Chen Show Mao: In school, I played football (badly) and swam (won medals in breaststroke, which came easiest to me), and later played tennis and squash (both indifferently).
In the army, I learnt that I was good at distance running (best in platoon) but way below average in upper-body strength (worst in platoon). I could not complete the requisite number of chin-ups, which made my life as a recruit and cadet quite miserable. It also drove me to a regimen of strengthening exercises that kept me on the field most days after training.
One day, after an especially arduous run with a full backpack I was surprised to find that all of a sudden I could complete twice the requisite number of chin-ups, while I couldn’t do even half as many the day before. Full story
