Why you shouldn't train like an athlete

 

It’s easy to get excited about pro athletes, but let’s not forget that non-athletes make up the majority of most fitness professionals’ client roster. And where working out can help an athlete get a little better at their sport, working out can make much more dramatic improvements in a non-athlete’s quality of life.

In my opinion, helping someone completely transform by losing 30 pounds is just as cool as helping football player sprint .01 second faster. 

With all that said, if you don’t play a sport (99 percent of the human population), you may want to NOT train like an athlete. In fact, you're probably doing yourself a huge disservice by treating yourself like an athlete. 

Here's why.

A.) Professional athletes barely need to workout 

More times than not, for athletes, skill practice is more important. 

In fact, there are even athletes that don’t HAVE to exercise at all.

Ken Griffey Jr. admittedly didn’t lift weights (he hit 630 home runs, the sixth-most ever).

Kevin Durant couldn’t bench press 185 pounds at the NBA combine (he’s a six-time all-star and led the league in scoring three years in a row)

If you want to lose fat, gain muscle or get stronger, working out is the number one thing that will get you there. There’s very little skill involved compared to an athlete who must perfect his or her sport specifics. 

Why would both groups do the same workout?

B.) Speed and power vs Fat Loss 

In sports, speed kills. As the old saying goes, the faster athlete usually wins. Athletes must train in a very specific way to maximize speed and power. It turns out that in order to get fast and stay fast, more times than. Or, athletes must avoid the type of training that facilitates fat loss.

Most team sports are what’s called alactic, meaning that there’s very little lactate production in the body while playing. Your body produces extra lactate when you exercise really hard for longer than 10 seconds or so, and it’s associated with the nasty burning feeling you get in your muscles. Research shows that high lactate exercises are VERY good for fat loss. 

But.... 

Very bad for building speed and strength.

C.) movement quality is more important 

Movement quality is important. It’s a good idea to stay mobile and limber, learn to squat and hinge properly, and avoid moving like the Tin Man.

If you’re an athlete, movement quality is your top defense against injury. 

In some cases, if you're not an athlete, your movement quality will have to take a back seat. 

I’m not saying to skip your warm-up or lift with crappy form. I’m saying that if you want bench 400 pounds, you might have to sacrifice some shoulder mobility. I’m saying that if you want to lose a bunch of fat, it doesn’t matter if your sprint technique doesn’t look like an Olympic champion’s.

If an athlete never pushes himself or herself out of their comfort zone for the sake of pounds on the bar or calories burned, that’s OK. If YOU don’t, that’s not OK and you’ll never get where you want to go.

Keep the goal the goal. There's no need to rush. Depending on the sport, athletes typically have a small window of time during the off-season to train hard in the weight room. And after a grueling 162-game baseball season or brutal 20-week football season, you can bet these athletes aren’t hopping right back under the bar after their season finale, giving them even less time to train.

Patrick Ciera