In the world of sports, two commonly overlooked ideas are being patient and consistent with training. Far too often athletes believe each practice or training session must be a herculean or superhuman effort where they greatly advance their skill or fitness in a short time frame. This idea has been pushed by the popular Hollywood movies, motivational videos, and pop culture sport references. We watch Rocky train to fight Ivan Drago with a few months of extreme intensity, entering the ring seemingly invincible. Unfortunately this phenomenon only exists only in Hollywood. In reality, efficient and successful training is far less glamorous, requiring thousands of hours of consistent practice over an athletes career.
Having a swimming background I think of everything in terms of seconds, tenths and hundredths of seconds, however the idea of consistent progress applies to each and every sport. A coach of mine once told our team of a swimmer who made it his goal to do something in practice that would make him a hundredth of a second faster every day. Upon hearing this I thought that would never pay off to any meaningful improvement. There are 999 hundredths of a second in a second, how can that possibly pay off. As my career progressed, I realized how truly challenging it is to improve even by even the slightest margins and I began to see the message our coach was conveying. You can not hope to improve leaps and bounds in just a few practices. Instead it requires consistency and patience over a long period of time.
As athletes we can not hope to have phenomenal practices every time we step on the field. We must demand consistency from ourselves and realize that success is a product of thousands of consistently good practices. As progress often comes slowly and mundanely, patience is key to continue to be consistent in practice. I have always thought of training as putting money in the bank. If your training is consistent and of high quality day in and day out, you may not make a withdraw on that training immediately. That is not to say the training has been in vein or has somehow disappeared. Each consistently good practice is another deposit to be drawn upon later. Be patient and you will be able to benefit from years of consistent training. I have always believed the training you are currently doing, will appear as improvement in the upcoming season. You are putting work away in the bank to be withdrawn in the future. Keep working, stay consistent, and be patient. Your hard work now will payoff later.
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