What Truly matters to Athletic Development?

How do you answer the question- what truly matters when it comes to athletic development? We must assess and identify where the athlete is in their current athletic development to gain a better understanding of the direction we need to go to individualize and personalize their approach. From there, we can plan, prepare, prioritize, and execute in the right direction towards the athletes’ goals. 

We have athletes of all different ages regarding biological age and training age/experience. I’ve worked with athletes over the last year and now have college athletes returning for their 5th,6th,7th, or 8th year of training. When I look at the difference between these athletes the obvious difference is the level of experience and consistency that have led to greater results year after year. When I truly think about what has led to them getting greater results year after year, it really comes down to them executing and mastering the basics, or the fundamentals. 

When I think about the fundamentals, it’s not just related to athletic development. It has everything to do with what else you are willing to do to maximize your athletic potential. You can execute the most flawless strength and conditioning program with precision and attention to detail, but what about everything else that truly matters to performance enhancement and health. 

If you’re not getting the results you want, simply take a step back and ask yourself why? Where are you failing to fill in the gaps and deficiencies in your overall development. It’s no different than the way we would assess and test deficiencies in performance outputs. We assess and identify where we need to spend most of our time, attention, and effort to fill those gaps and make improvements. Apply the same logic to your nutrition, sleep, recovery, etc. 

This is what truly matters to athletic development, especially if your long-term goal is to take your athletic performance to a new level year after year. You must have an honest conversation with yourself about why you’re not getting the results you want. Perform a self-assessment of where you are in other areas, focus on one thing that will have a positive impact.