This post is for those who want to learn how to get more athletic. Athleticism is the ability to move and control our bodies to complete a variety of physical objectives, and we can develop our bodies to fit our specific interests and needs. Often, athleticism is intertwined with sports, requiring a mix of skill development and general body control. If we wish to become more athletic, we have to consider the types of athletic feats we wish to accomplish. Our training will vary based on our sports, desired movements, and level of competition. Importantly, we must consider how what we choose to do will last in the long run and the risks of injury presented. Athletic feats are neat, but we are most often better served pursuing a lifetime of capable movement over a single moment of athletic greatness.
‘If people only knew how much more, how much better and how much longer they can enjoy life, instead of being controlled by a weakly body, they have a strong and healthy one at their command!’
We Choose How to Build Our Bodies
Whether we like it or not, we have our bodies and are responsible for how they move. Athleticism, which constitutes the physical characteristics of a well-moving body, is something that can be specialized to fit our particular goals.
Different sports, activities, and life choices require unique combinations of athletic development. Importantly, time is limited and we can only develop so many skills. Additionally, each skill or technique we develop comes with its own unique set of benefits and risks.
Regardless of the activities we pursue or sports we study, it’s important to remember that we only get the one body, and damages sustained at one stage of life often carry on throughout the rest. With that in mind, we have to consider our athletic endeavors carefully.
If there is a sport you enjoy, I encourage you to pursue it. In that study, consider the typical movements associated with the sport, strength needed, and common injuries. Regardless of whether you want to pursue sports, athleticism is important to every facet of movement, and we should actively design our bodies to fit our long-term visions.
Athleticism
Athleticism is the ability to effectively control your body through various types of movement. An athlete is one who can run, jump, dive, roll, squat and push their bodies in a controlled fashion.
Athleticism most often refers to sports, which are structured events focusing various athletic feats around common objectives, typically in a team fashion and limited to predetermined timeframes and areas. However, athleticism is more than sports. It is everything we do.
While we generally limit our consideration of athleticism to its relationship with organized sporting events, it’s a part of every movement we make. Athleticism dictates how we navigate from one place to the next, determining whether we catch our keys when they’re bumped off the table and how we tackle terrain when the snow freezes into ice on our driveways.
It’s important that we consider how we’d like to use our bodies and create an athletic plan that will keep us going for the long haul. After all, sports are fun activities, but daily movement is the common athletic theme we can hope to carry for the duration of our lifetimes.
What are Your Athletic Goals?
Your ideal body and specific goals should dictate how you approach athleticism.
- Do you want to be an all-star soccer player? If so, you will need serious training, both in terms of soccer skills and general athletic principles (i.e. strength, agility, endurance, balance and coordination).
- Instead, do you want to be capable of playing several different sports at a competent recreational level? If so, you can get away with far less specific skill training and favor general body mechanics and overall well-being.
- Are you indifferent to sports, yet want to maintain a strong and aesthetic physique? You would be wise to focus on understanding basic movement so you can build workouts to make your body effective for everyday life.
- Do you wish to maximize your musculature for a specific athletic feat like bench-press power or a superior vertical leap? Your training should cover all areas of fitness, but you will want devoted time for developing the particular strength you need as well as refining all skills associated with your athletic feat of interest.
Whatever your goal, you have to consider the types of movement involved, what type of power you’ll need, how durable you can make your body, and the fact that no matter what goal you choose, once you’re done, you’ll still have the same body and have to pay the consequences for any injuries or wear sustained along the way.
Types of Movement
The human experience is characterized by the diverse ways we can navigate and interact with the systems surrounding us.
We can walk through the world, moving from one house to the next along neighborhood roads.
We can bend over, pick up a rock, and toss it into the gutters if we so choose (watch out, sewer turtles!).
Our bodies allow us to sprint, dodge, roll, and dance, depending on our training, physical characteristics and desires to learn. Each activity we take on comes with its own prioritized sets of movement, and we have to consider them when pursuing athleticism.
Do you want to get good at baseball? You will have to develop your coordination, agility, sprint speed and endurance. Basketball will require different techniques, more sustained running, and an emphasis on plyometrics. Soccer pushes the endurance needs further, and football asks you to put forty pounds of muscle onto any desired feat.
How you want to move and expected movement are important considerations for your sport, and, if sporting is your goal, will improve your athleticism as it pertains to the desired activity.
Power
Power means different things depending on the activity. If your goal is maximizing your bicep curl, it may come down to sheer muscle recruitment and training. Other times, power asks for strength across the whole body and an understanding of how different parts connect.
If your goal is to be able to kick a soccer ball harder, you will have to develop strength across the entire range of motion. Beyond building stronger quadriceps and glutes, you will have to build your core to withstand the contraction and rotation associated with the movement and to keep you from falling over after a hearty swing.
If you want to keep the defensive end from busting past you and toward your quarterback, you will have to develop full-body power so that you can press them back with your chest and dictate their movement with your leg stance and positioning.
Power is a captivating thing to train because it asks us to use everything we have to move something in a certain way. Whether we are bench pressing for a max or squatting, our power dictates how much we can do.
Power is exciting, and its augmentation can be addictive.
We best develop power when we train with a focus on how it can be controlled. It’s one thing to be able to throw 300 pounds off your body, but it’s another still to press an unstable object and control exactly how it responds. Power must be trained to be controlled so that we can use it most effectively and keep our bodies moving durably for continued athletic feats.
Durability
Athleticism is only helpful as long as it lasts. If we can do incredible flips but find ourselves hurt after the second landing each time, the flips aren’t yet practical athletic movements in our repertoire.
Similarly, if we develop massive amounts of power but don’t learn how to control it or how to respond to varying unexpected positions, we won’t be able to make good use of our training.
We often see this durability struggle in combat sports. We will see a very gym strong competitor who practices in controlled rep ranges for maximized output. As soon as they enter the arena, their opponent exposes them to unique force angles and positions, compromising their training and forcing them to act in unexpected manners. This drains them quickly and often leads to injury.
Our bodies need to be able to move and move again. It’s the re-shot that’s more successful than the initial shot in wrestling. The first move doesn’t always land.
A combination of strength and durability leads to more-rounded athletics. This will let us run for longer, dodge under pressure, and keep moving toward the goal.
While we’re building our strength and durability, we are wise to consider life past the game. Our sports are exciting ways to grow and learn, but there’s always more when the games end.
Longevity
Whether we like it or not, the one body we get at birth is the same one that will stay with us for our entire lives. With that in mind, we’re wise to try and make it last. Consider how you want to move, what you want your body to be able to do, and any risks associated with your desired activities so that you can fully understand whether they are worth potential downsides down the line.
Peak athleticism only lasts so long. While studies aren’t always as clear as we’d like, we generally find that strength peaks somewhere around 25 to 35.
If your goal is to put up the biggest bench, you have to keep that in mind and go for it while you can. This mean pushing hard and training through difficult times to reach that singular goal. If you want to be the best, you have to pay the price. Whatever your goal is, you have to consider the risks associated and how your body will be left for further endeavors.
There’s nothing quite as traumatic as seeing a revolutionary athlete a few years out of practice completely destroyed because of the steps they had to take to achieve greatness. Sure, their names may stay in history books, but they’re also left with a shell of a body suffering from aches and pains that a trip to the gym cannot fix.
If your goal is to live a full healthy and active life, and you consider that life to last longer than 30 or so years, it is wise to consider how your present activity’s risks come into play.
Don’t let your dreams be dreams, but don’t force yourself into dreams if you aren’t willing to pay their prices.
Sport(s)?
Sports are contained athletic activities that use defined parameters and scorekeeping metrics to create a measurable physical event.
While we often tend to boisterously limit the definition of sports to fit our preferred team events, sports encapsulate a wide range of physical activities ranging from artistic dance to archery (just look at the Olympic events these days to see what I mean).
Sports are important tools for studying and developing athleticism because they present specific actionable movements that are rewarded in gameplay and studied to improve the sport. Sports have taught us about jump mechanics, common physical injuries, and how to improve movement across everyday life. Beyond athletics, sports teach teamwork, unity and dedication, all of which are important to developing community.
We can learn a lot from sports. At the same time, they present a lot of risks and aren’t necessarily for everyone, especially at competitive levels. Below are some important considerations to keep in mind when determining whether to pursue sports and how to develop athleticism for your desired sports.
Important Considerations:
Experience
Your experience with a sport (and sports in general) dictates how you should best train to develop the necessary athleticism to improve.
When you are new to a sport, you can improve your athleticism and responsiveness to in-game demands by understanding the sport’s objectives and the basic movements required. When first starting out at soccer, you can make yourself a more athletic player by learning how the ball is typically moved around and observing how more skilled players position themselves. Time spent watching how a good player jumps, lands, and takes off with the ball can help you imagine how your body has to move and where to improve. From there, you can improve your ability to handle the moves through repetition and training under pressure.
As you become more experienced with a sport, you improve athleticism by targeting specific skill and body weak points. You may need to practice your passes until twenty yard chip shots are automatic and develop your calf strength to sustain repeated explosive bounces. Continued play may reveal an underpowered posterior chain, making your jumps feel clumsy after a few minutes on the pitch and weakening your offensive prowess. It may also reveal technical areas in need of improvement.
The higher level of competition, the more refining is needed. If your goal is to go pro, you have to understand how your entire body moves and optimize it to best fit your particular style of play. These optimizations may lead to increased wear or inefficiencies off the field, but these are risks that have to be considered as part of the game. If instead you want to develop your best game given time constraints and body longevity, you may prioritize your athletic development accordingly.
Physical Traits
Much of our body is modifiable. With that said, we cannot disregard our natural physical attributes.
If I’m 5’5”, I can’t expect an easy road to any competitive basketball league. I can’t expect an easy road to a competitive basketball league in general, but height certainly makes a difference.
In life, we are free to do what we enjoy. There is no one stopping us from picking up curling, hurling, or tennis, but we have to recognize that the bodies we occupy impact our competitiveness in professional sports.
Do what makes you happy, and I encourage you to try any sport you can imagine. However, don’t get yourself down if you find that your body makes it especially difficult to play a sport professionally. Some have achieved sport greatness in spite of their unconventional physique, Muggsy Bogues for example, but to excel in spite of physical disadvantages requires an intense degree of passion prioritizing that sport above all else. Few have such a passion, and fewer still are able to continuously pursue it.
Physical traits are part of a sporting package. They impact our presence in a given sport, and while they are not determinate of success, they largely influence how we learn to grow, play and succeed in the sport of our choosing.
Costs
A sporting life isn’t just kicking around a soccer ball in the sunset. Each time we play a sport, we are weighing risks and choosing sport over everything else. It’s important we consider a sport’s costs when we decide to play.
Often the costs are worth it, but they should be considered nonetheless.
A sport’s costs most often come in three forms: time, monetary, and risk of injury. Consider each to ensure the sport you choose makes the most sense for your goals.
Time
Time is finite. Pursuing one thing comes at the cost of less time available to pursue other interests. The limited nature of time must be considered in our pursuit of sports.
So often we will see people develop very particular skills because they think they’re neat, only to find that they have spent countless hours refining a skill that has limited outside applicability. Think spinning a basketball on your fingers or mastering a trick shot. If it’s something you enjoy or need to develop in order to refine a particular area of your sport, great. However, time spent without considering the future can easily be wasted.
Develop your sports and athleticism with an eye toward efficient use of time. That’s not to say don’t have fun. I encourage you to do what you want. At the same time, years spent developing your quarter bouncing skills might not be your best path to sustainable athleticism.
Consider the various basic movements that comprise your sport and everyday life. Master your ability to squat, lean, lunge, lift and rotate with a high level of control. Consider how your toes spread when you interact with the ground sprinting for a fast break. As you progress, you will find that these basic movements will not only improve your sport athleticism, they will make you a better athlete for every part of life.
Monetary
Money may not buy happiness, but it can certainly make athleticism easier to find.
We can develop our athleticism through training with skilled individuals and specialized equipment. Neither of these things are necessary, but they both can improve how quickly we learn and where we end up.
Consider how much you value certain areas of athleticism and whether it is worth it for you to invest money into improvement. Some find that joining a gym helps them develop the power and stability they need. Others may want individualized training with pro athletes or trainers.
If the training is within your means and what you want, I see no issue pursuing it.
EfficientlyELITE stands for the notion that we can all take more autonomy over our physical forms, and we can achieve a high degree of athleticism with the free resources available online. That said, there is no disputing that a specialized professional can only make training for specific goals easier and more effective.
Risk of Injury
Whenever we move, we expose ourselves to risk of becoming injured. Whether we’re jumping off a building or walking up a flight of stairs, our activities present potential risks.
While we can’t live our lives in a bubble (unless, of course, we really need to), we can make reasonable choices about our sporting activities.
Some sports are more dangerous than others. From experience, I am more likely to get a head injury playing hockey than I am running cross country. Similarly, I had more luck breaking bones wrestling than I did playing pickup soccer matches.
Each sport we choose has its own unique risk profile, which is impacted by our general athleticism, experience, and the intensity of the competition. When we pick sports to fill up our time (and to invest further time into in the future) we have to be mindful of these risks.
If we’ve had several concussions in the past, it might not make sense to join an adult hockey league, especially if we’re new to skates. On the other hand, it might be a great social experience that keeps us active and lets us burn off excess energy, so long as we keep safety in mind.
We shouldn’t constantly avoid fun for fear of injury, yet it’s silly to think that the only way to have fun is to expose ourselves to high injury risks.
Our own unique risk tolerances will help guide us and identify whether potential injuries are worth the experience. While I don’t want you avoiding a good time because you fear a boo-boo, I do hope you take a little extra time to understand what could happen so you don’t leave yourself broken and unable to move in the future.
Ability to Play Throughout Life
Once your competitive sports career is said and done, will you be able to continue playing and enjoying your sport into the future?
Some sports age like fine wine, while others resemble a beer can left open on a sunny day.
There’s nothing wrong with picking up a hobby that will only last you for a certain phase of your life. It’s human to enjoy the thrill of a fast-paced game that can only be enjoyed by other athletes at a similar skill level, and youth sports can be great learning activities.
However, when we are looking to develop hobbies for a lifetime of movement, it’s important to consider whether we will be able to continue playing it down the road and which skills make the most sense for us to develop.
Unless you are a passionate player, you might not want to invest much time learning a skills-intensive game you can only play when you’re young. For example, if you don’t plan to play football through high school or college (or professionally, if that’s in your cards), you might not need to invest much time developing your form tackle unless you foresee a future as a bodyguard.
On the other hand, picking up a non-contact sport you can play well into adulthood is a smart way to build your body for the long haul and identify skills that will last you into the future.
Sports can be great for developing community, but that community only lasts as long we can participate. We should feel free to play any sport we like, but we may appreciate the hobby more if it can last into adulthood.
Skill Training or General Athleticism?
Another important consideration in the pursuit of becoming more athletic is the question of whether to develop specific skill sets or pursue general athletic characteristics.
You might read that and think “what’s the difference? If it makes me better at the sport, doesn’t it make me more athletic?”
Not necessarily.
Often, sports or hobbies will have particular movements or techniques important to improving your competitiveness. For example, a lacrosse attacker needs to develop their shooting skillset to score more effectively. Shooting may improve arm strength and coordination, but it tends to be far more about the specific skill training and development rather than athleticism. The same thing goes for a basketball player’s 3-point shot.
On the other hand, while improving general athleticism does not necessarily make you a significantly better shooter, it does improve your ability to navigate the field and produce point-scoring opportunities.
If our goal is to become the best athlete at a given sport, we benefit from careful study of both technical skills and general athleticism. However, under time constraints, we are wise to consider what best applies to our life.
I find that I most benefit when I favor improvements to general athleticism over skill training. While skills are important for goal scoring or technical aspects of a game, I am only a hobby-level sports player and am much more concerned with how my body works. I prefer to know I can jump, run, dodge, and roll out of a fall, even if these skills come at the cost of my shot technique. These decisions are personal ones that depend on the athlete’s preferences, but I believe that everyone should consider their athleticism as it applies to everyday life.
Athleticism for Everyday Life
How do you approach a flight of stairs?
Can you run to your airport terminal when you’re late, or do you have to walk and risk missing the flight?
Athleticism is not limited to the sports pitch, and must be considered for everyday life so that we can live as smoothly as possible.
Catching our keys before they hit the ground when our cat knocks them off the table can prevent them from breaking. Throwing a football to our kids can develop a unique bond and strengthen our relationships.
It is critical that we take time each day to understand how our bodies work so that we can improve the movements we actually do. We can make ourselves more nimble by studying how our feet interact with the ground, and we can add coordinated power to our upper body so we aren’t knocked over when the heavy storm door swings back at us.
Each day asks us to navigate unique circumstances, and we must be able to rely on our bodies if we want to make exploration safer and more accessible.
While catching the falling cantaloupe doesn’t have the same zing as securing the game winning touchdown pass, the athletic principles overlap and should not be discredited.
Conclusion
We are born with bodies, and they connect us to the world around us. Each body can be customized to fit our unique interests, needs, and goals.
Athleticism is the pursuit of better understanding our bodies and improving their abilities to move. We can develop athleticism to help us run faster, jump higher, and pick up more. These developments can help us improve at any sports of our choosing, and are also important for our abilities to move throughout daily life.
While we tend to only think about athleticism in the context of sports, it is connected to everything around us. With that in mind, we should always seek out ways to develop and maintain our athletic abilities.
Sports can be great tools to learn how to move, but, like all things, they come with risks. It’s important that we take time to consider our interests, define our goals, and assess our risk tolerances so that we can pick hobbies that develop us toward where we want to be.
At the end of the day, we have to move. Learning how to move and move better is key to a happy and healthy life, and we can apply athleticism to anything we do.
Go out and move! Who knows how long you’ll be able to do it, so you might as well enjoy it.
Thoughts or comments? Let me know!
-G
If you enjoyed this post, consider reading The Pitch to see what EfficientlyELITE is all about!