Athletes: How effective is your program?

You might be training really hard at the gym and giving your best effort, leaving you tired after each workout session…

But does that directly mean you’re improving? Are you actually getting better at your sport? Are you training the qualities that’ll actually make you a better athlete?

A lot of what we see on social media are “cool” exercises and workouts that seem complex, novel, and “athletic”. Although they look that way, most of them aren’t doing what you think they’re supposed to.

Just because something feels hard and complex, it doesn’t mean you’re building athleticism or progressing as fast as you could be.

So then how do you know if you’re truly making progress?

Well first, you have to actually track your progress.

And more importantly, you have to track the RIGHT metrics!

The majority of field and court sports require muscle mass, strength, speed, and power to be successful. In order to know if you’re improving, we have to measure those qualities in some way.

For example, here at Pursuit we use our Inbody Scale to track body composition, our VALD Force Decks to track strength/power, and our Arena Gear Timing System to track speed. These modalities help us gain a better understanding of what our athletes need to work on and whether our programs are actually helping them.

There are many ways to track progress in addition to the systems we use. But ultimately, you want to see whether your skills are improving in your sport. 

Don’t follow random exercises you see on social media just because they seem like they’ll help. Make sure your training program is set to actually build your athleticism and assess your progress so you don’t end up spinning your wheels!