Life is much better when striving to become the best version of yourself possible. The pursuit of improving any aspect of yourself or your abilities yields dividends far beyond the sole feature or ability you’re trying to strengthen. And one of the most beautiful and rewarding pursuits to go after is becoming the best athlete possible, even if you’re NOT an athlete.

At its core, becoming the best athlete possible requires a mindset grounded in the belief that improving the strength and resiliency of one’s mind and body can only be achieved through the continual evaluation, deliberate action, and re-evaluation of their abilities, regardless of their sport.

Now, what would it look like if that little blurb above were unpacked and examined through the lenses of scientific knowledge and practical insight? It would likely look something like the fifty tips I’ve listed and discussed below.

So, whether you’re a world-class athlete, a weekend warrior, or even someone simply looking to become a bit more fit, every single one of these tips can apply to you, as they are universal to any sport or activity for which one can possibly train.

Strategy 1: Know your “why”

You will never become the best athlete or version of yourself possible if you don’t know your “why.” Becoming the best version of who you are (be it an athlete or anything else) will require you to endure a lot of physical and mental discomfort for this to be attained. When you get tested (and you will be tested repeatedly in this pursuit), it’s easy to cut corners or quit entirely.

Knowing why you want to become the best athletic version of yourself possible will act as an anchor amidst the stormy waves of fatigue and struggle that will do their best to toss you around in the seas of life.

You can endure pretty much anything if you know what your “why” is. It’s a compass that, when stared at and referenced, will give you direction and keep you from getting lost and becoming a victim of falling off the cliff as you climb upwards on your journey.

Take some time to know your “why” if you haven’t done so already. Your “why” is arguably the most important determinant of your athletic success, hence why I’ve listed it as the very first strategy within this list.

Strategy 2: Define what “success” means to you

If your “why” is your compass, then “success” is your destination. But if you don’t know what you want your success to be, then how will you know when you’ve arrived at your destination?

Success means different things to each individual. For some, it means winning a gold medal in the Olympics, while for others, it can mean running for ten minutes without stopping. Whatever it means to you, you must know what it looks like.

The reason being: if you’re going to be the best athletic version of yourself possible, you must be deliberate in your pursuits. Knowing what you want your end goal to look like will give you something tangible to strive for, like a bullseye on a target that one sets their sight on before taking a shot.

Figure out what it is that you’re truly after. Only then can you start taking deliberate action toward achieving your end goal.

Strategy 3: Assess your baseline performance

It’s hard to know if you’re moving in the right direction if you don’t have a baseline to reference. As the old saying goes, “if you don’t assess, the best you can do is guess.”

When taking deliberate action toward an end goal, your mindset should be that there’s no room for guesswork. By assessing your baseline abilities and performance, you now have something to work off of and reference. This not only ensures that you’re making progress but also allows you to quantify the extent and speed of your progress, which are two parameters to which you must have access.

What you specifically need to assess will depend on your sport or activity, as well as your personal needs and goals. This can look drastically different from one individual to the next; however, here are some universal parameters that nearly every athlete involved in physical activity should consider assessing and tracking:

• Bodily strength (full-body, upper-body, and lower body)
• Bodily endurance (full-body and/or lower-body, depending on the sport)
• Mobility (full-body, upper body, and lower body)
• Agility
• Movement control
• Sport or activity-specific abilities
• Body composition

Strategy 4: Fall in love with the process

You absolutely will not become the best athletic version of yourself possible if you don’t learn to love the actual pursuit of becoming a better athlete.

If the only thing you look forward to is the end result of your athletic pursuits, you will burn out long before you ever get there. You need to fall in love with the process of getting there.

Related article:

The road to becoming a better athlete and, ultimately, the best athletic version of yourself possible is one that’s long, arduous, and both physically and emotionally draining. Your motivational tank will run dry if you don’t learn how to fill it up every training session by finding something you love about your pursuit.

Whether you want to call this a mindset, a mental tactic, or anything else that fits the bill, you ultimately need to find some sort of way to not only effectively embrace the pursuit of becoming a better athlete but actually look forward to the process of training itself.

If the only thing you look forward to is the end result of your athletic pursuits, you will burn out long before you ever get there. You need to fall in love with the process of getting there.Click to Tweet

I can’t do this for you. All I can do is raise your awareness of the fact that it must somehow be done. Find a way to put forth your best efforts each and every day in your pursuits while tapping into something that somehow lets you walk away looking forward to your next session.

If you can do this, you hold the keys to the universe when it comes to becoming the best possible athletic version of yourself.

Strategy 5: Focus on the 80/20 rule

The 80/20 rule, sometimes known as the Pareto principle, is a statistical principle regarding the ratio of effects to causes. More specifically, it states that approximately 80% of results are obtained from 20% of the causes.

In the world of physical training, this rule absolutely holds true; you will get 80% of your athletic improvement (effects) just by consistently focusing on the fundamental principles of strength & conditioning and sports performance, which comprise roughly 20% of the causes.

As a general example, if you wanted to get bigger and stronger, the 20% to focus on would include:

• Utilizing compound exercises for your lifts.
• Eating adequate amounts of protein and avoiding processed foods.
• Getting adequate amounts of sleep and rest.

Only after you had these fundamental factors dialled in would you then want (or need) to focus on the remaining 80% of training variables that would yield the remaining 20% of your results.

These remaining factors, as an example, would be the more nitty-gritty details such as:

• Which accessory exercises (non-compound lifts) are best to do.
• Determining whether you should eat 1.25 grams of protein per kilo of body weight daily or 1.5 grams per kilo of body weight.
• Taking supplements such as BCAA’s and ZMA on a regular basis.

Note that these nitty-gritty details can potentially help, but they won’t mean much if you don’t have the fundamental 20% dialled in.

In other words: don’t major in the minutia. Analysis paralysis is real, and you can fall victim to it as an athlete if you obsess over the smaller details of training. There’s a time and a place for doing so, but only after you’ve got the big foundational concepts consistently covered.

If you want some other invaluable tips that can help with this, check out my article: Overwhelmed with Fitness information? Start With These Tips!

Strategy 6: Train using the minimal effective training dose

If you had a headache and could eliminate it entirely with one single 81mg aspirin tablet, then there would be no point in swallowing two, three, or four tablets (and it may even be detrimental to do so).

Training to become a better athlete, be it through improving strength, size, speed, power, mechanical efficiency, or any other component of athleticism should always be thought of in the same way; do enough training to elicit the exact stimulus you’re after for a particular training session, and nothing more.

If you’ve done the amount of work required to make your body meet the demands of your training session, there’s no point in doing more if the desired stimulus has already been achieved.

I often use the term: Train to stimulate, not annihilate.

Using the minimal effective training dose will ensure you’re getting the performance improvements you’re after but without putting otherwise unnecessary stress or wear and tear into your system or on your body.

It can take time and effort to determine what the minimal effective training dose will be for your particular training needs or sporting demands. However, the effort is absolutely well worth it; you’ll waste less time training, recover quicker, and prolong your athletic career immensely.

Strategy 7: Learn about periodization

Periodization refers to a structured training plan that breaks your training demands down into smaller blocks or durations of time with particular training strategies or goals emphasized within each smaller block. It essentially looks at the big, overarching picture of your needs and goals, then breaks them down into smaller timeframes.

A periodized plan typically consists of breaking down phases and goals of training into an annual timeframe (often referred to as an annual training plan). Three distinct phases within an annual training plan include:

• Macrocycles (usually the timespan of an entire sporting or athletic season).
• Mesocycles (typically a particular timeframe within a season).
• Microcycles (typically one week in length).
• Individual training units (i.e., individual workouts or training sessions).

As an athlete, you need structure and logic in your training; there’s no room for guesswork or being haphazard with optimizing the overall picture of your training.

Your individual athletic needs and demands will change throughout the year based on whether you’re in-season, out-of-season, in pre-season, etc. As a result, you want to have your training fluctuate to accommodate these changes. By breaking down your training needs and goals into what is most important to focus on within a given timeframe, you will reap massive improvements in overall athletic abilities and performance than when compared to those who train haphazardly (those who don’t break down their annual training into training blocks that reflect their current needs and goals).

To learn more on this topic, I would highly recommend the book “Periodization: Theory & Methodology of Training” by Tudor Bompa.

Strategy 8: Learn to befriend sacrifice

If you’re serious about becoming a better athlete, it will require sacrifices. The types and extent of sacrifices you’ll make will depend on how serious you are about achieving what you’re after. Nonetheless, becoming better at anything requires a shift in priorities to one extent or another.

As an athlete committed to bettering their abilities, you will need to make sacrifices in the realms of:

• Social or leisure time.
• Relationships (friends, family, significant other).
• Dietary restrictions.

In other words: You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

This is not to say that each of these categories will massively suffer (nor should they); however, small (and often continual) sacrifices will likely need to be made. If they’re adversely affecting your mental health, physical or relational health, then you will need to re-prioritize your training goals and overall pursuits. Still, small, continual sacrifices must often be made in the name of becoming the highest-performing athlete that you want to become. Get used to it.

Strategy 9: Follow these three rules

If you’re committed to becoming a better athlete, you’re in this for the long haul, as becoming a better athlete doesn’t simply happen overnight. You will need to put your body through a high amount of physical and mental exertion. And since the process of improving your athleticism takes consistent effort, you’ll want to follow these three rules to ensure you minimize the chances of physical injury, burnout, or anything else that may impact your ability to train and perform:

Rule 1: Prevention is better than any cure
Rule 2: Never let minor issues become major issues
Rule 3: When in doubt, seek professional guidance

Following these rules will prolong your training and overall athletic career. They may sound like common sense, but it takes discipline for athletes to adhere to them; it’s often easier to push through minor aches and pains than take corrective action. The same can be said for mental health.

Be disciplined enough to follow these rules, and your mind and body will absolutely thank you. In return, you’ll be rewarded with a longer and more successful athletic career.

Strategy 10: Minimize the guesswork

If you’re simply exercising and training for enjoyment, there’s room to be casual or haphazard with your training pursuits. However, as an athlete who wants to make serious physical and performance-based improvements, you cannot take this approach.

Minimizing all aspects of “guesswork” when training as an athlete will ensure you’re not wasting your time, provide reassurance that you’re making ideal progress, and will provide the data required to continually optimize your training.

This means that you’ll need to be detailed and analytical with various aspects of your training. Common areas of guesswork that should be eliminated or minimized for athletes include:

• Tracking the exercises, sets, reps, and poundages used for each workout.
• Tracking recovery variables such as heart rate variability, sleep, general mood, and energy levels.
• Tracking dietary intake (may not be required for all athletes or individuals).

This is not to say that every athlete must obsess over such details; however, depending on your sport, activity, or individual goals, you may need to track certain aspects of your training with more detail than others.

Strategy 11: Get a movement analysis

As an athlete, optimizing all aspects of your movement can vastly improve your performance and identify areas of weakness and potential for physical injury.

Revealing areas of poor mobility, compensated (abnormal) movement or lack of movement control can provide invaluable insight for helping you optimize your physical movement and athletic performance.

No human being moves perfectly; all of us have various physical dysfunctions that rob us of performance and contribute to aches and pains. The more you can pinpoint your biggest areas of restriction, the quicker and more precisely you can eliminate these issues. The end result is becoming an athlete who can move quicker, more efficiently, and with less pain.

Two of my preferred movement analyses include:

• The Functional Movement Screen (FMS)
• The Selective Functional Movement Analysis (SFMA)

Related article: Ten EPIC Benefits of the Functional Movement Screen (Science Proven)

If you are looking for a way to have a qualified professional assess your physical movement, these can both be great systems to use (and there are other great systems as well).

Strategy 12: Perform a “needs analysis”

If you’re serious about making substantial progress as an athletic-minded individual, you’ll need to determine what the needs of your sport or activity are. This sounds obvious; however, many younger athletes don’t take the time to analyze the true demands that their sport requires.

As an example: many young or inexperienced athletes want to become more muscular. However, they fail to realize (or at least downplay the importance of endurance or agility that their position within the sport requires). The result, in this case, may be an athlete who is overpowered for strength and underpowered for endurance, mobility or speed.

If you truly want to become better at your sport, you must have a solid understanding of the needs and demands of the activity and prioritize those over other less important aspects of training that you may find more enjoyable, more rewarding, or more pleasant to focus on.

Strategy 13: Perform a “retrospective analysis”

In addition to performing a “needs analysis,” you’ll also want to perform an analysis involving looking back on your previous season(s) of performance.

Looking back retrospectively and analyzing how the past season of training or competing went for you will reveal critical insight into how to best move forward in your training.

Take the time to reflect on how things have been going in your athletic pursuits. What’s been going well? What are your weak points? Being more in tune with such factors will provide invaluable insight into what to prioritize and work on when moving forward in your training.

Strategy 14: Failure is necessary for growth

You won’t make it far as an athlete if you think you’ll never fail. In fact, the more serious you are in your athletic pursuits, and the higher the standards you hold yourself to, the more often you’ll fail in one capacity or another.

As an athlete, you don’t have to like failure, but you had better listen to and learn from it. The best athletes take time to reflect on their failures and what they can do to eliminate the mistakes and weak points that lead to their failure occurring.Click to Tweet

It’s, therefore, imperative to understand that while failure is never the goal, it’s an inevitable reality. Thankfully, failure is also an invaluable teacher for providing insight and lessons you could never learn any other way. Some of the best athletes in the world maintain the belief that they have “failed their way to success.”

As an athlete, you don’t have to like failure, but you had better listen to and learn from it. The best athletes take time to reflect on their failures and what they can do to eliminate the mistakes and weak points that lead to their failure occurring.

You can desire success all you want, but if you get completely mentally or emotionally derailed whenever you experience failure, you won’t make much for an athlete.

Take your experiences, and learn to view them as opportunities from a teacher who can take your athletic potential to new levels if you’re willing to listen to what it has to say.

Strategy 15: Set behavior-based goals

A committed athlete is a master of their behaviors and not just their physical abilities; an athletic body is nothing without a strong mind to control it.

As a result, one type of goal you should set in your pursuits is based on your behavior.

While most athletes set outcome-based goals (I will make the varsity team; I will place top three in the next competition, etc.), which are, of course, a good type of goal to set, you’ll likely maximize your athletic pursuits by setting behavior-based goals.

This type of goal will force you to new levels of accountability, as every aspect of a behavior-based goal is within your control. You can’t control your outcomes, and despite how hard you work, sometimes you don’t get the outcome you set out to achieve.

As an athlete, this is an inevitable reality you must be prepared for. Thankfully, behavior-based goals are entirely within your control as to whether or not you attain them. When you set them, it’s entirely up to you —and only you—if you’ll achieve them, you’ll be holding yourself accountable with little to no room for excuses.

Examples of behavior-based goals are:

• Performing 45 minutes of recovery exercises four times per week
• Not missing a single training session for five weeks in a row
• Being in bed by the same time every night until your next competition

Yes, set your outcome-based goals, but make sure you set goals that challenge your behavior as well. The results will speak for themselves, and others will take notice by realizing that you are committed to keeping yourself accountable to the goals you set out for yourself.

Strategy 16: Become an expert on your body

Ask nearly any athlete how well they know their body, and they’ll likely tell you that they’re an expert on it; they are in tune with and know the behaviors of their body much more than the average individual.

As you spend more and more time training, you’ll have an abundant amount of opportunities to tap into what your body is telling you with certain exercises, movements, dietary choices, and so on.

It’s critical that you learn to not only listen to what your body tells you or how it responds to your athletic endeavors but that you as an athlete also develop the confidence to respond appropriately to the unique requirements that your body needs.

The more in tune you are and confident with what your body requires, the more you can modify and individualize every aspect of your training and wellness, leading to the most optimal training and lifestyle for your needs. This includes broad concepts, such as which exercises feel best, which foods your body prefers, and smaller details, such as how long you may need to perform your warm up or your body’s preferred time for a meal before physical activities or training sessions.

Every little advantage counts when you’re an athlete striving to become better at what you do. When you learn to confidently rely on what your body is telling you, it will provide you with numerous benefits (big and small) that help give you one more edge when it comes to improving your overall athletic performance.

Strategy 17: Train to get strong in all planes of movement

A majority of new or inexperienced athletes make the common mistake of neglecting to perform strengthening exercises in multiple planes of movement. The body can move forwards, sideways, diagonally, rotate, and any combination of these movements.

While foundational strengthening exercises such as squats, deadlifts, bench press and other such exercises are critical to athletic performance, they all train the sagittal (forward-backward) plane of movement. If this is the only movement plane that you strength train, you may develop poor mobility or weakness in other planes.

At best, this can lead to reduced athletic performance. At worst, it can predispose you to injury.

As a result, make sure your training incorporates movements that challenge your strength and mobility in the frontal and transverse planes as well.

Sample exercises that train the body in the frontal plane include:

• Cossack squats
• Lateral bounding
• Diagonal lungs
• Windmills
• Side planks

Strategy 18: Master these basic movement patterns

As an athlete, you need to be able to move well in all planes of movement and be strong when performing the following patterns of movement:

• Lunging
• Squatting
• Hinging
• Pushing
• Pulling
• Carrying

Not only will having proficient strength with each of these patterns make you a better performer, but it will also help to bulletproof you against injuries. I believe the mantra of becoming strong and proficient in these patterns is the brainchild of Dr. John Rusin (a fellow Doctor of Physical Therapy). If not, it’s at least been popularized by him.

Strategy 19: Use “tried and true” exercises

It’s easy to become distracted by the “exciting” and “cool looking” exercises that exist online and on social media. There can be a time and place for sprinkling some of them into your training, but as an athlete, know this:

Your exercises don’t have to look cool – they just have to be effective.

There are reasons why certain exercises have been around for hundreds – and even thousands – of years. Just think of the great athletes and bodybuilders within the last half century or even the last three decades; they didn’t have some of the equipment or use exercises you may constantly be seeing on social media. Yet, they still built incredible physiques and developed unbelievable skills of athleticism.

Sprinkle in the fun or “cool looking” exercises here and there, but ground your strength and conditioning in exercises like squats, deadlifts, sprints, etc. You’ll be bigger, faster, stronger, and leaner than your counterparts, all while saving precious time in the process.

Strategy 20: Train for strength, mobility, & control

All athletes need three physical movement characteristics to compete in their sport. While the overall composition will differ for each sport (and even position within that sport), every athlete needs to have adequate:

1. Physical strength
2. Physical mobility
3. Physical movement control (often called “motor control”)

Once you’ve done your needs analysis and your retrospective analysis, you’ll have better insight into what type of composition you’ll need for your athletic pursuits.

Regardless, don’t make the mistake of training only for physical strength, or only for mobility, etc. A physically strong body that lacks adequate mobility or movement control (often termed being overpowered) is more likely to become injured than one that is balanced.

Take the time and effort required to ensure that you’re keeping your body’s movement abilities balanced. It’s all too easy to get caught up in just the strength training or the aspects of training we’re naturally better at or enjoy. A dedicated athlete knows that striving for physical balance and optimal movement—even if it’s not as enjoyable—trumps only training the physical components that naturally come easier to us or are more enjoyable.

Strategy 21: A training partner is everything

Ask any successful athlete whether a training partner is required to take your training (and, therefore, your performance) to the next level, and they will all give you a resounding “yes!”

A training partner can be one individual or even a group of individuals. Regardless of whether it’s one or many, trying to be the lone wolf throughout all of your training days ahead will likely rob you of significant gains in your athleticism.

Having a training partner will benefit you in a multitude of ways, including (but not limited to):

• Keeping you accountable for showing up for training.
• Pushing and encouraging you to give your best effort each session.
• Friendly competition or inspiration within each training session.
• Receiving feedback after each set, rep, exercise, or drill that you perform.

Of course, there are times when you’ll have to perform your workouts by yourself, but ideally, try to make the majority of your workouts or training sessions ones that involve a training partner, ideally someone who is as committed to bettering their abilities as you are to yours.

Strategy 22: Hang out with like-minded individuals

Success leaves clues. If there’s an individual who has achieved what you’re after—be it as an athlete or an individual outside of sports—they likely exhibit the traits required, know what it takes, and have put in the time and effort to get to the level they’re at.

As such, these individuals likely possess the same desire you have for becoming the best they can be. Therefore, you can learn some invaluable information from them, either by talking with them directly or by observing their actions and routines.

“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” – Proverbs 27:17

You can’t soar with the eagles when you hang around a bunch of turkeys. If you want to become the best athlete you possibly can be, you need to plug yourself into a network of other individuals who, like you, are hungry to become the best possible version of themselves.

Strategy 23: Train hard, recover harder

As an athlete, it’s easy to get caught up in the mindset of “no days off” or “110%” with your training frequency and intensity. While admirable, you need to be more structured and disciplined than this with your training, assuming you’re in this for the long haul.

More is not always better. Your job as an athlete is to perform and win. As such, you need to master the concept of minimal effective training dose, and then remember that you need to take your recovery just as seriously as you take your training.

Growth = stress + rest

When you neglect the “rest” portion of the above equation, you impede your body’s ability to recover and, thus, come back stronger and faster than before.

Yes, train hard. Just make sure to recover even harder.

Related article:

Strategy 24: Consistency is king

You can have every aspect of your training dialled into an absolute T, maintain a perfect diet, and even have the best training partner in the world, but none of that matters if you aren’t consistent with your training. In fact, you’ll have better long-term success with a mediocre training program and diet that you’re consistent with than with a perfect program and diet that you only do half as often as you should.

It’s the old adage of “constant dripping hollows out a stone.” Becoming the best version of yourself is not an overnight process; this takes years upon years to achieve, and you simply won’t get to where you want to be as an athlete when you miss workout after workout, even when every other aspect of your training is dialled in perfectly.

So, chip away one day after the next. Training can become a chore and feel monotonous at times. Still, you need to accept this and do it anyways, assuming you want to better (and maximize) your athletic potential. Consistency reigns supreme over everything else.

Strategy 25: Keep your training science-based

Don’t get me wrong, there’s room for some intuition when it comes to training. However, while your intuition has a time and a place, it should only get an increasing amount of its say on things after years of training for your sport and putting your body through the athletic demands of that sport.

As an athlete, taking out as much guesswork from your training as possible while relying on proven scientific methodology is the cornerstone to improved performance. As such, keep the vast majority of your training routines, drills, and overall lifestyle rooted in the scientific principles that have been widely validated when it comes to optimizing your athleticism and overall performance.

In other words: do your research to know what has scientific validity for training and be weary of fads or trends that haven’t been around long enough to withstand the tests of time. You will be a better athlete for having done so.

Strategy 26: Learn to think on a different timescale

Becoming a better athlete is all about playing the long-term game. As such, it would be prudent of you to think on a long-term timescale. This is not an overnight challenge that you’re looking to overcome; this can be a years-long, decades-long, or even lifelong pursuit.

If you are unable to envision your journey being one that will take years to pursue, you may find yourself burning out during the pursuit of training.

Yes, set your short-term goals and plan your training for both the present and the future. But, if at the end of the day, you’re unable to accept that the pursuit of becoming the best possible athletic version of yourself will take years to achieve (assuming you’re serious about the process), you’re likely going to feel dismayed, burn out, and cease your training pursuits shortly after.

If you are unable to envision your journey being one that will take years to pursue, you may find yourself burning out during the pursuit of training.Click to Tweet

Strategy 27: Work with a coach

Any successful athlete or fitness professional you’ve ever come across has worked with a coach – or multiple coaches – on their road to improving their athletic abilities.

If you’re casually looking to improve your athleticism, hiring and working with a coach likely isn’t necessary. If you’re serious, on the other hand, hiring a coach is a critical move to make.

Related article:

Whether it’s a coach you can work with in person or virtually, having instruction and guidance from a coach can help with:

• Optimizing your overall training pursuits.
• Keeping you safe from injury.
• Saving time by avoiding costly training mistakes.

A good coach is one of the best investments you can make and one that any serious athlete should consider (provided it’s financially feasible for you to do so). Be smart with your money, but never think that you’re too good for a coach.

Strategy 28: Learn to optimize your diet

You cannot out-train a bad diet. If your physique or body composition is predicated upon your overall success, you need to give your diet just as much attention and effort as you do with your training.

An optimal diet will not only help you achieve a more ideal body composition, but it will also help with your daily energy levels — both inside and outside of the gym or facility. Ensuring your body gets the ideal amounts of what it requires will also help you to recover quicker from physical training sessions.

Optimizing and then maintaining your diet can often feel like a chore (because it usually is). And figuring out what’s best for your body can take years of determined effort, depending on how serious you are about things. Just know that learning how to appropriately fuel your body is not an overnight process. There will likely be lots of trial and error, but one that is well worth it in terms of the physique and performance improvements it will bring.

Strategy 29: Take your sleep seriously

Your training is only as good as your recovery, and of all of the recovery interventions out there, sleep is the king of them all. It has massive implications for how your immune system will deal with the stressors of training, how your body will recover from physical activities, and how your cognitive and physical functioning will be the following day.

Sleep even has massive implications for reducing the risk of physical injury, as athletes who are sleep-deprived experience significantly higher rates of injuries.^1,2

The best training regimen in the world doesn’t mean much if you neglect your sleep.

As you move along in your training and athletic pursuits, make sure you develop and maintain good sleep hygiene, which includes (but is not limited to):

• Getting 7-9 hours of sleep per night
• Being consistent with the time you go to bed and wake up
• Sleeping in a dark room/avoiding unnecessary light

With all other things being equal, the athlete with the better sleep routine will recover faster, stay healthier, and perform better than the athlete without.

Strategy 30: Train and test your mental strength

A strong body is nothing without a strong mind to control it. As an athlete, having a physically capable and robust body won’t do you much good if you don’t have the mental fortitude to go along with it. That, and it’s hard to push yourself physically with your training if you can’t “dig deep” from a mental perspective as a means to push through the physical and even psychological discomfort that is often required for becoming as strong and capable as possible.

Related article:

Being an athlete will test you in both body and mind. The best athletes out there know that physical strength is only one component allowing for their success. Their mental toughness is what lets them push through challenging times, such as when in a slump, injured, or experiencing difficulty either in their sport or life in general.

As such, finding ways to challenge your mental fortitude can help elevate your athleticism. Some simple ways to do so can include:

• Performing an intense finisher series at the end of your workout.
• Taking a cold shower or bath as part of your workout recovery routine.

By putting your mental strength to the test, you will be training yourself to push through physical challenges while retaining mental composure in the process.

Strategy 31: Accept that there will be setbacks

It’s not all smooth sailing in the world of athletics; like anything else, there will be setbacks, sometimes by the truckloads. Injuries, sicknesses, sacrifices, failures, and other challenges will inevitably come your way. Think it not strange when you are tested by life with such challenging circumstances and setbacks.

As an athlete, how you respond to failures and setbacks says a lot more about you and your character than how you respond to victories and good times.

This goes back to the previous tip, where training and testing your mental strength will come in handy. A strong, sound mind rooted in a positive mindset will help carry you through the challenges and setbacks that will rear their ugly heads at one point or another in your athletic career.

Setbacks will happen. Accept it. Doing so will help you to stay mentally composed, help you make better decisions going forward, and help you overcome obstacles in a much more efficient manner.

Strategy 32: Become strong in humility

It’s easy to boast about your victories and accomplishments. Your talents, skills, and hard work are just as easily boasted. But there’s a difference between celebrating and boasting. The pursuit of athletics should feed the soul and starve the ego.

As an athlete, you earn the right to celebrate your hard work and what comes from that hard work, but taking it to the point of boasting or minimizing the talents and hard work of others is not a quality of a respectable athlete.

Take note of the successful athletes that you look up to; the vast majority have every right to brag if they ultimately want to, yet they choose not to. They know they won’t have their physicality forever and that pride comes before a fall.

As C.S. Lewis once put it, “humility doesn’t mean thinking less of yourself; it means thinking of yourself less.”

Take pride in your hard work and be grateful for the victories that come your way as a result, but don’t forget that there are others out there who are working just as hard—if not harder—than you. Others, just like you, are hungry for success, and if you get caught off guard by excessive pride, you might find that out in a very unpleasant way.

Strategy 33: Prioritize progress over perfection

As an athlete, if your belief is that you should attain perfection in what it is that you do, you’re likely going to face some harsh truths and learn some painful lessons in your days to come.

The truth is, if you only have your eyes set on attaining perfection, you will miss many milestones of improvement and many subsequent victories that are worth celebrating. After all, if it’s “not good enough” (i.e., not perfect), then you’ll be more preoccupied with where you fell short than where you succeeded.

If, on the other hand, you’re making progress, then you’re moving in the right direction of becoming a better athlete, and that should certainly be celebrated.

Consider some of the all-time best athletes in their respective sports and all of the failures they’ve experienced:

• Michael Jordan missed around 9,000 shots in his NBA career and lost over 300 games.
• Tom Brady has thrown over 200 interceptions in his NFL career and lost 75 times.
• Babe Ruth struck out 488 times in his MLB career.

Life is messy and far from perfect. Don’t waste your days chasing a form of perfection that will only rob you in the end. Aim to get better; to improve. As long as you’re improving, you’re moving in the right direction.

Strategy 34: Supplements are not substitutes

The term “supplement” means “in addition to.” The term substitute means “to replace.” It’s eye-opening to see how many athletes (particularly those who are in their early stages of athletics) confuse these words.

Dietary supplements can help with certain avenues of health and athletic performance, but they’re not meant to replace whole foods and healthy eating habits. There are certainly times and places for their consumption, but only after you’ve optimized your diet and are able to constantly and continually adhere to it.

Related article: Supplements: Free Resources to Tell if Yours are Safe and Effective

Real, whole food needs to be the foundation of your diet. If small dietary gaps or deficiencies still remain after your diet is dialled in, supplementation can then be worth considering. Still, you’d likely be surprised as to how few supplements you’ll likely need to consider if your diet is on point and consistent.

In the long run, you’ll save big money by hiring a sports nutritionist or dietician for a few months to help you dial in your diet than continually purchasing unnecessary supplements that are trying to fill in the cracks that could easily be filled with an optimized diet comprised of whole, healthy foods.

Pro tip: If you’re unfamiliar with examine.com, you’ll want to check it out. Examine is a free, independent website that continually publishes the latest scientific findings on dietary supplements and other factors pertaining to a healthy lifestyle. As an athlete, this site will absolutely be your best friend.

Strategy 35: Something about this has to be fun

No matter how badly you want to achieve something, as an athlete, you’ll have more success in the long run if you find a way to enjoy some particular aspect of your training and the overall process of improvement.

There will be plenty of days when you don’t want to train or practice your skills, and it’s all too easy to give sub-optimal effort (or burnout altogether) if you can’t find a way to enjoy some aspect of your athletic lifestyle.

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Whether it’s finding a way to be thankful about something or having something to look forward to when training, you’ll likely give better efforts in your training pursuits and be able to push through the hard times much more effectively when you can always latch onto something you find inherently satisfying about the process.

Strategy 36: You need multi-modal training

The more variety of movement and physical stimulus you incorporate into your training, the better off you’ll likely be. Even high-level and elite athletes are quick to point out that they owe a large portion of their success to the variety of training they’ve performed throughout their journey to the top.

Multi-modal training refers to training with various training methods, all of which will elicit a desired and purposeful training stimulus in a different capacity. The result is not only more well-rounded athleticism but less likelihood of injury since your body and its tissues are conditioned to various types of movements and stressors.

As an example: if you’re a long-distance runner, incorporating resistance training into your overall regimen will help ensure your tendons (such as your Achilles tendon) have the physical capacity to stand up to the repetitive demands of your sport, warding off debilitating conditions such as Achilles tendinopathy.

Another example: If you’re a football player (North American football), ensuring you train your aerobic system will help contribute to your body’s overall abilities to recover in-between plays even though football is predominately an anaerobic sport.

Yes, you need to make your training specific to your sport; I am not suggesting anything otherwise. Rather, I’m letting you know that multi-modal training can augment a training program and your overall athleticism when done correctly.

If you need further help with this, make sure you go back and read strategy #27

Strategy 37: Maintain balance in your life

Not much is ultimately gained if becoming the best athlete possible comes at the expense of everything else in your life. Mental health is important. Relationships are important. Spiritual health is important.

It’s not selfish to have a dream, goals, and a work ethic to pursue them. It’s a powerful fire that can keep you warm. But that fire must be contained; otherwise, it can escape its boundaries and destroy your inner being and your relationships with others.Click to Tweet

The complete sacrifice of spending time away from loved ones, running your mental health into the ground, or sacrificing your morals is not the pursuit of athleticism. I would contend it is the pursuit of pure selfishness.

Yes, the pursuit of athletics requires sacrifice, and much of it. The distinction here is that the sacrifices it requires shouldn’t come at the expense of the well-being of others or even of your own inner self.

It’s not selfish to have a dream, goals, and a work ethic to pursue them. It’s, in fact, immensely admirable. It’s a powerful fire that can keep you warm. But that fire must be contained; otherwise, it can escape its life-enhancing boundaries and destroy your inner being and the relationships you hold with others.

Know what you’re willing to sacrifice, but know the point at which it’s no longer sacrifice and instead starting to look like pure selfishness. It’s not always a clear and distinct line, so be alert and watchful for signs that suggest your ambitions need to be re-evaluated.

Strategy 38: Practice using mental imagery

Mental imagery refers to the process of imagining the sensation and image of performing an activity. Closing your eyes and visualizing how it would look and feel to perform a specific activity associated with your sport is an example of using mental imagery.

Practicing mental imagery has been shown to have positive impacts on athletic performance. For example, using mental imagery has been shown to improve free throw accuracy for basketball when compared to those who did not incorporate it into practice.

The benefits ring especially true when unable to physically practice a task associated with your sport or activity; sitting on the bus, when lying down in bed, etc., are all convenient times to image yourself performing the activity you want to improve upon when you can’t otherwise perform it physically.

Whether you practice for just two minutes or for two hours at a time, the scientific evidence is rather promising when demonstrating improvements in athletic abilities from utilizing mental imagery. Like any other skill, the chances are strong that the more frequently and consistently you practice it, the more notable the benefits will become.

Strategy 39: Lead by example

Talk can oftentimes be cheap, especially when it comes to influencing others in meaningful ways. Athletes across all sports are commonly in positions and situations in which they have others looking to them. Whether it’s a formal leadership position, such as the captain of a team, or an informal one, such as helping your little brother learn how to start following in your footsteps, as an athlete, you’re going to find yourself often in positions of leadership.

No matter where you go, and regardless of whether it’s a training day or a day off, you are an ambassador to your sport and an ambassador to an athletic lifestyle. Remember this because people will absolutely be influenced by what you do and what you’ve achieved, even if they’re not athletes themselves.

You’ll influence people even when you’re completely unaware of it. Influence them in positive, meaningful ways by producing meaningful actions and engaging with others in positive ways.

Never forget: If you’re an athlete, you’re a leader.

Strategy 40: Attention to detail is everything

There’s a quote by Chuck Noll that sums up the importance of attention to detail rather aptly:

“Champions are not champions because they do extraordinary things, but rather because they do the ordinary things extraordinarily well.”

As an athlete, the keys to success are often found in the little, mundane details of your daily training and tasks. Think of it like building a brick wall: each brick must be perfectly positioned. When this happens, the result is a robust wall that gains its strength and integrity from the culmination of thousands of bricks laid in the most optimal position through attention to detail.

Your daily training pursuits are no different: the athletic abilities and talents you build result from each aspect of your training being laid down in a precise and focused manner. Every single rep, every single conditioning session, every single recovery session, etc., are all performed with attention to detail.

The result is an athletic prowess built on the ability to focus on details that can reveal minor flaws and weak points and an optimized pursuit of training that helps you to correct them. This volitional pursuit ensures every single brick that builds your wall of athleticism is precisely laid and effectively contributes to the immovable wall that is your athletic ability.

Strategy 41: Take time to reflect

Whether it’s daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly, it’s worth setting aside dedicated time to pause everything around you and simply reflect on the various aspects of your athletic pursuits and overall lifestyle.

It’s worth considering reflecting on:

• How your body has been feeling.
  • What feels good? What doesn’t? How’s your energy been? What is your body trying to perhaps tell you?)
• How has training been going?
  • What about training has been going well? What hasn’t?
• How can you continue to optimize your health and wellness?
  • How’s your diet?
  • How’s your sleep?

While there can be an endless world of questions to ask, it all comes down to taking time to slow down and do some retrospective analysis of the general state of your being and your overall pursuits. Whether you do this through meditation, journaling, or any other introspective technique, don’t overcomplicate it; just take some time to somehow shut out the noise and let your inner voice or inner being speak to you on the overall status of your being. From there, you’ll become more in tune with how you can continue to optimize all avenues for becoming a better athlete.

Strategy 42: Look for (and work on) your weak points

The mark of a mature athlete isn’t how strong or fast they are but how willing they are to commit to overcoming their weak points. Too many athletes like to focus predominately (or worse, solely) on their strengths. This is a form of ego training, and while it feels good, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Whether that weak link is lousy agility, poor conditioning, sub-optimal mobility, a weak ankle, etc., it needs to be attacked in a dedicated and deliberate manner. You may be a good athlete, but are you mentally strong enough to starve your ego to the point of exposing and attacking your weak points? If you are, you’ll reap rewards beyond what your natural strong points could ever bring you by themselves.

Strategy 43: Take ownership of your results

Exceptional athletes don’t make excuses; they take ownership of their results. Yes, things won’t always go your way in life, but the more ownership you take of your failures and shortcomings, the more control you will retain over your situation.

Jocko Willink sums it up rather nicely:

“Once people stop making excuses, stop blaming others, and take ownership of everything in their lives, they are compelled to take action to solve their problems. They are better leaders, better followers, more dependable and actively contributing team members, and more skilled in aggressively driving toward mission accomplishment. But they’re also humble—able to keep their egos from damaging relationships and adversely impacting the mission and the team.”

Ownership holds especially true if you’re a leader or captain on your team. But whether you’re the “lowly rookie” on a team, or your sport isn’t one that’s team-based, a significant—dare I say—massive amount of your success lies within whether or not you’re able to take ownership for your actions and your outcomes.

Strategy 44: Individualize your training as much as possible

Cookie-cutter training regimens and exercise routines (i.e., those that aren’t individualized to your needs but a group of people in general) are fine if you’re in your early days of being an athlete (and they’re certainly a heck of a lot better than nothing at all).

But the more serious you become with your training, the more extensively you should strive to ensure all aspects of your training (including recovery and diet) are individualized to meet your specific needs. Individualized approaches are those that are customized to your specific needs and goals.

The principle of specificity is everything in athletic performance. It involves not just replicating the demands of your sport as much as possible in your training, but also taking out as much non-productive work as possible.

Individualizing all aspects of your training is a dynamic process that will continually change throughout each season and when other factors arise, such as injury.

Make sure you implement strategy #27 if you need help with this. It takes time to get this all dialled in, but be patient and persistent with it and you will be rewarded with better athletic performance.

Strategy 45: Avoid all-or-none thinking

Ahhh, the classic mistake that I’ve struggled with throughout all of my athletic endeavours.

As athletes, we strive to become better in all of our physical pursuits. As such, we often push ourselves hard since anything worth doing is worth doing well. For many of us, we feel like we have two gears when it comes to training: gear 0 and gear 5.

In other words, we tend to think, “if I can’t do my entire workout or workout at the intensity I’d like to, then it’s not worth doing at all.”

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While admirable to have such a desire to physically push and exert oneself, this concept of “all-or-none” thinking fails to remember that something is almost always better than nothing.

It may feel like we’re “half-assing” it if we can’t go all-out for our training sessions or train at our scheduled intensity, but the body will appreciate some form of a stimulus rather than no stimulus at all.

Besides, this is a chance to practice working on your mental strength; it takes a disciplined athlete to commit to a practice or training session while knowing it may not be executed at a level that’s up to their own standards.

Something is almost always better than nothing.

Strategy 46: Be gracious in your losses

As stated earlier, how you respond to failure and disappointment says a lot more about you than how you respond in your victories and successes. It’s easy to treat others kindly and to be patient when you win and all is going well. Anybody can do that. The real challenge is in making the choice to treat others with the kindness and respect they deserve after you’ve had one humiliating defeat after another.

This isn’t to say you should set all of your emotions aside when you lose (not “if” you lose but rather “when” you lose); it’s ok to feel pissed off, frustrated, sad, or any other emotion. Those are not negative emotions. But how you carry yourself and act in those moments is what matters.

Sometimes another athlete or team will serve you a slice of humble pie simply because they outperformed you; they trained harder; they prepared more thoroughly. And in those moments, will you be able to maintain your character and acknowledge that you were straight-up beat by someone who was better in the moment than you were? Will you be able to graciously admit that you didn’t prepare as much as you should have? That’s the first step.

If you can succeed with that first step, then the real challenge begins: how are you going to treat others as you work through those losses and setbacks?

Strategy 47: Train around injuries rather than through them

“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.”

Of all the ways in which this quote can ring true, for athletes, there’s likely no greater truth with this quote than when it comes to pushing through injuries.

Of course, there are times when minor aches and pains can be ignored, but we’re not talking about minor aches and pains. We’re talking about issues that aren’t going away and only seem to be getting worse.

Pushing through pain and discomfort that only continues to get worse is essentially playing with fire; it’s just a matter of time before you get burned. At best, it will rob you of athletic performance. At worst, it will sideline you for a portion of your season or even for the season entirely.

If you’re dedicated as an athlete, you’ll train around these issues (while working with qualified professionals to eliminate them entirely) rather than simply trying to power through them.

Do the smart thing. It takes discipline to train around issues, but it will serve you well. No one said it was easy being an athlete, but as an athlete, you don’t have much of an athletic future in front of you if you’re chronically riddled with pain.

Strategy 48: Study those who are successful

Success leaves clues. The athletes you admire (and even those who aren’t athletes) haven’t accrued their success merely by accident or chance; there was a volitional effort and plan that was steadily executed on their part and continually refined all along the way.

In other words: they hold a blueprint for the success you’re after. Sure, you’ll need to tweak and individualize it for your specific needs, but the principles will largely be the same.

If you have the chance, see if you can pick their brain and ask them about their methods and mentality. Ask them to share their insights into what’s worked for them and what hasn’t throughout their pursuits. If this isn’t an option, try reading up on what they’ve done or asking others for insight.

It doesn’t mean you have to adopt and implement everything that has worked for them — the point is to have your eyes opened, and your awareness expanded to actions and tactics you may not have considered in your own pursuits. It’s ok to disregard what they say if it doesn’t fit with you, but even if you walk away with (and implement) 10% of their strategies or advice, you’ll become a better athlete than had you not studied and become aware of what has made them successful.

Strategy 49: Celebrate big and small victories alike

Big victories are the sweetest-tasting victories of them all. No one is debating that. Small victories, while not as significant, however, are still entirely worth celebrating.

Of course, “celebrate” doesn’t mean throwing a party or compromising any aspect of your pursuits. It simply means that you acknowledge what you’ve accomplished and affirm to yourself that you have made good things happen by taking a few more proverbial steps in the right direction toward your goals.

Small victories can be whatever you want them to be. I’m not here to tell you what they are. I’m just here to tell you that acknowledging constant victories creates significant mental momentum in your life. The more momentum you have, the more you can endure the grind that a truly dedicated athlete endures.

Being an athlete is just as mentally challenging (if not even more, for some) as it is physically challenging. As such, guarding and protecting your athletic spirit is a lot easier to do when you’re constantly on the lookout for the good things that are taking place along your journey.

• Didn’t miss a single workout within the last two weeks? Celebrate that!
• Sticking perfectly to your sleep schedule for the past week? Celebrate that!
• Stuck to your diet over the weekend? Yup, celebrate that!

If you’re only acknowledging the larger, more significant victories, you may just find yourself burning out or becoming frustrated by the lack of fulfillment in your athletic endeavours.

Look for the small victories. Celebrate them.

Strategy 50: Pass everything along

You’re going to learn a massive amount of valuable information in your pursuits as an athlete. A lot of it will be scientific, and a lot of it will be anecdotal. It’s all valuable and worth passing along to others. What a shame it would be to amass a lifetime of valuable training and athletic information to then only keep it to yourself.

Part of being an athlete involves your commitment to enriching the lives of others around you — particularly those who aspire to be like you in one capacity or another. No, you won’t find any scientific papers that back up that previous statement. But any athlete who has had success in what they do will likely tell you that their athletic career has often felt the most rewarding when helping others achieve their own athletic goals.

You’ll likely find the same. After all, as an athlete yourself, other people have already invested their time into you (coaches, friends, family), and many more will continue to do so as you strive to take your athleticism to the next level.

Pass it all along. Your athletic career will be more rewarding, and you’ll help others move closer to their dreams the way others have done with you.

Final thoughts

Well, that was a lot, but hopefully, you got something from this. Remember, take any of the tips and strategies within this article that resonate with you, and implement them in focused and meaningful ways – leave behind anything that doesn’t resonate.

Above all else, remember that the pursuit of becoming a better athlete is lifelong and one that will reward you in beautiful ways if you do it all for the right reasons.

References:

1. Chennaoui M, Vanneau T, Trignol A, et al. How does sleep help recovery from exercise-induced muscle injuries? J Sci Med Sport. 2021;24(10):982-987.
   
2. Samuels C. Sleep, recovery, and performance: the new frontier in high-performance athletics. Neurol Clin. 2008;26(1):169-180.