Episode 109: Precision Athlete Part 2

Let us bring this conversation closer to home. You may not be training for Olympic gymnastics or competitive archery. But the principles that precision athletes apply to develop body awareness, proprioception, and spatial sense are directly applicable to every person who wants to move better, perform better, and reduce their risk of injury in daily life and recreational sport. Most people go through life in a state of low body awareness. They sit in positions they are not aware of. They move through habitual patterns without noticing the tension, imbalance, or inefficiency in those patterns. They exercise without paying attention to how the movement feels, focusing instead on getting through the reps as fast as possible. This is the opposite of what precision athletes do, and it explains why most people plateau in their physical development long before they reach their potential. The simplest and most powerful thing you can do to begin developing precision athlete-level body awareness is to slow down. When you slow a movement down enough, you can feel things that disappear at full speed. You can feel where your weight is distributed. You can feel which muscles are working and which are not. You can feel the difference between a movement that is smooth and controlled and one that is compensating or compensating for a weakness somewhere. Slow practice is not beginner practice. It is expert practice. The gymnast at the highest level still drills elements slowly. The golf instructor still works on slow-motion swing mechanics with elite players. Slowness reveals truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices