The pride you do or don’t take in your physical preparation tells all.
“The easiest way to differentiate a serious athlete from a pretender is by evaluating how much pride they take in their year round physical preparation.
Are you training to “check the box”?
Or are you training because you know the little things are actually the big things?”
-Ray Zingler on Twitter
Everybody likes to play their sport, especially the games, right?
The pre-game playlist, the eye black, the butterflies, the lights.. It’s awesome. The games, for most, are why you play.
Let’s compare sports to food for a minute.
The games are definitely the ‘dessert’, right?
The practices are the ‘main’ course.
The general physical preparation that contributes to athletes’ athletic ceiling of potential is the ‘side’ dish.
To take it a step further, it’s a vegetable-based side dish.
Stick a pan of brownies and a bowl of broccoli in front of kids and which one are they going to devour?
I know some crazy Karen out there will say “well my Jimmy boy just loves broccoli.” Congrats. But most are going to devour the brownies for (perceived) good reason.
While I’m not demonizing brownies, I believe most rational parents understand the benefits of a balanced diet and know that consistently prioritizing dessert over the other essential elements of nutrition will have adverse effects not only on their children’s athletic performance, but life overall.
If we know that balance is essential (even in areas we don’t want it to have to be) then why are we overdosing dessert in their youth sporting lives?
To take it a step further, why are we frying every ‘main course’ or feeding them an abundance of processed junk from the freezer section?
Lastly, the side dish? “Wait you mean like there is more to it than just overdosing baseball? Are you kidding me!? We don’t have time for that.”
Yeah, there is, Frank, and that ‘side dish’ you’re ignoring is actually the uhh, how do I put it, the MOST important element of their athletic development.
It’s quite literally what your kid’s ceiling of potential HINGES on. It’s absolutely bat shit crazy to me that parents don’t understand this.
We are taking kids without a general base to work off of an overdosing specificity in hopes of it “maximizing their potential.”
This is the equivalent of giving a 3rd grader a calculus book and telling him to “give it hell, buddy!”
Most wash over the year-round general training for no other reason than they don’t understand the importance of it or they see that ‘stud’ getting away without it.
Those who (actually) want to be the best, the serious athletes, know that measly ‘ol side dish is actually the most important part of the equation.
