Beyond the Lonesome Athlete. What Italy Can Learn from the U.S. Way of Training
Entrepreneur Jim Rohn says, “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”
This is one of the most important quotes I take into my daily training.
Athletes must be surrounded by other athletes that on any given day might lift more, move faster, and work longer. This is the only way to truly get better.
In the CrossFit community in the United States, this quote was put into action very early on in the sport. CrossFit boxes started putting together competitive teams where athletes that wanted to be on the podium trained together to achieve what they could not achieve alone.
What we were able to do with these teams is collect data as individuals. The athlete to your left or right might be snatching more than you but you might be cycling muscle ups faster. This is actionable data that shows one example of strength and weakness. Doing this daily as teams gave us multiple data points every day allowing coaches to write programming that attacked weaknesses while keeping strengths…. strong.
Many of these teams started to become well known in competition. Mayhem, Invictus, PRVN, Misfit…. The list is long, but Google any of these teams and you will recognize names of some of the best CrossFitters in the world.
Let’s look at Mayhem specifically as this is the perfect example of someone no longer being able to progress as the “lonesome athlete”.
Learning by the greatests
Before winning the CrossFit Games in 2011, Rich Froning Jr. was training at the college gym at Tennessee Tech, and in his barn at home. Rich was the lonesome athlete. Rich knew….
To maintain his status as the number one fitness athlete in the world, he needed to be surrounded by great athletes. After winning his first CrossFit Games championship, Rich opened CrossFit Mayhem. Rich then invited the best up and coming athletes to train with him.
Mayhem quickly grew to house sport specific coaches in Olympic Weightlifting (Burgener), Gymnastics (Pamela Gangnon), Capacity (Chris Hinshaw), as well as sports nutritionists, strength coaches, and physical therapists. Rich created his own ecosystem of athletes and coaches at Mayhem that led him to win the CrossFit Games four times as an individual and six times on teams. Mayhem Athletes today consistently podium at the highest-level events.
Mat Fraser fought hard as the lonesome athlete in his first two years at the CrossFit Games. It was not until he brought on sport specific coaches to help him with running and capacity that he became a champion. Mat realized he could not become a champion by remaining the lonesome athlete.
Mat then he went on to create HWPO and built his own ecosystem of amazing athletes and coaches.
Even if today’s elite athletes are not part of an official camp, they still have a team of sports specific coaches working with them. Many of them also train together regularly (Jayson Hopper, Dallin Pepper, and James Sprague are always pushing each other to be better).
Italian Athletes are starting to take note
Organizations that help athletes be their absolute best have created a network of professionals throughout Italy that cross train skills, strength, and conditioning.
We are starting to see teams at competitions in Italy. You see individual athletes representing teams that have worked together to ensure that athlete is performing at an elite level.
CrossFit is and always will be a community. The strength you build comes directly from that community. The best gyms know this and take building community as seriously as they take programming.
US Army General Martin E. Dempsey lays out core principles in the book “Radical Inclusion” that create individuals who become champions. One of those core principles is “Inclusion Beats Control” … brining others in, including dissenters, strengthens the whole.
- Today’s top athletes are not just one individual.
- They are not just one athlete and one coach.
- Today’s top athletes are supported by a team of experts and pushed by athletes at a similar level.
This forces the world’s best to constantly be better. The conflict created among these teams is what creates champions.