Food for Thought: "All the 'Cool Kids' do it!"

I had referenced this link on the CrossFit boards when someone posted up about CrossFit Endurance (specifically doing CrossFit and an ultra-marathon).

http://www.mikemahler.com/articles/wiggins_cool_kids.html

The article is more of a thought from Matt "Wiggy" Wiggins and it was addressed to the MMA crowd. However, his words go well beyond Mixed-Martial Arts and hits anyone who does any sport. Strength & Conditioning (or training for anything) is very diverse. Diversity is a good thing. What isn't good is to have the mentality of "My shit is better than your shit." Why? Because if you fail at any event, people can easily point to your program. Also, discounting other S&C programs isn't a good thing either. All programs have some type of value if you look objectively. But making sweeping statements about your program being superior over everyone else's just doesn't do you any good and makes you look like an ass. Also, if the program you used to train with didn't work for you, you have to face facts and consider that just maybe you may have flaws within your training (even if you were successful with it the first time using it, you might have gotten lucky!)

I've developed my own program specific to me. I'm experimenting with myself and I have no qualms with saying that if I succeed, then I know my program contributed to it. If I fail, then it's on me and also the program I made up - which I would then re-analyze on what went wrong and fix whatever needed to be fixed.

Questions are: If you fail at your respective sport, are you going to make excuses for your failure or will you point the blame at yourself and the things you did that got you to that failure? Will you actually learn from your failures and use that to fix what went wrong with your training or will you keep insisting that your methods are flawless and there is no room for anything else?

Never stop learning. Never stop growing.