There are so many factors to being a true professional. All these factors are evident in not just action sports, but any sporting or personal pursuit. Out of these factors though, one has been more prevalent and consistent throughout every professional athlete I have met, and is one of the main factors that separated the true professionals from the want to be’s.
In fact I attribute a lot of my own success as an athlete to this element of practice and training. It is something I have carried from my professional riding career into my coaching career and apply with all my athletes and programming.
I’m talking about practicing or training with purpose, sounds pretty simple doesn’t it, but the reality is that most people don’t do it and just wonder through relying on talent or ‘natural’ abilities to get themselves along, never having any specific direction or achieving their true potential.
Lots of people practice, as lots of people train, and just to clarify I discussed the difference between training and practice in an previous blog. However, most people do neither with purpose.
More specifically what I’m talking about is having the end goal in mind and not just understanding but working towards that goal by completing planned steps along the way, each bringing you closer and closer.
To give you an example I’ll discuss my practice program from when I was still competing and performing in the sport of FMX.
I had a list of every trick in knew I could do, every trick I could kind of do but was not happy with and every trick I wanted to be able to do. I would then split my riding into fundamental days, progression/innovation days and skill days.
Often I would film myself riding, usually with a camera on a tripod and I would periodically review the footage throughout the session to ensure I was happy with what I was doing. On the fundamental days, I would take the list of tricks down to the compound with me and work my way one end to the other making sure I could nail every trick on my list, if I struggled or was not happy with any I would make note of it and add it to my not happy list before moving on to the next, not getting stuck or frustrated on any one trick.
On progression days I would work through my ‘kind of do’ tricks spending more time on each to make sure I could add them to my ‘can do’ list. If I didn’t get through all of the tricks on the ‘kind of do’ list that day then the remainder would take priority for next progression sessions. Every other progression session I would pick a trick from the ‘want to do’ list and work on that trick only for that day.
On skill days I would do other kinds of riding, riding enduro trails, my supercross track or practicing my show pony tricks like slow wheelies or endo’s.
Each of these sessions had a specific purpose, to either reinforce my current skills or progress my skills to a new level. I’m sure by now you are going wow this is great info and going to help me progress but how the hell does it relate to strength training?
Well, when you are a part of the Actionsport Performance team, we work together to set specific goals based of your sporting ambitions, your own personal physiology and hormonal profile. With these goals in mind we develop a starting point for the performance programming and plan each step to get you there in the fastest way possible, usually with a three pronged approach of training, nutrition, and supplementation. This planning, knowledge and execution is the difference that separates the true professionals from everyone else that wants it but never quite gets there.
If you are ready to take the next step with your training and performance then contact Actionsport Performance today.
Train hard and be safe.
Your strength coach,
Cam