I had a couple of very smart people who are very skilled at written communication ask me for clarification about last Sunday’s post regarding athleticism and fitness. This is my attempt at clarity.
Athleticism is:
- A collection of skills that enables the athlete to repeatedly and reliably perform to, and possibly beyond, ones fitness level in performance situations.
- Usable fitness. It does no good to be able to clean and jerk your body weight if you still curl your baggage to get it up to your chest before you put it in the overhead compartment.
- A conscious, i.e. trainable and measurable, process that develops unconscious behavior.
- Task dependent: Strategy is part of being athletic.
- Dependent on the notion that there are a few basic movement patterns that are transferable to a number of seemly disparate tasks.
Where does he get this shit:
Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else:
Geoff Colvin offered new evidence that top performers in any field–from Tiger Woods and Winston Churchill to Warren Buffett and Jack Welch–are not determined by their inborn talents. Greatness doesn’t come from DNA but from practice and perseverance honed over decades. And not just plain old hard work, like your grandmother might have advocated, but a very specific kind of work. The key is how you practice, how you analyze the results of your progress and learn from your mistakes, that enables you to achieve greatness.
Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End:
Losing streaks are often created and then perpetuated when people lose confidence in their leaders and systems, while winning streaks are fueled by confident people who are secure in their own abilities and the ability of their leaders… Combining theory with practical advice, Kanter details how losing organizations can instill accountability, collaboration and initiative—Kanter’s three pillars of confidence—to help start a turnaround.
Lessons from Romania:
But despite the amazing work capacity and kilograms Nicu was capable of handling, the most phenomenal aspect of his training was definitely his technique. When I first became an Olympic weightlifter, a great coach told me that one of the elements of having perfect technique meant you could “make 50 kilos look exactly the same as 150 kilos.” Vlad was the best example of this rule that I have ever seen in my career. Every movement of his body from his back position to his foot placement to his acceleration in the second pull was identical, regardless of the weight on the bar.
Jan 4, 2009
I got this one from Joe D. From One World. Thanks Joe!
W.O.D.
21 Front Squat (75#)
21 Push Jerk (75#)
15 Front Squat (75#)
15 Push Jerk (75#)
9 Front Squat (75#)
9 Push Jerk (75#)
800m Run
9 Front Squat (75#)
9 Push Jerk (75#)
15 Front Squat (75#)
15 Push Jerk (75#)
21 Front Squat (75#)
21 Push Jerk (75#)
Time (12:19)
That sounds UGLY.
So true that talent is overrated. Didn’t Michael Jordan become so great through practice and perseverance? I don’t know his whole story but thought I had read somewhere that he wasn’t the greatest player in high school. He just worked harder at being “it” than anyone else. 😉
I think athleticism is innate, and it’s something that you’ve either got or you don’t…kind of like intelligence. It’s not something you can teach…you can’t teach someone to be better at naturally learning how to pick up certain movements (i.e. you can’t teach someone to pick up a golf club for the first time and have a good swing) just like you can’t teach someone to not be dumb. You can however, teach fitness, and by way of fitness, you can help someone who is not naturally athletic become better at picking up movements for sports, etc. You can be athletic and not fit, and non athletic and fit. For example (and I use a bunch of golf references because that’s the sport I know best and have played the most competitively) so many people struggle with the swing set up. Without the proper setup, your golf swing is screwed…unless you’re ‘athletic’ enough to compensate, but compensation comes with greatly decreased accuracy and precision. People who know how to perform a proper dead lift have a way better chance at getting the set up properly because there are certain movements of the dead lift that correlate well with getting set up to the golf ball.
A good athlete isn’t someone who is talented and possesses just the physical components to make him / her successful at their sport. As mentioned in the post, the mental aspect is equally (if not more) important. Why do you think there are so many sports psychs? A good athlete is an expert at controlling his/her thoughts and emotions. They’re also able to ‘trick’ themselves to simulate competition situations during practice. It’s not enough to practice technique and strategy if you’re not in the competition mindset. You absolutely need to be able to (in your mind) simulate technique and strategy during practice. I’m not saying that there isn’t a time and place for drilling and ingraining proper technique. What I’m saying is that it’s not hard to do so. What differentiates good athletes from great athletes is the mental game. Great athletes are able to think positively and confidently under any circumstance. They’re able to control their thoughts and emotions because they know what they can control and what they cannot control. As an example, great golfers will know that they cannot get angry when they hit a perfect shot and a giant gust of wind comes up and blows it into the lake. They know that they put a good swing on the ball and they did everything they could to ensure a good shot. They know that they need to leave that shot behind and focus on the present. They know that getting angry does him no good and can potentially lead to a bad round if they let himself get upset. An amateur golfer will get bent out of shape, and 99% of the time, his round will start to fall apart because he will continue to dwell on his bad luck and allow himself to stay angry.
Having a good coach is also super important (from my experience in golf). A good coach will know how to relate to the athlete and know how to give specific instruction such that the athlete will understand and implement the instruction. A coach should know that that each athlete will receive his instruction differently and know how to tweak his instructions to best relate to the athlete; one technique thought cannot be applied to all athletes. Bottom line, without a good coach, it is difficult for an athlete to really maximize his/her talent and potential.
anyhow, just my 2 cents…i’m stepping off the soap box now =)
So, Saul, I don’t get what part 2 of the “challenge” is…..?
Sorry, I’m being dense today.