Sometimes you forget that people aren’t exactly into the things that you may be into. Consequently, some ideas, concepts, or other facts that you think are just common knowledge, other people might be oblivious to.

I’m still amazed when people say to me, “I’ve never seen Star Wars.”  Or, “Who is this Peyton Manning fellow that you speak of?”

And I’m the same way in areas I am not familiar with. I know what I know and I’m alright with that.

All that being said, I will have to comment on this one tip for you. If you decide to do any type of training for your athlete, you must be consistent with the training and the effort you provide if you want to give the athlete the best chance to succeed.

If you choose to ignore either one of those two concepts, you are just rolling the dice if you will see results or not.

If you were going to learn a language, how long do you think it might take if you worked on it for a few weeks, then ignored it for two weeks, got back to it for a week, etc. And the times you did study the language, you only put in just enough effort to satisfy the teacher.

You would be a master at it in no time, correct? [Sarcasm inserted here.]

Or let’s bring it to sports. Let’s say your kid whines about making the varsity basketball team or a college team. You tell that kid to shoot 500 shots a day over the course of the summer and you will be a better outside shot and have a better chance of making the team.

The kid, like the previous example, goes out 4 days the first week, getting 500 shots only one of those days. The other days the kid is shooting closer to 200-250 shots. Some of the shots are half court shots or trick shots. Nothing you would do in a game.

The next week, the kid goes out 3 days. The following week, the kid plays at a camp and thinks that is sufficient. The kid skips the next week and so on throughout the summer.

When the kid doesn’t make the team, who does he/she blame for not getting better??

YOU!!  

The kid doesn’t look at the inconsistency or the lack of effort sometimes. The kid just remembers, “I went outside and shot a lot of days this summer and I still didn’t make the team. This guy doesn’t know what he is talking about.”

Speed and strength training (or any type of training) works the SAME EXACT WAY!! If you aren’t consistent with it. If you do not put forth your best effort, this stuff will be a waste of your time.

The first 2 to 3 weeks of any training program is nervous system adaptation before the muscles even really respond. You break that up, then you are never hitting the muscles because you are always starting back at square 1.

A speed training session’s effects will only last 3-5 days. So you must continue to develop that training and taxing it so you can get to where you need to be. Lack of true effort and inconsistency will derail this whole program.

So next time you commit to the next awesome training program, think about if you TRULY want to commit to it. Which means you can’t really have any breaks in the program or you won’t see results. It also means you can’t be screwing around. Work hard during the sessions and at least ACT like you want to be there.

If you can’t do those things then don’t even consider doing a training program with a time commitment. You’ll just waste your parent’s money and your coach’s time.

Photo courtesy of Imre Pèterfi on Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/123339765@N05/