This Article was published by a friend of Mine he is a Level 3 IAAF Coach with a wealth of
experience at training athletes in several countries.
If you are a budding young athlete you need to realise some aspects about sport and the
sooner you accept this the better your chance of being an elite athlete.
I have had the opportunity to work with and see some of the best athletes and coaches from
around world,I have had the unique pleasure to see first hand how World, Olympic
,Commonwealth and National athletes train.The thing that sets them apart is reality.
Reality is,you WON”T perform a Personal Best every time you step onto the track,you
WON”T win every event its impossible and you WON”T have an excuse. The thing is most
athletes fail because they have expectation that far outweigh their efforts. What that means is
that your effort in training,diet,rehab etc all plays a part in the end result.Most times athletes
get to training and although they are there physically ,their minds are far from focused.
What is your goal at training?
- Is it to get the session over and done with ASAP?
- Is it to find out what the session is and figure out how you can get through it with the least
- amount of hurting?
- Or is it to perform everything to the best of your ability so that you get the most out of
- EVERY single session you do?
On average the Elite athletes of the world do around 500 sessions a year,
How many do you do?
(Most time a season is around 40 -45 weeks in duration from General Prep to Champs)
So if your doing 2- 3 sessions a week your around the 80-120 sessions, so about 20-25% of
the Elite. So if they don’t expect to come out and perform PB’s each time Why do you ? when
your at a quarter of what they do.Now if your a junior this number is fine in your
development stage,but your focus and dedication can still be better.This is REALITY.
Here is a little maths to have you realise how much you can achieve even with the slightest of
focus. Let us say for argument sake that if you real made an effort to pay attention to detail in
your sessions, and lets say that every session you did that meant that you would make the
slightest on improvement like 1/1000 th of a second.
That means that you would make a possible .08 to.12 of a second improvement if your a
junior. Not bad for around 2-3 sessions per week. If you were a senior athlete well that
becomes somewhat of a huge possible gain.
In competition when the pressure is on what happens?Some people say they rise to the
occasion ,I think that is false I believe that one reverts to the habits they have created in
training.
You can only perform to the level you have trained. It is like building a VW car thinking that
if you take it to the drag races that somehow it will improve and rise up to match a
dragster…Come on,are you serious???
Understand that you will not get to your goal easily ,you WILL encounter tough times,you
WILL have your detractors that may not give you the recognition you deserve,but you WILL
overcome that if you have the WILL to be the best you can be at every single training session
you do.
Your success lies in your hands not in anyone else,you see the habits and mindset you place
on yourself determines your destination in this sport.Coaches,parents,medical support and
others are merely vehicles to help you get to your destination .The map is the creation of your
habits and mindset.
So in conclusion my question is to that budding athlete, Where are YOU headed?
