The Secret To Progress As An Athlete

I’ve been in sports since I was 8 years old, making 25 years as of this writing.

25 years is more than enough time to have become a champion three or more times over.

And yet, here I am, starting essentially at the beginning as a cyclist, comfortably mid-pack with no titles to my name.

What I Learned In Youth Sports

As a kid, I was in taekwondo and baseball. I went to practice faithfully, I worked hard on everything my instructors and coaches told me, then I went home. They told me if I kept showing up and kept doing the work, I would do very well. 2 years passed and I was exactly average in both sports…what happened?

Later on, in middle school, I discovered track and field. This was a sport I LOVED. If the sport had been offered year-round, I surely would have done it that way, well-rounded athleticism be damned.

There was something about the hurdle races that filled my cup, even though I was just a weak podium runner, rarely a winner. But that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm. I showed up to 3 practices a week, a mock meet, and a meet for our little 7 week season. I busted it on every interval (and got smoked) and pushed myself on every core exercise set (and never spotted an ab for the effort).

My coach told me if I just kept showing up and kept doing the work, I would show steady progress. I ran basically the same high hurdles time in my second 7th grade meet as I did in my last 8th grade meet and never won a race. (I did win a heat once!)

Again…what happened?

How Football (Finally) Made Me A Better Athlete

As a football player, oddly, I got better every season for 6 years. I was a defensive end pretty much from the beginning. So for 6 years, it was more forced fumbles, more tackles for a loss, more inches on my broad jump, more weight on the bar season after season after season. At one point, I had the best power clean among defense on my team – my name was on the top of the leaderboard for 2 weeks.

I didn’t do any work on my own time. Everything happened on the field and at the field house. My coaches told me if I kept showing up and kept doing the work, I would do well. And they were right!

But that was my 4th set of coaches who had made that promise. I wasn’t any different. In fact, I didn’t really like football, so didn’t have much incentive to get better.

So…what happened? What was different about my football experience?

It was, in fact, that leaderboard.

It was game film reviews and my coaches’ stat sheets and newspaper coverage, sure, but more than anything, it was that leaderboard.

Every D line and DBs personal bests were up on that board. Every time we walked into the weight room, I saw my best clean, my best squat, my best bench, my best 40, and my best standing broad jump.

Every time I walked through the weight room, I remembered my “number to beat.”

Every time we walked into the locker room, I saw my stats from the season. Week after week, column after column. This Friday would definitely better than last Friday because I had a number to beat.

WHAT I LEARNED DOING COLLEGE SPORTS… AND BEYOND

When I played rugby in college, I was so new to the sport that the only number I knew to track was tries earned. But I tracked it and a few weight room numbers and I got better every week.

When I became an Olympic lifter, I accepted that I couldn’t PR every training day. There just aren’t enough qualities in O lifting for that kind of linear progress.

So I tracked my numbers from every position for every variation and for every accessory lift. I tracked my body weight.

And for nearly 18 months that I consistently trained the O lifts (with some powerlifting just cuz), I really did get better almost every week.

HOW TO FAIL AS AN ATHLETE

Then, at some point, I decided recording my training wasn’t worth the effort. I’d learned how to make progress, so what good was writing down every pound and every obscure exercise I did?

As Dan John has joked, “it worked so well that I stopped doing it.”

I brought that lazy perspective to cycling. I rode consistently but didn’t monitor how far, how long, or how hard.

Well, I’ve sucked consistently for about 3 years.