Find your motivation on the big screen
We need more than just legs and lungs to train. We often need to find the motivation that drives us to pedal that extra mile and run that extra mile to improve our times. Below, I share a list of films and documentary series, hosted on the Netflix platform, that can accompany a simulator session, a meeting with the jogging band or a Sunday afternoon at home.
- Rising Phoenix
It may or may not be worth saying that I am a type of person who rarely cries when it comes to cinema. But I found it impossible not to be moved to tears by this film while watching it in a simulator session. It is a collection of stories of Paralympic athletes who prepared and competed in Rio 2016. The lives of each of them were already a very steep climb, yet they decided to dedicate their lives to physical activity and the search for glory. Every time I am suffering in some training or competition I think of their example of struggle and courage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnoEn7Fd7c4
- Game manual
In this 5-episode series, I found stories of coaches from different disciplines who marked the history of their sports with their methodologies and their motivation and planning strategies. In each chapter, I found tools that have been useful to me when managing emotions during training. Among the characters are José Mourinho, the technical director who led the US National Soccer Team to success, and Serena Williams' coach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnVDXCOoTWU
- Lorena, the one with light skin
This documentary, just 25 minutes long, is the story of a woman who breaks the mold of those of us who love the marginal gains grouped in sneakers and other accessories that give us comfort in sports. Lorena is an indigenous woman from the Rarámuri community of Mexico who competes in, and wins, ultra marathons wearing her traditional dress (long dress) and sandals. It is an extraordinary story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E04zNn9dFZo
- Last Dance
Michael Jordan. There's not much more to say. He was one of the guys who, in an era without social media, was on everyone's lips for his extraordinary talent. The documentary is an intimate look at the experiences, motivations and obsessions that drove him. led him, and the legendary Red Bulls, to earn a place in history. It is an exquisite series narratively, with jumps in time that make the story a delight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQjYmZgB3QQ
- The Least Expected Day
This series shows us what happens inside a professional cycling team during the 2019 and 2020 seasons. We will see Richard Carapaz winning the Giro d'Italia, Nairo Quintana fighting to win stages and all the details of the Movistar Team in each of its competitions. It is a valuable document due to the closeness to the daily life of a team inside and the harshness of the situations, good and bad, that it allowed viewers to see. It has two seasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQEQlw4xXc0
And you, what do you like to watch to find motivation?
Cristian Marin-Alternating Current