> At least with physical fitness there isn’t a precisely dismaying number indicating how far behind you are!
Many sports are precisely measurable and in such sports, the measurements determine who has won, to various resolutions. Shortest running time over a given distance, heaviest weight snatched, furthest distance jumped and so on.
Athletes in such sports can very accurately track their performance over time. As of yesterday I demonstrated that I can clean & jerk 25kg less than my lifetime record, for example.
I think the better analogy would be if you had some sort of workout schedule and you had missed n workouts. Just bad performance doesn't indicate much: if I score a 2 on all my flashcards today, that's bad, but I'm not 'behind' since the cards' next review will just be moved up as necessary to compensate.
> At least with physical fitness there isn’t a precisely dismaying number indicating how far behind you are!
Many sports are precisely measurable and in such sports, the measurements determine who has won, to various resolutions. Shortest running time over a given distance, heaviest weight snatched, furthest distance jumped and so on.
Athletes in such sports can very accurately track their performance over time. As of yesterday I demonstrated that I can clean & jerk 25kg less than my lifetime record, for example.