Can you be a great Athlete?

What does it take to be a high-level athlete?  If you listen carefully to the analysts during the Olympic Games or other major competitions, perseverance and desire rank foremost to becoming a world-class athlete.  There is no questioning the fact that these are important attributes and are prerequisites for success.

However, by themselves they will never make anyone a world-class or other level athlete. To become a great athlete takes a great deal of hard, miserable and tedious work.  It is not by itself — fun!  Anyone who goes into a sport to become an Olympic or professional athlete will soon find out that it is not fun and games!

When you view these athletes in competition it may appear that they are having “fun” since the game play seems to be effortless and easy. However, it is amazing the amount of concentration and thinking that goes into playing on a high level.  But this occurs only when the technical and physical qualities are developed to their fullest and are commensurate with the level of play.

On the highest levels of achievement some athletes may have a genetic edge.  If their percentage of white, fast twitch explosive muscular fibers is greater than other players and they are well developed, these athletes can be faster and more explosive.

An athlete who has more red, slow twitch muscular fibers is best suited for endurance events.  Thus the distribution of muscle fibers on the extreme ends of genetic endowment can determine the level of performance that is attainable. For example in soccer play, you need both qualities, speed and explosive power as well as muscular endurance to continue to exhibit these abilities for the entire game.

If you have a predominance of red fibers you would never be able to achieve top success in the sprints.  If you have a predominance of white explosive fibers you would never achieve success in a marathon.  Because of this, even if you are genetically gifted, it does not mean you will be a great athlete.

To be a great athlete you must still put in the time and training to learn and perfect the skills (technique of skill execution) and the related physical abilities specific to the technique. In addition, you must get sufficient experience to handle the emotional and psychological stress that is present in high-level competition.

As a general rule, the athletes who are genetically gifted (approximately 1 out of 100,000) usually spend less time in training to enhance their technical and physical abilities and to prevent injury.  This is why on professional teams, many gifted athletes are often injured and on disabled lists and not performing on the highest levels.

Injuries, of course, are not unique to only the genetically gifted athlete.  They also occur to the less gifted athlete, mainly because very few athletes continually work on technique and the physical abilities specific to the technique. They do not do exercises that duplicate the muscle actions that occur in execution of their sports skills.

The key to success, not only in terms of performance but also in terms of preventing injury, is specificity of exercise and training. But even with this knowledge most teams continue to develop the physical qualities with general exercises that do not transfer to improved skill execution or performance on the field.

Because there are relatively few genetically gifted athletes who are the fastest and most explosive or have the greatest muscular or cardiorespiratory endurance, most athletes fall in between these two extremes.  These athletes make the best dual and team sport players.

The reason for this is that they have a more equal balance between the red and white muscle fibers.  Thus, their training must revolve around development of both of these qualities to a more or less equal level or give some preference to one type of muscle fiber depending upon the sport.  By doing this, many athletes show great improvement in their abilities and often challenge the world-class athlete.

For example, I have worked with many athletes who are good but not genetically gifted to be great.  With effective training, they became equal to and in some cases superior to the genetically gifted athlete.  The key was to fully develop and perfect their technique of execution of the skills involved and to develop the physical abilities as they relate to the skill technique.

By fully perfecting technique and the physical abilities specific to technique, most athletes can become great. Doing this requires knowledge and understanding of the sports skills and great concentration, perseverance and steady work.  It is not the type of work that many athletes presently do to become better.

For example, some collegiate and professional athletes put in five to six hours a day of hard running, lifting weights, jumping exercises, etc., to become better.  They feel they did not have a good workout unless they are exhausted at the end of the workout. Their indicator of success is usually how much they sweat and how fatigued they are.

Such training may develop great endurance and perseverance, but it is not the way to fully develop your physical abilities or skill technique.  You should be more concerned with quality rather than quantity.  The key here is specificity of training and the coupling of technique with physical qualities.

To become a better athlete, you should do many exercises, especially when first starting training in earlier years, and train to fully develop all of your abilities. Even though most athletes must execute one or two major skills in their sport, at times in the course of play, they may be required to come up with a movement, action or ability to handle the situation that arises. This is why you train to become an all-around athlete perfected to play on the highest level in one sport.

To help you in your endeavors, see one or more of the following books that involves elements of what you do in your sport.  This includes Build a Bettter Athlete, Explosive Running, Biomechanics and Kinesiology of Exercise, Explosive Basketball Training, Explosive Plyometrics, Women’s Soccer: Using Science to Improve Speed,  Explosive Golf, Secrets of Soviet Sports Fitness and Training, back issues of the Fitness and Sports Review International (Soviet Sports Review) and Sports, Transfer of Training and Block Periodization