I have said a 1000 times or more, the day you decide to compete, truly compete and do something with an intent to be competitive is the day that health and fitness ends. 
For this reason, despite having worked with Olympic wrestlers, European weightlifters, elite CrossFitters and Ironmen I don’t like seeing the average Jo become competitive in any sport. Don’t get me wrong, signing up for the local 10km and doing a competition recreationally is fine, but the day you decide to be competitive in a given sport many sacrifices need to be made and all balance must be lost. In order to win you need to follow extreme’s, an extremely regimented diet and training Programme which leads to imbalance i.e. you need to spend so much time working on improving for your sport you neglect all other aspects of fitness which are detrimental to health which is why you wont find a professional athlete anywhere who has perfect symmetry, mobility and stability in equal measure, structurally sound and a good base in all energy systems. The more extreme you are, the more you sacrifice to win, the bigger further away from general health you become. 
Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but you should know what it takes to get to the top of any sport and the sacrifices are far more then just social, time, and monetary but every athlete has to make sacrifices to their general health. What are your thoughts?
