Why You Should Train Like An Athlete

Most people's first experience of personal training or online coaching will be a watered down version of bodybuilding contest prep. A high rep, high volume, heavily hypertrophy biased programme, with a macro focussed, highly restrictive nutrition plan with the focus of dropping fat quickly while maintaining some muscle. Some will find a PT who is massively attached to strength sports, usually powerlifting, and will be given a programme that is designed to deliver strength at all costs and their coach will make the "Cardio? Is that Spanish?" joke (I used to make it. I have since grown). Some more open minded people may hunt out a strength and conditioning style gym if they had a sporting background. They're maybe an amateur athlete themselves, or a former rugby/football/netball/hockey player who needs to gym to fit their physical need but also their belonging to a team need since leaving their sport. I want to propose another way. The better way. You should train like an athlete. But maybe not for the reasons you think you should... Why YOU Think You Should Train Like An Athlete The appeal of training like an athlete for the client is that you have the opportunity to become an absolute badass. You can build the majority of the strength of a powerlifter to make all your efforts easier, to make you more robust an resilient to injury, and to underpin your maximum power output in one off and repeated lifting and sprinting efforts. You can build the majority of the power of a weightlifter, sprinter or thrower by mastering versions of the Olympic lifts, incorporating plyometrics in your training and moving dynamically throughout your workouts. You can build the majority of the muscle of bodybuilder with well chosen, well executed accessories that focus on tension and tempo on the key athletic muscle areas (traps, shoulders, glutes, quads, etc). You can improve your mobility and movement capacity without having to go full movement yogi and submitting to low intensity, high spirituality workouts that don't provide any sort of contrast to your sedentary 9-5 work life. And you can build your aerobic endurance and anaerobic capacity to allow you to enjoy your physical life outside the gym with long and challenging hikes, runs and cycles, or even (bare with me on this one), play some sports like an athlete would (I'm currently enjoying some golf and padel). And that is really appealing. Like, appealing, but really. To me, all of that is so much more appealing than being 10% stronger but not being able to move or get upstairs without coughing up a lung. It's so much more appealing than being 10% bigger and leaner, but only measuring yourself by how you look (or even worse, how you inaccurately perceive yourself to look), rather than how you look, perform and feel on the daily. And maybe personally, it's much more appealing than all your sporting efforts equating to grunt work and suffering in the pain cave when you could be playing actual sports with techniques, skills and tactics which you can enjoy learning and overcoming. But that's maybe 30% of why I think you should train like an athlete. The other 70% will probably surprise you. Why I Think You Should Train Like An Athlete Don't get me wrong. Being a general physical badass is more than enough of a selling point for anyone to want to get into athletic style strength and conditioning training. But to me, there is one massively overlooked benefit to training like an athlete for 99% of everyday people who are fitting their training into their extremely valuable and extremely limited free time between work, life and family commitments. And that is: Athletic training by definition fits within the bigger picture of your needs. What do I mean by that? When we are talking about athletes and their in-gym strength and conditioning training, the strength work needs to know it's place. Athletes don't get paid to leave it all in the gym. Athletes don't get gold medals for PB's in the gym. Athletes don't win championships for fitting in a 5th session in the gym per week. Athletes get paid, win, and succeed in part because the in-gym work contributed to the rest of their high performance life in the way that it needed to. And I know this as I am an actual S&C coach, not a wannabe drill sergeant dressed in khaki only workout gear. I know, understand and value my position within my clients lives. How Strength and Conditioning For Athletes Actually Works The role of the S&C coach in sport is to give the athletes the general physical tools they need to excel in their sport, and to make them more robust to the physical demands of their sport to avoid injury.

It is not to beast them into oblivion. It's not to test them with workouts to build their mental toughness. It's not to push them right to their limit day in day out. That's probably why Tony Fergusson got beat by Paddy Pimblett after training with David Goggins. Strength and conditioning with athletes operates much closer to the minimal effective dose of training to get the adaptations we want in strength, power, fitness and size. And we do that so that the athletes have more time, energy and focus to become a PHD at their sport, and do the things they really need to do to win and get paid the big bucks. Or in simple terms, training just enough in the gym allows athletes more opportunity to perform at the highest intensities. Something most everyday people would benefit from in their own training. Strength and Conditioning For Everyday Athletes Which brings me to the biggest reason why you should be training like an athlete, even as an everyday person. You can build all of those incredible and exciting physical qualities that will turn you into the biggest physical badass within your social circle. But if you truly train like an athlete, and train closer to the minimal effective dose in the gym, it leaves you more time and energy to live you life at the maximum recoverable volume. In non-gym geek terms that means: If you slog yourself in the gym everyday like these pretend drill sergeants want you to, don't be surprised when your energy is absolute f'ed at work, at the weekend, or when you're supposed to be spending quality time with your family. Instead, train enough to become an absolute physical weapon, but not so much that it becomes the only area in your life that you turn up with any sort of intensity for. There is WAY too much other cool stuff to do in your home life, career and social life that you'll be missing out on. All just to do a a higher number of less effective workouts and eat chicken from a plastic tub every day. Training like an athlete is all about creating high performance. Not just high performance in the gym, but high performance that actually translates to where it matters in your everyday life. By not only giving you improved strength, power, fitness, muscle mass and movement capacity. But giving you more energy, focus, discipline, drive and vigour for every other area of your life. That is exactly why you should be training like an athlete more than anything else. If you're ready to become the everyday athlete and find high performance across all areas of your life, click here to learn more about my 1-1 Coaching Service.