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• Logical areas to prioritise for long-term athletic performance | 3-min read.

This first post will be short.   The aim is to both convey a hierarchical view of how to make progress toward, and achieve success as an athlete and to provide the context from which other content will emerge. 

So, a successful athlete (certainly in the more linear, energetic and ‘measurable’ sports) is faster [apologies to the jumping & throwing sports] than any other.  To achieve this, an athlete will usually have committed to several highly important and relevant areas which affect their performance speed; for example, the footwear they use, the clothing they compete in, the diet they consume and the training they engage in.  However, at some point (and we’re not quite there yet in 2021) the performance advantages gained from ‘technology’ will become prohibitively difficult to advance due to (i) diminishing returns on investment, (ii) fewer avenues ‘left’ to exploit and (iii) increasing regulations by world governing bodies.    Once that point is reached, and as has been the case for over 100 years, the major ‘thing’ that will differentiate competitors is the training they employ to prepare themselves better than anyone else.  Perhaps it really is all about the training!

‘Training’ is typically considered as ‘the exercise sessions’ performed, sequenced together over time, to deliver an athlete ‘fit’ and ready to excel.  However, if we take a small step back, for a full-time athlete, ‘training’ could be considered the ‘whole process’ of preparing for and turning up at a competition; encompassing (i) the exercise sessions, (ii) the food consumed, (iii) the sleep achieved, (iv) the mental preparation and/or distraction, (v) the psychological support given & received to name but a few ‘things’ which could be considered within a ‘larger’ definition of  ‘training’.

However, a mission-critical area which can, at times, be somewhat overlooked is health ¹.  “Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it” (Henry Wheeler Shaw), and indeed, when things are going well, it’s easy not to give health a second thought.  However, as soon as our health is compromised, or we have even a warning sign that something’s not quite right, logically, we should act.

How often, has an athlete, who’s taking ‘training’ seriously but has a sign of illness, injury, or other deterrent of performance, have we been guilty of, or witnessed someone “getting the session done”?  Sometime this works out o.k., but it’s a risk. And It’s a risk because, without our health, we don’t’ have much! That’s true of many situations, none more so than for athletes!

So, given the above, I would argue that the #1 priority for any athlete is to be healthy.   If you are healthy, the door to training and progress is wide open. Without good health, the door may be closed to varying degrees; you might sneak through it, but it’s a risk. A risk that I would suspect very few people, if anyone, has a good ‘feel’ for the consequences of.  And, going back to the notion that ‘training’ may be more than just the ‘exercise sessions’ completed, carefully managing risk may too be considered as part of the preparation process.

With one’s good heath, there should be no barriers to ‘training’ (in its ‘completing exercise sessions’ sense). Given that this should be providing the various stimuli from which the body will respond to ultimately deliver fast performances, this is arguably a very influential area to optimise. 

Furthermore, it’s increasingly well understood that the stimulus from a training session   can be altered (‘up’ or ‘down’) by nutrition^2,3. Additionally, we know that diet (or rather a poor or insufficient diet) will have health consequences, closing that door once again to ‘optimal training’¹.  Thus, nutrition/diet should, arguably, be coupled with ‘training’ for performance– but also for health-reasons.

So at this point, I put to you that health is priority #1 and ‘training’ is priority #2, both of which are supported or optimised with nutrition, priority #3. Of course, within ‘training’ and indeed ‘health’ there are many other facets (e.g. sleep, psychological state etc. etc.) which for now, I’ll overlook for the sake of clarity of message. These topics will be covered in subsequent posts; this post is simply trying to provide a concise ‘headline overview’ of how, on a day-to-day basis, one could think about the hieratical priorities of some of the key things within our control. 

It’s vitally important that an athlete is familiar, comfortable and well drilled in executing their best on race day(s).  Rehearsal of race days, where the nutrition, the warm-up, the equipment, the clothing & the pacing and ultimately ‘the psychology’ are familiarised to the point of becoming ‘second nature’ are an important piece of the preparation jigsaw. Importantly, these aspects should also assist in augmenting ‘belief’. Belief in one’s own ability. Confidence in delivering the performance they know they are capable of. And, when the performance is delivered and it’s at or above the expected level, this too should feed into ‘belief’ in the process. So ‘psychological’ aspects, centred around belief in the content, process and results to come is a perpetual consideration within every step or layer of the process.

Then we get to the ‘shiny bits’; the technology and equipment which will positively impact an athlete’s performance.  For sure there are things that exert an effect within this realm. However, if this is receiving 80% of anyone’s attention, they really ought to have not suffered any ill health/injury etc. for some years, and their training process should be seriously tight; because this ‘shiny stuff’ can have an effect, but arguably, long-term heath and training are the bankers!

Priority:                                                                       

#1: Health                                                                    #6 Belief  

#2: Training                                                                           

#3: Nutrition                                                                   

#4: Delivery of the performance on the day            

#5: Equipment/Technology                               

So, to summarise, we must have our health in order to train.  Training is then arguably the key area through which performance will be positively impacted. Nutrition has a key role in augmenting training response and in supporting our health.   Performance needs to be deliverable, and thus the athlete needs to be familiar with doing so. And technology and equipment choices can and will have an effect on said performance. Finally, believing in the practices, methods, technology and reasoning behind every aspect of the daily grind will be influential in the whole process being a success. There are other avenues to enhance performance of course, but as highlighted above, much of the focus of this blog series will be toward ‘training’ because of the hugely influential role it plays in differentiating top athletes.

Citations:

1.         Mountjoy, M. et al. IOC consensus statement on relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S): 2018 update. Br. J. Sports Med. 52, 687–697 (2018).

2.         Baar, K. Nutrition and the adaptation to endurance training. Sports Med. Auckl. NZ 44 Suppl 1, S5-12 (2014).

3.         Stokes, T., Hector, A. J., Morton, R. W., McGlory, C. & Phillips, S. M. Recent Perspectives Regarding the Role of Dietary Protein for the Promotion of Muscle Hypertrophy with Resistance Exercise Training. Nutrients 10, 180 (2018).