If you want to be great, you will adopt this same attitude in sports/school/work/life.  If you’re an athlete shoot those extra 50 free throws everyday, do an additional 10 sprints every other day, get that extra weight training session in, hit in the cage every day, do whatever it takes….

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Being heavily involved in the athletic community you hear comments all the time like “This kid was born to play baseball.  Her jump shot is smooth and natural.  This guy was born to a professional quarterback.”

First off, I do understand that genetics play a role in athletics (especially at the professional level – you can’t be 5’6 and be an NFL lineman or a 7’2 middle infielder).  Your height, fast twitch muscle fiber composition, limb length (including hand/foot size), some other physical characteristics (tendon attachment, bone articulations, etc.) are genetically predetermined.  However, when it comes to athletic skill it is hard to argue that individuals are born with greater genetic abilities to swing a bat, hit a volleyball, or kick a soccer ball.  When you start to understand that genes give way to certain characteristics and human physical traits, it is also important to understand that does not directly equate to athletic skill.  Humans do not come out of the womb with pre-wired neuromuscular pathways to hit home runs or run the 100-meter dash under 10 seconds.

Athletes become great because of the stimulus provided to them over the course of their life.

Many times what happens is, a child (or usually parent) realizes that they enjoy a sport and are pretty good at it.  Now this child starts to enjoy practice and has the motivation/internal drive to improve their skills even more (improve their neuromuscular pathways).  Now they live and breathe the sport so much that they spend all their free time watching it on TV (obtaining that visual stimulus to the brain).  Maybe the child doesn’t obsess over the sport, but they are given positive verbal stimulus from coaches and parents letting them know how good they are at the sport.  All these stimuli strengthen the child’s athletic skill set.

What about the kids that are “genetically” coordinated and fast/quick.  (Again fast twitch muscle fiber composition aside for this argument)  If you really start to analyze it from an early age, you begin to see that many of those fast kids play multiple sports.  They also spend all their free time outside playing with their friends – even if it’s just hide and seek, riding bikes, kicking the soccer ball around, playing hopscotch, or playing on the playground.  All these events provide a stimulus to the body and this child becomes more coordinated at controlling their body and improves their spatial awareness.

Was Tiger Woods born, I mean actually genetically predetermined to be the best golfer in the world?  My thought is no way!  How about the fact that he started hitting a golf ball when he was 2 years old, or that fact that his dad was an avid golfer (that’s a whole lot of stimulus provided to young Tiger Woods).  He took golf lessons and played in golf tournaments his entire life – he was preparing his body (the neuromuscular pathways) for greatness.

Let’s begin to look at athletic talent as something more than “genetic ability/potential”.  Understand that your body has the ability to adapt and change based on the stimulus you provide it whether it is physical, visual, emotional, or mental.  Hard work and deep/deliberate practice make an athlete great, not their chromosomes.

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Deliberate practice

• Great performers spend endless hours on intense/focused practice.  They may only focus on one particular skill until they master it.
• Deliberate practice is not usually fun because you are pushing your limits and may even fail at times, but it is necessary to become great at any endeavor.
• World-class performers (including athletes) are extremely knowledgeable about their specific field.  Does anyone know more about computers than Bill Gates? Anyone know more coaching and motivating players than Jon Wooden?  Did they acquire theses skill at birth, or did they spend endless hours mastering these specific fields (deliberate practice)?

Intrinsic motivation

• To be great at anything, the motivation must come within.
• You must have the passion within throughout the entire process to be great.  How many people do you know that are really motivated about something, but loss this passion over time?  The answer is most people.  Now, how many people do you know who are extremely motivated every day/every hour/every minute to be the best?  The answer is not many.  That’s why only a select few are considered world-class.

Genetics, innate ability, and giftedness are overused terms by individuals trying to look for an explanation for individuals who excel in their particular field.  Instead, let’s focus on qualities that make individuals great such as intrinsic motivation, hard work, focus, dedication, passion to improve everyday, and deliberate practice.  These are the traits that make individuals world-class.

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• The quality of a persons life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor – Vince Lombardi
• Don’t dwell on what went wrong.  Instead, focus on what to do next.  Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer – Denis Waitley
• If there is no passion in your life, then have you really lived?  Find your passion, whatever it may be.  Become it, and let it become you and you will find great things happen for you, to you and because of you – T Alan Armstrong
• It’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become.  Rather, it’s your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you’re going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny – Anthony Robbins

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There are really only 3 variables you need to control to achieve any fitness or sports performance goal.

1. Diet
2. Exercise
3. Mindset

I have trained a variety of different clientele and the only individuals that are successful at accomplishing their fitness goals are the individuals who master all 3 components. Look to improve all 3 variables and you will be successful.

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“You have absolute control over but one thing, and that is your thoughts.  This is the most significant and inspiring of all facts known to man!  It reflects man’s divine nature.  This divine prerogative is the sole means by which you may control your own destiny.  If you fail to control your own mind, you may be sure you will control nothing else.”

If you wish to accomplish any fitness or sports performance physical goal you must have the right mindset.

Source: Hill, Napolean (1960). Think & Grow Rich. Illinois: The Random House Publishing Group.

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