*With the promised, ‘like father, like son’ subtitle 🙂
Iva, Ivica, Matea, Rafaela, and Roberto were recently joined by Roko Antić in our SpartanFit 5.0 club, achieving 50 workouts to this day, equalizing in that regard the number of guys and girls who have accomplished this in the last three years.
Roko’s story began on February 21st, 2018, when, with utmost consistency, he literally completed half of the workouts on his way to this achievement before a well-deserved summer break on June 6th. Within those 25 workouts, he covered the majority of our first program in the company of his good friend Ivan Antić. The continuation of his story began a bit later, on November 6th last year, and the decision I made at that time to switch him to the second program at our disposal proved to be of great success. Roko completed the second half of the workouts and reached the milestone of fifty on May 17th. Due to some unforeseen circumstances and the order of reaching 50 by Roberto and 100 by Ivica, I decided to wait a bit with this dedication so that Roko could rightfully have his week. Recently, we are not alone again since Roko’s good friend Josip Lončarić joined us. Regarding the current training cycle, Roko managed to reach the middle of the third phase of our ‘Superset 4’ program, and the progress, which is quite visible, greatly helps him on the handball court.
Given that Roko is a guy with whom I, like with his dad, have shared the field and locker room countless times, it’s hard for me to completely objectively portray and express certain things, but I’ll still try. Interestingly, our sports interaction actually began a bit earlier when Roko was just on the doorstep of our Handball Club ‘Selce’s’ senior team. However, we also often gathered at the legendary ‘Akademija,’ a playground adjacent to our elementary school, where we more or less all grew up. In most cases, without underestimating any of our coaches, we learned to play handball there. The key difference lies in the play on words because, although we gained certain basics of that wonderful sport at Matkino and later in Crikvenica’s city hall, we were ‘playing’ handball mostly on our own, trying everything we saw on TV, from Balić, Lacković, and many international teams and legends of our childhood.
To say that handball is in Roko’s blood would an understatement because even then it was evident how much he genuinely enjoyed it. Naturally, the course of events and growing up led him to our first team where, from next year, due to positive circumstances for all of us, he will be among the oldest. That will be an obligation and responsibility that I know will not burden him but only motivate him further. This is how he ended with me at Matkino as well. True, his dad’s influence was in the mix as well, but over time, Roko himself, especially after switching to our second program, realized how much that additional effort and self-improvement truly helps him and how, because of that, paired with quality handball practices since Ante Tomas returned to our club, it’s easier for him on the field. In a way, it was easy to come to that conclusion, considering that the situation after last summer was mildly alarming in terms of accumulated excess weight, but as time passed, that part of the story slowly came to where it needs to be. Although, honestly speaking, we are still quite far from the goals we’ve set for ourselves, I know how persistent, dedicated, and motivated Roko now is for the continuation of this story. He also knows that he still needs to work a bit on discipline, especially regarding the classic summer ‘relaxation’ period, which is, unfortunately, a prevalent story in the European sports scene where 90% of athletes can’t wait for the summer break, indulging excessively in some aspects, without thinking about how much harder it will be for them to return in the fall to their form. Although I believe and hope that this won’t happen again this year, I am confident that I will write a similar dedication after Roko’s hundredth workout next year, and that consistency, even with the occasional break or two, is ultimately the most important. Even though I know he’s already aware of everything that was written here, I must once again point out how extremely pleased I am to be of help and support to my friend Roko in this stage of our interaction, and how I equally look forward to everything that awaits us.
Original release date: June 8, 2019.