This will be an interesting article. As always, these are my thoughts on a random topic in the current moment. By the time you read this, my thoughts may have drastically changed (we are all allowed to change our minds after all…). Regardless, here are my current thoughts on being an athlete vs. being athletic.

BEING AN ATHLETE

I have spent the last decade of my life working with professional athletes (meaning they get paid to play a sport). Because of this, my definition of athlete is this: someone who gets paid to play a sport (or is in the pursuit of payment for a sport). To me, being an athlete IS NOT being good at the qualities that make you athletic (sprinting, jumping, throwing, lifting, climbing, crawling, swimming, etc., etc., etc.). If your life/livelihood does not revolve around the pursuit of money for playing a sport, you are not an athlete (rather you are trying to be ATHLETIC). Sorry if that hurts your feelings (for quite a while it hurt mine).

For instance, there are a number of athletes that I have been around who would struggle with some of the things I do in my training. There are guys I’ve been around who struggle to step off a medium-sized box without crumbling upon landing, but when you put them on the playing field they are absolute monsters. When they see my bouldering videos, they tell me they could never do what I do. Climbing and jumping are athletic qualities; they alone do not make me an athlete (unless of course I start getting paid to climb – which is not what I am pursuing).

Being paid the most money DOES NOT mean being the most athletic (and conversely the most athletic people don’t always get paid the most money). If you paid purely on being athletic, there are plenty of strength coaches who would make good money. However, the strength coaches who post themselves jumping out of the gym, dunking a basketball, or even throwing 100 mph off the mound are not getting paid. Why? Simply put: Because they are not good enough at the sport. They are ATHLETIC, but they are not ATHLETES.

BEING ATHLETIC

This is where most people will fall. They want to feel good, look good, and move well. They usually want to be strong and/or explosive to some extent. They want to be able to play pick-up basketball or be in a kickball league or play golf or mess around in the backyard with their children/grandchildren. MOST people would benefit from trying to be athletic: running, jumping, crawling, climbing, lifting, carrying, swimming, rotating, pushing, pulling, etc., etc., etc. However, what it takes to be AN ATHLETE in training is not the same as trying to be more ATHLETIC. Being an athlete takes an insane amount of skill, sacrifice, and luck; being athletic simply takes some lifestyle and training changes.

CONCLUSION

Too many strength coaches post things like: “5 Things EVERY Athlete Needs” or “3 Things ALL ATHLETES Should Be Able To Do”. The reality is that if you can do it in an Instagram video, but you are not getting paid to perform at a high level in a sport, you are simply training to be athletic, not to be an athlete. This means it does not matter if an athlete can perform your random exercises or not; they made it in their sport and you did not (even with your insistence that your magic exercise actually matters). There is no one training program, exercise, or belief system that makes an athlete. If you are blessed to work with ATHLETES (professionals or soon-to-be professionals), you need to look at the person in front of you and address what they need in order to excel in their sport (sometimes it’s nothing…probably save that for another day). And if you don’t work with athletes (anyone else not getting paid to perform a sport), train them to be more athletic and well-rounded.