You Can’t Buy Motivation

March 13, 2009 on 12:03 pm | In Exercise Inspiration And Motivation, Strength Training | 4 Comments

You can’t buy motivation.  Either you have the drive or you don’t.  It is brutally honest.  Of course, you can fan the flames a bit and get someone going and destroy some weights, but that is not always the case.

Take Andre Smith for example.  The Offensive Tackle from Alabama had everything going for him before their bowl game.  He was a projected top 3 pick in the NFL draft, on one of the best teams in the country, and set to make millions of dollars in the pros.  What happened next started his free fall.  He gets suspended from Alabama’s bowl game, yet many people still project him has a top draft pick.

Next Andre leaves the combine without working out, which irritates scouts (bare with me, I’m going somewhere with this), but they still wanted to draft him.  Between the combine and his workout down at Alabama, Andre did an interview which included his workout (fast forward to about 2 minutes to start the training portion).  ANDRE SMITH WORKOUT.

I was rooting for him to pull through until I saw the video.  I figured this guy would snap out of his funk for 10-12 MILLION DOLLARS (as it says in the video).   Would you train your butt off for 10-12 million dollars?  You better believe a lot of motivated people would put up crazy numbers.  However, you still can’t buy motivation.  I saw his training and felt bad for him.  Perhaps he is a great guy, but football and working out just isn’t his thing, not even for millions of dollars.  Perhaps some team does take a chance on him early. 

My suspicions were confirmed yesterday when Andre Smith finally went through he combine testing on his own schedule.  I guess those high rep wrist curls failed him (100 reps of biceps and triceps as the article stated).  From NFL.com “To put Smith’s workout in perspective, he did not post a single number that would have placed him in the top performers at his position at the combine and many of his numbers were not even close to the top 10 at his position at the combine.”He managed a meager 19 reps at 225 and looked sluggish in his positional work.   To put that in perspective, the top offensive lineman, which was supposed to be Smith, put up nearly 40 reps.  Even safeties repped in the 20’s and 30’s at bodyweights of under 200 lbs.

I hate negativity, and would like to see Andre snap out of it and succeed, but at this pace his draft stock has plummeted like, well sadly,  it was a real stock.  Analysts now project him to be in the bottom rounds, costing him more than 10-12 million dollars (the above video was before this combine workout when people still had faith).

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Let’s bring this long post home.  Would you work out for a million dollars?  I’m sure you would, because you train anyways. If someone offered me a million dollars to breathe, I’d certainly breathe, but that’s just inherent in my daily activities.  Bottom line is you can’t motivate someone that lacks the drive.  You can push, teach, and try to fire them up, but at some point the motivation has to come from within, it has to become intrinsic. 

My friends often question why I still train.  I don’t play football or compete anymore, so why workout?  Training is just part of who I am.  It is enjoyable and a challenge.  I have been sick with pneumonia for 3 weeks now and haven’t been able to lift, and it sucks!  I am self motivated and will always, ALWAYS, train.  I do it for myself.

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What is your motivation to push your body past limits?  Chances are no one here does it for millions of dollars, so why get that extra rep when no one else cares?  Post your thoughts in the comments.  This stuff gets me fired up!

“CHARACTER IS WHO YOU ARE WHEN NO ONE IS LOOKING”

- Joe Hashey, CSCS –