My Muay Thai trainer is old school. He knows that technique is important, but he also knows that most fights are won with conditioning. Muay Thai exhausting. In most cases, the fighter who is able to maintain composure and continue executing the technique while under physical duress is the fighter who wins.

So every Tuesday, my trainer pushes me just a bit past the point of where my conditioning can properly support me. He brings me right to my physical breaking point, and then he pushes me slightly past it.

Tonight, we started with …

• 100 skip knees (which are the most exhausting)

• 50 double knees on the right

• 50 double knees on the left

• 100 alternating push kicks

• 50 teep kicks on the right

• 50 teep kicks on the left

• 50 checks into a right kick

• 50 checks into a left kick

After every kick I throw, he’s yelling at me. “HARDER! GET YOUR KICKS UP! HARDER! COME ON, THROW IT HARDER!

It’s insane. I can row 12,000 meters for an hour straight and it’s nothing in comparison to this. It’s such a shock to your system.

By the time we get to the clinch work and the pad work, my body is in complete shut down mode.

What’s frustrating is that each week, I am able to perform the conditioning aspect a bit better than I was the week before. So I know I am improving.

But as I improve, the challenge increases.

It sucks. It’s miserable. But I wouldn’t have it any other way and I keep going back for more. I’ll keep going back for the rest of my life.

For me, success in life has always been about stamina. I’ve never been the strongest, or the fastest, or the best. But I’ve always been well conditioned.

I can think of multiple lacrosse goals I’ve scored in the late game, simply because the person guarding me couldn’t breathe. I stick with problems way longer than I should. It’s intentional. I genuinely believe that everyone else will quit before I do.

Sprinting is easy and inefficient. Sprinting is a bad method for success.

Consistent output is how you win. And in order to perform at a high level (in anything in life) you need to be properly conditioned.

I felt terrible tonight. By the time we were hitting pads at the end of training, I could hardly move my arms. It was embarrassing and I finished feeling like I had been hit by a bus.

But I am a little bit better than I was yesterday. And tomorrow, I will benefit from the work I put in today.

Conditioning wins fights. Stamina is how you separate yourself from the pack. There’s nothing that can bring a person to their knees faster than not being able to breathe. So work on your stamina, because all you have to do is outlast everyone else.