Before asking the question “how do I become an athlete”, it is important first to ask what an athlete is or how we define what is an athlete?.
The dictionary definition states, “a person proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise”.
A very broad statement and previous research take the definition a step further by suggesting that the individual needs to express characteristics of an athlete, such as:
Now each sport is different and will require different characteristics such as:
Team Sports
Individual Events
Playing Positions
Slow Start or Fast Start Strategies
In my experience, anyone seeking to better themselves whilst in a highly physical demanding sport or job can be defined as an athlete. For example, in women’s for the 2nd tier of football, typically, players are on part-time contracts. Would you say that they aren’t an athlete – no. The demands are the same and sometimes higher due to the lack of resources. I also work with many military personnel who have one of the highest nutritional and physically demanding roles but are not considered the ‘typical athlete’.
Therefore, I would define an athlete as whoever seeks to better their nutritional and/or physical programming to increase performance, recovery and long term health in their sport or job.
I prefer to use terms like ‘creating a better athlete or person within performance parameters of nutrition and strength and conditioning.
That means the question of “How do I become an athlete” should be specific to you and your sport. Understanding your physical and nutritional needs will give you the best chance to become a successful athlete in your sport.
This means you should know the following….
Fuelling strategy for your sport.
A Macrocycle and Mesocycle programming specific to your season/events.
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So, I have mentioned that you need to understand your sporting needs from a physical and nutrition perspective. But where do you find out this kind of information… there are two methods you can use. First, seek out an expert (like myself) or research and read articles like the ones below specific to your sport and depicts the key information.
Young Athletes.
Sport nutrition for young athletes – PMC (nih.gov)
Strength Training in Children and Adolescents – PMC (nih.gov)
Endurance Athletes.
Nutritional Needs of Endurance Athletes | SpringerLink
Adaptations to Endurance and Strength Training – PMC (nih.gov)
Team Sports.
Nutrition in team sports – PubMed (nih.gov)
Individual Sporting Events.
03. POZVANI – Jukic.indd (researchgate.net)
These are just some examples, and often scientific evidence aims to build upon each research article to enhance our understanding. However, with strong evidence, we understand that fuelling for your sport is essential to improving performance and reducing injury risk. We also know you should regularly perform movements that will support the physical loading of your sport.
Before you start making changes, it’s important to understand where you’re starting from. Here’s an image that I like to refer to discover my athletes’ needs. Each section requires a slightly different approach which you can see here.
So, this question of becoming an athlete and how to do it should be clearer, and you now have some idea of what you need to do – however, don’t do it all at once and try to change everything. Here’s a good way to get started:
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