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Goals and Motivation

dweir1Not making much progress in losing weight, or on a slow train in attaining your strength and fitness goals? You think you have problems? Take a look at someone who could have had plenty to complain about, but took a different approach: David Weir, the British and World Champion Paralympic champion who won this year’s London Marathon for the fifth time and won last year’s New York Marathon and took triple gold in the World Championships in Christchurch New Zealand.

He is described as Britain’s top wheel chair athlete and one of the best in the world.
So how did he get there, given the significant disability of being born paraplegic? Self-perception seems to be the secret, or at least a large part of it. “I have never seen myself as disabled. I have always been treated as normal,” says the 34 year old from South London who has an 8 year old daughter from a previous relationship and now has a new-born son with his current partner.

He has been a full time athlete for the last thirteen years.

dweir2Of course, a positive mental attitude is only one part of the process. You also have to work at it. He does regular weight training and practices in his wheelchair in Richmond Park.

“Wheel-chair racing was the only thing I was good at,” he says. Although born paraplegic he was also otherwise physically robust with the arms and chest of a boxer what he would have opted to be if he could have, he says. Competition is another aspect of what inspires him: “Part of the beauty of sport is having rivals who drive you on.”

At the end of the day, what matters the most is to create goals that you can reach. Have a daily program that fits your schedule, and always embrace yourself everytime you succeed small parts of your goals. 

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