5 Pillars of Athleticism

Speaker 1 (00:00): What’s going on. Welcome to the next level athletics athlete training podcast. I’m your host, John Jackson. And I’m here with the fish himself. How’s it going guys? All right, Alex, go ahead. No, I’m just kidding for this podcast. We’re going to be talking about what I’m going to call the pit pillars of becoming a next level athlete. Um, that was planned to say next level athlete training right there. So just so everybody knows. Um, so with these pillars, we’re going to talk about the major things that go into really accelerating your game, getting to your goals, taking your game to whatever level it is that you’re trying to get to. So all of these being, and these are the major ones, you can go into crazy detail and pick out fine tune little ones, but a sports skill work. So skills that are specific to your sport. And depending on your sport, everybody has these. I mean, if you’re a football player, depending on your position, new throw, catch, kick, whatever, it may be basketball, dribble shoot. Alex was pointing to me on the kicker because he was a kicker. Um, he says he was good, but I don’t have any footage. Yeah. We didn’t have cameras back in the day. So I don’t have any proof. How old are you again? 22. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
So sports skill-specific specific work. One of them, another one being, um, strength training, performance training, athlete training, sports training, whatever you want to call it, but doing training specifically to accelerate your needs of that sport. So whatever it requires, um, for most people, that’s just in general, all around athlete training like we do here. And so jumping higher, running faster, being more explosive, more powerful, all of that stuff for others, it gets a little bit more specific depending on your sport. If your alignment you’re more on that strength training side than the, I mean, strength training slash explosiveness, less on the speed agility, even though it’s very, very important for everyone. I recommend that everybody do it. And everybody train as if they’re a multi-sport athlete. So they’re a little bit healthier, but that’s beside the point, another pillar being nutrition and the last pillar being rest.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
So with all of these, each one needs its own attention through your training. And each one of these require some attention on a daily basis. There’s not one that you can do in that, be your pillar of success. It takes all of them to hold up, what will be your success. So you need to make sure that in a day, as you’re planning your day, as you’re navigating your day, you’re going through all of these different areas and making sure they’re all accounted for. So are you working on sport specific skill work? Yes. Great. Are you doing some stuff to help towards your athleticism or your training? Great. Are you doing stuff with nutrition? Yes. Rest. Yes. I rest and recovery with that obviously splits matter. So you shouldn’t just go and try to pound everything in all the time, if doing a training on a specific split, that’s great, but you need to make sure on a daily basis it’s accounted for. So you know that today’s a recovery day because something’s tomorrow really you need a plan that it’s going to happen and how it’s going to happen. Um, what thoughts do you have right now?

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Um, the biggest thing is just making sure that you can identify what you’re working on the most and also identifying what you’re lacking. Um, saying that, okay, I’m putting in a lot of cardio work, making sure I’m in a good, like athletic level to do my sport, but maybe I’m also putting in six days a week of sports specific training, but I’m not resting. And resting is going to be a huge part of making your game better because if you’re always pushing no matter what, you’re not going to be able to let your body recover. So you can push even harder that next week. Or maybe it’s not just immediately the next week. Maybe it’s two months down the road, but if you don’t stop, it can be a big partner game. They’ll slow you down. If you don’t ever slow down. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
All of these things play off of each other. So if you want to work on your sports specific skills, that’s fantastic. You can be amazing at dribbling, but if you’re the slowest person, if you can’t jump, if you can’t do anything, it’s not going to matter. You’re not going to have those, uh, the athleticism of intangibles that other people might possess. So you, while you’re working for this sports skill, you need to be working for athleticism. But while you’re working for athleticism, you can’t neglect the skill because if you don’t have the skill, you won’t be successful. Rest and nutrition, both go hand in hand with the skill work and with the strength work, if you’re not properly taking care of your nutrition or your rest, you’re going to lead to injury, or you’re not going to get the growth you want from your training and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
But all of these things have a direct correlation with each other, very, very direct. So we need to make sure that we are going through each of these things and making sure that we have them in control. So the skill work is pretty straightforward and self-explanatory, whatever your skill is, you should have a good idea on how to train for that. If you don’t talk to your coach, talk to a trainer who does know, um, the athlete training side can become a little bit more foreign because it is a little bit more of a puzzle. I mean, if you just dribble a basketball and inevitably you’re going to get better at dribbling, but if you just go run outside and jump, you might not necessarily just get better at jumping. You probably will for a short stint, but then you might hit a plateau. So how do you go about things?

Speaker 1 (05:29):
How do you, um, assess the equation that is getting better as an athlete and do that, right? You might need a little bit of help for that one, but that’s not to say it’s impossible by any means you can do your own research or you can find somebody who knows what they’re talking about and they can give you ideas for that. Um, same kind of applies with nutrition. Nutrition can be a little bit confusing or anytime I’m recommending things for nutrition. I recommend that people go with what they hear. Like you hear each agreements, each of fruits and vegetables, make sure you’re getting a good source of protein, carbs and veggies, every meal. Those are good rules to follow, like make sure as an athlete, you’re getting lots of fruits and vegetables, and you’re also getting a good amount of protein in. If you do those two things, you’re going to be okay.

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Um, there’s a lot more details to it, but that’s a good representation of, if you look at your plate and you have a hamburger and that’s the only thing you’re eating, there are hamburger and chips just realize you don’t have any vegetables. And if you put tomatoes, pickles, all that stuff that doesn’t count, you don’t have any vegetables, especially green vegetables and or fruit or anything that has those micronutrients that are going to really help you out in the long run with health and your body, a rest. Another simple one do with what you hear get eight hours of sleep per night. I actually found, and you don’t know this yet. I don’t think I’ve talked to you about this, a study that said people that get eight hours of sleep versus not eight hours of sleep. It did that in athletes. And there was a 1.7 times greater risk of injury for getting less than eight hours, as opposed to eight plus hours out of the surprise me at all. It’s just insane to think. It’s almost two times the risk factor. Like I knew that it was more, I think everybody would say it’s more, but almost two times.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
That is a very big percentage of that. I wouldn’t think it would be that high for something as small as that. I don’t consider that big of a thing. It’s like, Oh, maybe I’m only getting six hours of sleep instead of eight hours. But now to think that it’s going all the way up to two times more likely to have had that happen is something to consider. For sure.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Like if you, if a doctor told you, Hey, you are two times more likely to have a heart attack by doing this. You’re like, okay, I’m not doing that. Like two times more. That’s a lot.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
And something as simple as just going to bed. Exactly

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So simple. And that you can’t shortcut this either. You can’t like last night, I got a good amount of sleep. Like I got, let’s say nine hours of sleep. And then tonight it’s like, Oh, I can get seven. Then it doesn’t work like that. It’s in a stint naps you can navigate to where they would. They help more than the other. So naps are shown to be more beneficial than like trying to equate it through nights, but also quality of sleep. You need to make sure you’re getting really good sleep with all of these too. But eh, when you start looking at that, the simple things like rest, if you can make sure you’re getting the rest in every night, you’re going to be better off, less likely to get injured. If your nutrition is right, nutrition has a direct correlation to that. I don’t know the exact numbers on nutrition.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
If there’s a times, whatever this time is more likely, whatever. Cause it’s very tough to do that because there’s so many options. Sleep is a very straightforward thing. But with that being said, nutrition is going to be way up there with an importance as well. So if you’re not taking care of all of these aspects, if you’re not doing all of these things and making sure everything’s in line and right, you’re just either increasing your risk of injury or you’re decreasing your ability to take your game to the next level. So if you want to play college sports and you’re in middle school, or if you wanna play high school sports and you’re in middle school, start thinking for the long run and realize that you’re going to have to account for all of these things. So if you like to stand up late, you might have to change habits.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
Now, if you don’t like eating vegetables, you might have to learn how to like them now, or find one that you do. If you don’t do enough skill training, if you don’t do enough athlete training, you need to take all those things into consideration. And then look at the guys that are at the top and think, okay, what do they do? You’re not going to be able to take it to their level. You’re not going to be able to replicate that because they have money. They have all the time in the world and all that stuff. But if you can look and say like, okay, LeBron makes sure he eats well on top of that, LeBron makes sure that he gets the rest he needs. LeBron does skill work. And LeBron does athlete training work. The big caveats for that are not rest and nutrition, but the skill and training, you don’t need to be working on the skills that LeBron works on.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
You need to be working on the skills that you struggle with. So you need to be able to assess your game and realize I can’t go left and I’m not very good at moving and cutting off my left light, whatever it may be, dissect your game, figure out the things that you need to do, and then go work on those things. And then also work to get better because you can never shoot well enough. You can never dribble well enough. So keep going, keep pushing those things, keep working for skills that suit you don’t do the drills that LeBron’s doing necessarily, unless you’re at LeBron’s level, which if you’re listening to this, my guess is you’re not. And if you are hit us up, we’d love to have you in the chain. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
And you also, can’t forget to just stop athlete training what you’re already good at, just because you’re at a high level at a certain skill and you need to start working on something you’re not quite as good at doesn’t mean you just stop working on the thing that you’re good at, because then that’s going to start falling behind as well. And it’s always good to have something that you’re really good at and just keep it going. Don’t stop just because you’re good at it. Because then later, once you get further into your athletic, let’s say career, it’s going to other people are going to catch up to it if you’re ahead and might as well, keep it going. So you’re ahead and then build your other skills up to that level. Don’t bring your really high level skill down to your other. Not quite as good skills.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
One thing, a big thing that I hear a lot about that I agree with is the idea of mastery. Like a lot of people will say like, Oh, you got to get like, you got to work on your weaknesses and stuff. And that’s great, but it’s kind of like the, I think it was a Bruce Lee quote, like, would you, you’re gonna win. You’re gonna win. If you practice somebody who, sorry, I’m butchering this. Somebody who practices 10,000 different kicks will not be as successful as the person who practice one kick 10,000 times. So if you think about that and you realize that mastery is a thing and that all these NBA guys, unless you’re the top, top, top, they have their specific things that they’re good at. Like you don’t, you don’t look at Steph and think, Oh, he’s an elite dunker or he’s a great post player.

Speaker 1 (11:59):
Or his post moves are insane. Hey, he’s a shooter. And he has good ball handling and his floaters killer. And those are the only things you think about because he has mastered those. He would rather be mastery level at a few things and sufficient at the rest, then average at everything. And so if you, as long as you are sufficient in all skills, and then you’re mastering others, you’re good to go. And then focus like Alex said, don’t neglect the things you’re good at keep working even harder at the things you’re good at like athlete training. If you’re a great shooter, become a better shooter, work off of a fate work off of a step back work off of all these things, put yourself in positions to fail. So that way you can figure out how to become a better shooter and work on your ball handling and do all those things. But focus on the mastery effect of one work hard at that one, but also work on everything else. If that makes sense. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
Getting back to the nutrition side is when you’re thinking about, I mean, eating healthy and stuff like that, a lot of kids are going to see a lot of things of like, you need to only eat protein to get better. You need to, you know what, like get rid of all fats, get real. There’s a special diet for this. There’s a special diet for that. It isn’t just about all one. It’s about a giant. I mean, it’s the pyramid of health is you have to have different amounts of different types of foods throughout. You want high amount of protein, but you also need to have greens. You need to have carbs. It’s all about balance. And just because you see somebody who did a, one of those fad diets doesn’t mean that’s going to work for you. And a lot of the times, a lot of like younger athlete training, a like specialty diet isn’t going to work. No.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah. You should probably try to avoid those things, honestly, on the topic of nutrition, we’ll probably make that our next episode and we’ll really dive into some ideas and some thoughts and some things you can apply as an athlete training and even not as an athlete. So I think that’s money going to some detail on nutrition. Cause it’s a weird puzzle, but I think we’ll cut this one there. So thank you all for listening to the Next Level Athletics sports training podcast, Josh and Alex sign and out peace. See it.