Most successful athletes have some things in common. We discuss the common traits.
We have had the pleasure of training a lot of successful athletes in high school and college and almost all of them share common characteristics or traits.
In Season Training
All of them train in season. None of them take a season off. They find a way and train 2-3x a week during the season no matter what. They come in on Saturdays at 7am but they get their training in.
This means they don’t have a backwards slide in performance in season. We see it time and time again athletes will get slower, less explosive during the season. Their strength numbers go backwards. But the most successful athletes come in enough to maintain their numbers and when the season is over and their total volume decreases they are setting personal records in a few weeks.
Doing more
All of the most successful athletes that we have trained always seek out and do more than what is the norm. They do their workouts and then stay to put equipment away. Or they stay and help other athletes out, helping the younger athletes.
Doing more also means doing the little things that other athletes will skip out on, doing the warm up, hitting the zone 2 “boring” conditioning that yields big time results on college conditioning tests, are some of the “doing more” categories.
Sleep, Nutrition, Social Circles
These are probably more important than the other two categories.
Sleep is the number one performance boost a person can do. Sleep more as an athlete and you will perform better. The best athletes I have trained have found ways to take naps, or get a couple of “Sleep in” days a week. These benefits showed up on the field, court and track.
Nutrition is the overlooked one and the hardest to control as a coach. We don’t go home with the athletes, but the best most successful athletes all got their goal weight in grams of protein a day. They all worked on eating more carbohydrates and all of them worked on being consistent day in an day out.
No sometimes their nutrition wasn’t 100% – whose is? But 80% of the time they were doing what is required of them to see really positive results. The 20% sometimes wasn’t great but still this is probably better than the other athletes.
Social circle. You are who you hang around with. The most successful athletes made OC Sports Performance their “3rd place” The “third place” is often related to the idea of a “community hub” or “a place to belong outside of home and school,” where people can casually connect and socialize. If your “third Place” is with other athletes that are all striving to do something with their athletic performance that yields great positive results.
No Excuses
Finally, the most successful athletes don’t come up with excuses. They find ways to get things done. They work with their schools to get an open first period so that they can train. Or they get an open period during the day so that they can take a nap and they use that time to get a nap instead of “comfort scrolling on their phones”. The most successful athletes lean on the experience of those who have come before them in the gym to ensure that they have the best chance of success and reaching their athletic potential.
OC Sports Performance has helped Bend, Oregon athletes build strength, speed and explosiveness. We help athletes run faster and jump higher! Metrics based, results driven training. Experience the difference and book a FREE CONSULT TODAY!
