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How You Can Become the Best Athlete You Can Be
How do you become the best athlete you can be? Why do so many athletes fall well short of their potential?
When you understand the factors that interfere with improvement, you can apply mental strategies to build motivation and move your game forward.
How many times have you dreaded going to practice? You feel practice has become a punishment. Even games are no longer fun.
Many young athletes drop out of their sport at early ages. Many of those athletes feel too much pressure, feel not good enough, or aren’t seeing significant improvement in their game. No matter the reason, sport should be a positive experience for youth athletes.
Let’s look at what elite athletes do to maintain their motivation and strive to reach their potential.
Forward Sophia Smith plays for the United States Women’s National Team and the Portland Thorns FC of the National Women’s Soccer League. Smith was selected by Portland with the first overall pick of the 2020 NWSL College Draft and is highly committed to honing her craft.
Smith believes the key to athletic success is finding a healthy balance between constantly challenging yourself and enjoying the experience.
SMITH: “[Reaching my potential] is really hard balance and something that I have always [worked on], and I’m still trying to figure out to this day – how to balance it in a healthy way. I always want to push myself and to strive for more, and never be satisfied. And I think that’s great, and I think that’s what all the best players in the world have to do. That’s the mindset that they have to have. And then, at the same time, I think if I am forgetting to have fun, I’m not going to be playing at my best. I’ll be putting too much stress and pressure on myself to the point where it’s showing on the field. And that’s absolutely not what I want.”
Maintaining confidence, staying motivated, and uncovering your potential involves finding a healthy balance between striving to improve and enjoying the process.
5 Essential Ingredients to Maximize your Sporting Experience- Don’t compare yourself to other athletes – Comparison is the quickest way to lose confidence in your abilities and talent. Strive to be a better player than you were yesterday.
- Shoot for progress, not perfection – Trying to be perfect will cause you to give in (give less effort) or give up (quit your sport altogether).
- Enjoy the grind – Find reasons to challenge yourself each training session or practice. One small practice goal can motivate you to push yourself, even during monotonous training sessions.
- Be patient – Nothing happens overnight. Elite, Olympic, and professional athletes grind for years. That is the reason they become elite. Even though you don’t see immediate improvement, it does not mean you are not progressing.
- Have fun – When you have fun, you will persist longer and be more willing to make the sacrifices needed to be your best.
Success is not easy. However, it should not be a miserable experience either.
Tip for Maximizing Athletic Success
The recipe for success is quite simple: work hard, challenge yourself, find a balance between life inside and outside of sport, and have fun.
If you can accomplish these four tasks regularly, you will achieve more than you can imagine.
By
The Milwaukie Bucks just won the NBA championship because Giannis Antetokounmpo is committed to training with weights consistently. He is the most physically dominant player in the world because he has added 50lbs of muscle since being drafted into the NBA by the Bucks 8 years ago. This should serve as notice to all young athletes – TRAINING WILL HELP YOU REACH YOUR POTENTIAL.
There are many examples of athletes taking their skills to the next level after working with a professional strength coach or getting onto a team that prioritizes strength and conditioning. The biggest benefit to enhancing overall explosive strength, speed, conditioning and mobility is that it speeds up the athletic development process and limits chance at serious injury, regardless of age. The younger an athlete develops physically, the more chance they have to dominate their sport from then on. Logically this makes sense. Practically it is difficult for most athletes to focus on weight training during the early years. Why is this?
Most young athletes play multiple sports throughout a year. This is what most refer to as sufficient ‘cross training’ and majority of coaches and parents believe this to be a sufficient way to stay ‘injury free.’ Reality is that athletes who do not spend enough time recovering and training in the weight room will be more prone to injury regardless of how busy they are playing different sports. The body is weak when the body is weak, no matter how busy it is.
Young athletes, parents and coaches need to spend less time and money on travel teams, tournaments and gear and more time and money on TRAINING. Plain and simple, it is the most beneficial allotment of resources athletes between ages 12-18 years old can make. This is an investment which will pay back dividends in college scholarships and possibly even the athlete making it professionally. But most importantly, athletes learning to eat right and train consistently are assets to them for the rest of their lives.
Sure AAU basketball is fun, 7 on 7 football gets you exposure and club team travel tournaments for softball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, etc are a great way to get your name out there. It is certainly important to compete in sports and skills practice sessions. But what matters most is how athletes’ bodies perform and hold up in the long run. Regardless of where an athlete goes to high school, if they are strong and dominant they will be noticed and on the radar of college scouts.
College scouts and coaches are paid a nice salary to find athletes with elite potential no matter how small their school or town, state or country. Some of the best athletes in the world come from the smallest towns in the United States and Overseas and they all have one thing in common, they all TRAIN EXPLOSIVE CONSISTENTLY AND NEVER GIVE UP because they understand it will be worth it when they win.
Here is a simple full body routine straight from our training app that can be done by any athlete any day anywhere at anytime:
4 Rounds
(10-20% body weight each hand)
20 Squat Jumps
*2-3 minute active rest after each round (roll out)
Date: 07.24.2021
