Strategies for elite athletes to avoid arrested development?

education performance Jun 11, 2017

As the elite athlete progresses, it's common practice to think that they need to workout harder and more.

This is a catastrophic cultural trap that ends athletic careers prematurely.

Elite athletes eventually reach a place in training that we call arrested development.

They are good enough at the desired skill and more progress is hard earned and probably not worth the investment of time and energy when you could be focused on much more specific and higher order goals.

The issue here is that most athletes continue to grind away doing the same thing harder and expecting a different result.

If you train 300 times a year, roughly 10% of your time (or less) should be dedicated to competition intensity (max effort) training.

That's only 30 days a year and probably less for the best! The key is to find your flow with "deliberate practice."

For the person training 300 days a year, roughly 240 of them should be spent deliberately practicing technique and higher order qualities.

This doesn't mean that you're not working hard.

It means that you're working intelligently.

These percentages of course vary for different sports.

I use them in a general context to teach athletes what it means to stay in the sweet spot with training so that you can constantly make progress.

There comes a time when you must work smarter and not necessarily harder.

 

About the Author:

Taylor Kruse, recently featured in Men's Health, is dedicated to empowering you with the truth and tools for improved health and performance.

His inspiration stems from more than 10 years of education and coaching through systems like Zhealth Performance, The Burdenko Method, and various movement practices.

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