What Matters Most to Improve Performance?

With all the different methods, metrics, strategies, scientific approaches, and ideologies about what you need to do to improve as an athlete, I’ve boiled things down into a few simple behaviors that rule them all. They are:

1.) CONSISTENCY

2.) ABSORBABLE PROGRESSION

3.) ADAPTABILITY

4) LISTENING TO YOUR BODY

5.) KNOWING HOW TO RECOVER

6.) EATING INTUITIVELY

1.) CONSISTENCY

Being consistent in a matter of weeks, months, and years, not days. Steadily showing up and getting the work done with intention, good decision making, and quality. Keep an open mind about what your body can handle and experiment.

MISTAKE: Skipping workouts, not trying a workout with an open mind, bailing because you may not feel 100%

2.) ABSORBABLE PROGRESSION:

Pushing your body progressively over time in a way that it can absorb

MISTAKE: Pushing your body to a level it is not prepared to handle (leads to overtraining or injury)

3.) ADAPTABILITY:

Being able to get the work done in a dynamic, changing environment. The real world is not a science lab. Humans are unpredictable organisms, not machines. This leads me to the next point

MISTAKE: Only being able to function in a controlled predictable environment. Falling apart when things don’t go “perfectly”

4.) LISTENING TO YOUR BODY:

You must be able to listen to your body and know when pushing helps you, and when backing off helps you. This comes with experience of trail & error, mistakes, and learning the hard way sometimes.

MISTAKE: Ignoring your body’s signals and forcing training even when your body truly needs rest

5.) KNOWING HOW TO RECOVER:

Know how to recover. Understand that recovery IS productive as a high level athlete and what actions you need to take to get your body back to a high performance state after taking on a heavy load (physical and or cognitive)

MISTAKE: Taking on too much inside or outside of training, or not placing any emphasis on the important of rest

6. EATING INTUITIVELY:

Eat intuitively. Your body knows and has very accurate signals regarding how much and what to eat that rapidly adapts to your life demands at any given moment. While it is important to put emphasis on a well-rounded healthy diet, I also like to think “my body can run on anything” for when things are not perfect or ideal

MISTAKE: Food tracking, chasing diets, questioning your nutrition, feeling anxious about what you ate, blaming nutrition on poor performance

These may not be the things a lot of people thing about when they think about what it takes to be a better athlete…i.e. eat perfectly, live in a bubble, push your limits, etc. The main theme around these is that real world training is not perfect, things happen that you must be able to adapt your training around to still get the job done. No pattern of training guarantees any outcome, but the best we can do is rely on sound principles that prepare us in the best possible way for real world racing scenarios.