2018 Beyond the Classics discussion

"How Bad Do You Want it?: Mastering the Psychology of Mind Over Muscle" by Matt Fitzgerald examines and breaks down notorious athletes' physical and mental success over their career as an attempt to inspire the reader into following their footsteps on the mental level. As a runner I found this book very valuable and applicable to my everyday routine. I found the lessons this book teaches you simple to use and allow me to perform better. Each chapter contains a different focus with a different athlete from a different sport ranging to swimming, rowing, biking, and running. Fitzgerald clearly has a grasp on the subject and is very passionate about endurance sports with a wide variety of different mentioned athletes from around the world from France to Kenya that "How Bad Do You Want It?" can be classified as a collection of memoirs. Although the author talks much about the psychology of sports, he is not an expert, sporting no PHD in the matter, which makes me wonder how credible his advice is nonetheless the psychology makes sense in practice, myself an example. Fitzgerald does an excellent job of making godlike athletes seem human, talking about their failures and how they were able to overcome them with the right mental mindset shows that athletes are able to be the best they can be with not just talent, but with mental toughness as well. I usually do not like reading nonfiction but I decided to switch things up a bit and try something factual. At first I was very intrigued by the subject and was interested in learning more, however I found myself wanting to just get a chapter over with as quick as possible to move on to the more interesting chapter. Sometimes I found myself just reading the words but not comprehending the task at hand. Because of this I had to take on and off breaks between this book and another fiction book. It was sometimes difficult to get back into the book because of how much information is thrown in your direction in just one chapter. Fitzgerald does not hesitate in using sports terminology that some may not understand so it takes some background in some instances. Aside from these negatives, I thoroughly enjoyed the book as I found it useful in the long run and it is very inspirational. I highly recommend "How Bad Do You Want it?: Mastering the Psychology of Mind Over Muscle" to those that do endurance sports or have an interest in it. However if you have no interest in those things, I recommend you not pick it up as the information presented may not have any value at all unless you are doing or really like the sport.