I was recently at a premier football match and got the chance to pick the brain of one of the players.
I wanted to know what his thoughts were on what separates athletes who perform at the top of their game from those who never quite make it.
It doesn’t matter if you are a professional or amateur athlete or just someone looking to improve your health and general fitness, his advice was so simple and practical that it can easily be applied by anyone.
Here are 3 takeaway points:
1) Everyone wants the advice that will make them perform 15% better. It doesn’t exist. Those at the top of their game in any field focus on 15 things that will make them perfrom 1% bette:
- Stay hydrated
- Don’t rush in the morning
- Have a recovery protocol after training- stretch, cold shower, etc.
- Eat breakfast
- 5 minutes of mobility every night before bed
- Implement recovery sessions
Top athletes focus on the 1% ‘s and build them into daily habits that they don’t even realise they are doing.
2) Have faith and trust in your support team. Top athletes respect the knowledge of their team (strength & conditioning coach, sport skills coach, physio’s, etc.) and literally just follow their instructions.
They don’t want to know too much of the theory. Their energy needs to be put into applying what they have been told, not in analysing rep schemes, rest periods, comparing different this program to the last one.
This is the job of their support team and they trust them to know their job.
This is a huge problem in the strength & conditioning/fitness industry with too many athletes/clients trying to analyse programs based off an incomplete understanding of a field that has taken their coach years to study.
If you don’t trust your support team to do their job, you need to find a new support team. If you do, just follow what they tell you.
3) They keep their training and lifestyle as simple as possible.
Simple doesn’t mean they don’t train hard, it just means that they remove all the complicated stuff.
No complicated training programs
- No highly technical exercises
- A healthy eating plan that is easy to follow and serves their needs
- Lots of recovery strategies built into their every day life- food, water, sleep, stretching, etc.
- Their sport training focuses on the basics during every session- passing the ball, how to change direction effetively, etc.
Pretty simple isn’t it?
And that’s the hard part, keeping it simple and working on the basics, the 1%’s.
Because it’s so simple most athletes won’t do it.
Agree or disagree? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
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