Overnight Success Isn’t A Thing

When seeing people who are successful or have a “big break”, it is so easy to look at them and think how lucky they are or how easy they had it to get there. What you often don’t see or hear unless you choose to look deeper into their stories is how long it took them to get there, how many times they failed in their journey, and how many tears were shed and sleepless nights were had. 

As much as you may want to believe it, making progress and having success is not an easy, fast, or linear process. It takes hard work, it takes time, and there are lots of ups and downs. This is true in life, in business, AND IN SPORT! 

Making progress as an athlete is hard! So many things play into performance. It is not as simple as showing up and training every day. Yes, putting in the time is important, but putting in the time is not going to be effective if you are not doing the right things. 

What are the right things? Yes, working strength and endurance is important, but so is doing technique work, improving how your body is moving, addressing nutrition, getting quality sleep, managing stress, and giving yourself proper rest, mental and physical. 

Let’s take some time to break this down a bit. 

Technique work 

Learning proper technique with lifting and running not only minimizes your risk of injury, it also gives you more power and strength. 

With proper technique, you end the flare ups that happen in the back with many of the lifts and carries you do, you decrease the forces in the body that create many running injuries, you put yourself in a better position to generate more power from your body, and you move more efficiently so you are using less energy. All of this results in your ability to lift more weight (or the same weight easier), hold the weight for longer, run faster and longer, and do it all while feeling amazing and like you aren’t working as hard. 

Moving better 

The majority of injuries are preventable. Yes, life still happens and accidents happen so no body is 100% injury proof, but with improved movement patterns you are likely to have fewer injuries. 

Let’s take the shoulder as an example. Most people have shoulders that are rounded forward, have learned compensation patterns that use the upper traps for nearly everything, have no clue how to control their shoulder blades, and have a really stiff upper back. Oh, and we can’t forget the tight and stiff hips that play a roll into shoulder health as well. Individually, each of those issues places more stress and strain on the shoulder joint and the rotator cuff. Put them all together, because they often are all present, and there is no surprise (to me) that the shoulder is having issues. 

Keeping with this example, if you take the time to learn how to control the shoulder blades, teach your body how to use all the muscles in the shoulder like they were meant to be used, get your upper back moving better, and are simply more aware of your posture, your shoulder injuries can (and often do) go away. 

The better you move, the less pain you have and the longer you will be able to continue training and doing the things you want. 

Bonus: The better you move, the stronger and more controlled your body is as well. Meaning, you can do more and lift more without more effort. 

Recovery (nutrition, sleep, stress, rest) 

Without proper recovery, you will never perform to the level you want to perform at. When you train, you break your body down. Recovery is needed to build it back up, which is what gives you your increased strength, power, endurance, etc. 

When people think about recovery, it is often thought of as stretching and rolling, taking a rest day, and maybe getting a massage. Many times, the other aspects are often missed. Everything else you do in your day plays into how your body recovers as well. If you are not eating well, not sleeping well, and have high stress without a way to manage it, you are not going to recover well. Continue that day after day, month after month, and your body will break down and become injured. If you happen to be one of the lucky ones that doesn’t become injured because of it, your performance will suffer regardless. And THAT is coming from personal experience! 

Without addressing all aspects of training, you will not make the progress you want. And even more importantly, if you do not address all the aspects, your time as an athlete will be short lived. If you want to be able to train and do all the things you want to do for decades to come, being smarter with your training now is essential! 

Ready to go all-in with your training? Need some help with that? I would love to support you. Schedule a FREE DISCOVERY CALL with Dr. Brianne Showman to share your story and discover what your future could look like.