JULIE MCDONALD, a long-distance freestyle swimmer for Australia, won a
bronze medal at the 1988 Olympics. Her advice:
For me, it's about scheduling my time. If I don't schedule my time I get distracted and am not productive. So I allocate time for exercise, charity, work and fun! That way I stay organised. SCOTT DANBERG has appeared in five Paralympics representing America in
track and field, swimming and powerlifting. He is a Fitness Director at the
Pritikin Longevity Center. His advice:
As a 5-time Paralympian, a way I have found successful to balance sport training and “life” is to envision my training demands and the multiple responsibilities and obligations of “life” and place it all on an imaginary shelf. Mind you, it’s a long shelf with multiple, moveable, dividers that I can compartmentalize and prioritize tasks and change their distribution over time. Tasks such as work and school have fixed dividers of time as these are responsibilities that have known hours and days and need to be met for one’s livelihood and future. Other tasks, such as family and leisure pursuits, have flexible dividers of time that although occupy a “somewhat” fixed area on the shelf are flexible in the hours and days or blocks of time in which they occur. Likewise, training for sport also has dividers that are “somewhat” fixed but most also remain flexible, most importantly, to balance against family and leisure pursuits. As much as one may believe they need to “live and breathe” their sport, life balance, specifically interests outside of the sport itself, is as important a quality for athletic success as the sport training itself. Once the “shelf” is initially organized it doesn’t stay that way for long as the
priority and time demands of sport training increase as the competitive season and competition nears. The fixed areas on the shelf generally stay the same, so it’s the flexible areas on the shelf that change. Unfortunately, an athlete has to cut into time for family and/or leisure pursuits in order to train to be competitive. It’s the unfortunate life of an athlete who, at times, spends less time with family and leisure, but the family who is supportive of this, in return, greatly aids in the success of the athlete. The athlete is willing to sacrifice family and leisure time to stay focused on training as it is the passion and drive to be athletically successful that justifies the compromise.