back-squat executioner.
These people exist. As a matter of fact, they are dominating across gyms, competitions, and as first-responder types across the globe. Those who look at standards and ask themselves if that standard really applies to them. Like pull-ups. Do I reach my chin for the bar at the top of the pull-up? Do I kip? What would most likely cause me to crash and burn in the real world?
It's interesting to me how we view ourselves in the safety of a gym/box/ranch/back-alley-squeezed between-two-dumpsters setting versus in nature where laws are unbreakable. If a workout calls for strict pull-ups, and the first thing you do is grab a big fat band, or worse, bands, and after getting set-up begin to kip your ass up to the bar rather than attempting to actually do a pull-up as instructed how in Krist's name will you ever pull your same ass out of a real problem? I've seen plenty of people who have been "working out" for a period of time still unable to perform even the slightest strict pull.
Let me clue in those same people to how pull-ups work in the real world. Lets say you decide to go scramble over some bad-ass talus field at a local state park. After your scramble bro-sesh, a few hours into your day, you park it on a ledge to grub out. As you chew your food you become parched and in a haste to reach your water bottle your backpack nudges dumbly off the ledge... and lands 10' down in a crack nestled 90 feet above the ground. There is just enough room to go down and stand so you decide to try and go get it. After all, your frakking wallet was in there. So carefully you reverse your ass down the wall, thinking that you can climb back up, as the holds look to resemble giant potatoes.
Here's the thing about climbing holds on a wall: there is no way to kip. The kip is a specific gymnastic movement for gymnasts. Unless you are experienced in climbing, and know how to use your feet (a la rope climbs) you will be forced to pull your bodyweight up, and most times its off of a single arm. So as you stand at the bottom of a 10' ledge looking up with a dumb slack-jawed open mouth, you realize you're fucked, and begin to wonder why in the last year worth of opportunities you were granted to train you didn't once try to at least do a few strict pull-ups.
This is a single example, grossly vague regarding the circumstances, and yet I hope you take away one thing. Make your training mean something to you. Know what you will accept. Know why it is important that you accept nothing less from yourself than the standard calls for. Only then will know what a real effort is and how to get your body to give it. You will never rise to the occasion, you will however, default to your level of training. Don't let your default be bullshit. Make your default the toughest, most mind-warping, will-powered, everything you got standard. Trust me, things will start to look a lot easier in the real world.
If you were to train in a dark room, with no one watching, and no one ever knew you were there - what standard would you apply to yourself?
