I’m the worst athlete I’ve ever coached.

How I Am The Worst Athlete

I am rarely compliant to the training plan, I am inconsistent about sleep and recovery habits, and I change goals every 4-6 weeks. Because of that, my progress is often stunted – or even regresses – across each calendar year.

Then, when I have too many perceived failures in an activity, I switch sports or roles or focus to some other activity. This is a great way to be stuck at the same level of performance for years!

All of this with one exception: I do kettlebell swings, goblet squats, and get-ups every week. Some weeks, that’s 6 training days; other weeks, that’s 1 training day alongside other work. I’ve kept that up for years, with varying levels of intensity and intention.

Make Up Your Mind: Stubborness

Starting in November 2024, about a month into my first-ever full indoor track season, and running through Masters Indoor Worlds in March 2025, I simply did those three movements every second or third day, then went to track practice. I found that my capacity on the track was limited by my Achilles tendons’ load tolerance and by the quality of my sleep, so I only did sprint and jump work every fourth or fifth day.

I had a disappointing performance at Worlds. It had nothing to do with the time I ran, though I look forward to destroying that mark in 2 years. It had everything to do with how little I was capable of handling. Example: I laced up my spikes to go over a hurdle for the very first time on the day of my prelim. Correction…in the minutes before being walked onto the track for my prelim.

Every training day, I knew I didn’t have the tolerance for sprinting with great posture into the hurdle and receiving a landing only on the ball of my foot. That meant even one hurdle clearance in my spikes was going to put me out of training. Only with the cushiest shoes on the softest terrain with lowered hurdles closer than race spacing could I handle multiple reps. Even then, I had about 20 hurdle clearances in me. So I couldn’t do much, I couldn’t do it well, and I knew it. Naturally, I didn’t make much progress. Then I went to Worlds and cashed out what little performance savings I had. It wasn’t enough to tell a good story about.

Make Up Your Mind: Persistence

Which brings me back to kettlebell swings, goblet squats, and getups. Recognizing I was not prepared for the track-specific loads I would encounter at Worlds, I decided to get as strong and conditioned as I could using my kettlebells. I pushed my swing volume and intensity. I paused my goblet squats longer and rose from the bottom more explosively. I slowed down my get-ups and added presses or long pauses to refine my technique.

For six months, I trained with my kettlebells with the degree of focus and intention other athletes bring to their jump serve, drop kick, or technical descending skills. I attended to my training process.

Two weeks after Worlds, I was scheduled to re-test my kettlebell instructor skills at a StrongFirst workshop and I was pleasantly surprised by the proof of how much progress I had made. I set 5 PRs: a press on each arm, a get-up on my left arm, a new pullup rep max, and a one-arm pushup on my left side. I also matched prior lifetime PRs: a get-up on my right arm and time to complete 100 snatches. While goofing off in the gym, I also pulled 90% of my best-ever deadlift effortlessly.

Epiphany: This Is Stupid

But what set me off during that workshop weekend wasn’t my own successes, even though I was elated with every one of them. It was witnessing one of my workshop instructors attempt a heavy load, notice he was not prepared to do it well, then abort the attempt. That was professional. That was intelligent. And that was long-term oriented.

That moment came on the back of reading a few pages of Judd Biasiotto’s Psych during lunch break about 30 minutes before. Those particular pages were railing against the “win at all costs” and “winning is the only thing” culture of American sports. In hesitating to share how I performed at Worlds, in being forced to acknowledge I hadn’t trained enough because I was still injured, and in accommodating my own training just to show up at a competition when I knew I wasn’t really prepared was me buying all the way in to the “winning is the only thing” mentality.

If I pushed through pain, I could claim valor. If I magically performed despite abusing my body, I could claim toughness. If I dutifully attended to all my recovery & rehab habits, despite not stopping the sources of pain in my training long enough to actually heal, I could claim courage.

Seeing my instructor fail like a professional and reading a prominent sports psychologist call out the toxicity of binary thinking were slaps in the face: I demonstrated none of valor, toughness, or courage on the way to Worlds. I demonstrated stupidity.

Concurrently, by focusing narrowly on my training process with kettlebells, I found flaws, then corrected them. I pushed when I felt good and backed off when I didn’t. There was no outcome to chase, yet my outcomes were superior. Every time I took an extra day of rest, extended my warmup, dropped down a training weight, or cut off a few reps, I honored my body and its pace of adaptation.

Another Epiphany: This Ends Badly

On the plane ride home from the kettlebell workshop, it struck me that I might be doing worse than stupidity by training through my Achilles issues. I might be creating new damage that will compromise my longevity. I might be pushing myself out of the sport of track permanently. I might be setting myself up to quit the sport I love most.

So I decided to stop. I wrote out what I felt, I reviewed the prior six months of training, I considered what I might lose from not competing. I considered what I might lose from not training. I consulted with my physical therapy team. I talked to my wife. 

Everyone around me and every note in my journal was clear: I was having a miserable time driving myself into track practices, then feeling bad both during and after them. I was the only one who wouldn’t admit that.

A mantra that I market my coaching business around is, “Retire, don’t quit. And it isn’t time to retire yet.” Retiring from a sport career should be joyful and deliberate. Quitting tends to be impulsive, during a time of depression. I was on a path to depression about hurdling. I caught myself one day thinking “maybe this isn’t for me anymore.”

I had arrived to that point because I was in pain every day I went to the track. I performed below expectations every day I set up hurdles. Then I tried to train harder and more, which created more pain, which lowered performance even more. If I stayed on that path, I would have been correct: that nonsense really wasn’t for me anymore.

Pivot: Same Goal(s), New Process

I’d love to claim I am self-aware enough to have taken action on the realization that the path I was on was breaking me. I was not. After the plane ride home but before I looked back at my training journal, moments after I turned off my massage gun from viciously “massaging” my lower leg to join an athlete check-in, I was floored when said athlete greeted me saying they wanted to skip their main season to actually heal properly. They still wanted my help, because they saw strength training as an opportunity to escape daily pain, but they knew they couldn’t simultaneously prepare for the season and care for themselves thoroughly. If they could just break this pain cycle, they might be ready to perform next year – and for years after that.

Duh, Dunte, you big dummy. Break the cycle. Then get ready to perform. Exactly what Coach Dunte would tell any athlete. Did I mention I’m the worst athlete I’ve ever coached?

If I stop triggering pain, over a few months, I could manage my lower leg tissue health.
If I manage my tissue health, over a few more months, I could build my Achilles load tolerance and capacity.
And if I build my tendons’ capacity, over another few months, I can train consistently.
If I train consistently – without pain and without constant accommodation – I will make progress.

The shift from “could” to “can” to “will” across those steps represents where I am most scared and where I am most confident. As a coach, I know how to develop quality training than can actually be executed consistently and I know the results that follow. As an athlete, and like my own athlete, I don’t know how to manage tissue health or build load capacity while continuing to train.

It took an athlete modeling real self-awareness to shake me out of my stupor. As a coach, I agreed with their change of focus and we built a plan. As an athlete, it was like hearing what I needed most at the exact moment I was ready to listen.

Two weeks ago, I announced I would forego my outdoor season. But this isn’t a retirement because I haven’t achieved the results I want yet – running a clean 110 meter hurdle race, completing two decathlons in the same year, and reaching a DIII national championship finalist level in both a sprint and a throw. This isn’t quitting, because I’m not letting myself be pushed out.

This is a pivot.

I accept the reality of the state I’m in. Days ago, a sports psychologist offering a session to a team I support reminded us “acceptance doesn’t mean being satisfied.”

I accept that my training is limited by pain. I accept that my performance is limited by my (lack of) training. I happen to not be satisfied with either fact. So, rather than continuing to do what’s not working while hoping it magically…starts working…I’m crafting a new plan (with help from my care team) and making a fresh attack.

Full rehab will likely take longer than I’d hoped. Building capacity will likely be harder than I expect. And I will likely suffer emotionally as I watch my friends, peers, and athletes compete and succeed over the next year. But I can see how this path at least leads to my target destination. I have hope that it’s not a dead end like the path I’ve been on.

Coach Brain vs Athlete Brain

As an athlete, be willing to pivot. Be proactive about retiring. But don’t ever quit.

It turns out, as a coach, I not only needed this moment for myself, but I needed to share it. The number of athletes who have shared how close they were to quitting since I spoke up about my own situation reminds me how ephemeral this whole sport experience can be. It also reminds me of my responsibility as your guide.

Too many of us get driven to quit because we’re driving so hard to win at all costs.

The trouble with doing anything in amateur sports “at all costs” is there won’t ever be a payoff big enough to see a return on that investment, especially if the costs are to our physical or mental health. The athletes I serve are in sport for the love. There are no tangible rewards to be won. If all the rewards are intangible, the worst of the costs seriously shouldn’t be tangible!

To the athletes who have shared of themselves, both before and since my own slow passage out of boneheadedness, we have to play to the long game. Thank you for inviting me to walk with you. Let’s walk the proven path rather than leaping through brambles.

I get a feeling we’ll still arrive, but with a little less blood and fewer tears. The road is hard enough without trying to break ourselves along the way.

My kettlebell sessions were difficult. They required my full attention. They made me sore and tired. At times they felt repetitive. At times I had to back off. But those sessions never broke me. In the end, they made me better. Measurably, meaningfully, objectively better.

I want to say the same of my sport training. I want you to say the same of yours. Again, the road to high(er) performance is hard and long – making a pivot won’t change that. But if we “make haste slowly”, we’re going to emerge better at the end of it.

As a coach, I know this and can say it confidently. As an athlete, I finally believe it.

I’m still the worst athlete I’ve ever coached. But I expect to be a success story in the making.