The Mental Skill That Separates Elite Athletes from Everyone Else
Sometimes elite athletes have more discipline, are stronger, and are more explosive. But sometimes they aren’t. The truth is traits like strength, speed, and self-control are just as common among the good athletes as they are among the elite athletes.
Simply stated, athletes need traits like these to be elite, but they aren’t what makes an athlete elite.
Instead, being elite is a product of how you apply these traits. Specifically, when an athlete applies these traits to the process of executing the most important sport specific techniques flawlessly without thinking, they get elite results. Moreover, learning how to execute a technique flawlessly without thinking is the process of developing muscle memory.
Certainly, it’s not too difficult to see why muscle memory is important to athletes. When an athlete commits the tactical part of executing a skill to muscle memory, they’re more accurate, faster, and efficient. These benefits are a no brainer.
But focusing only on the tactical part of muscle memory doesn’t always provide a competitive advantage against an elite competitor. The true competitive advantage of muscle memory goes beyond simple tactics.
How An Athlete Develops Their Muscle Memory is What Separates the Best from the Rest
All athletes in a particular sport learn the same tactics. What makes one coach, team, or athlete different from another is strategy. In the heat of competition, the ability to make real time strategy adjustments is what separates the best from the rest.
Committing strategy to muscle memory requires logical and cognitive effort since strategy is situational. As a result, athletes must gain experience in a plethora of situations to have muscle memory in those situations. The fewer situations an athlete prepares for, the less beneficial strategic muscle memory is. This means athletes who are best at analyzing and anticipating situations to prepare for will also have the biggest repertoire of strategic skills in their muscle memory.
What’s more, this approach to muscle memory is a step above simple game planning. The target of game planning is a specific opponent and rarely provides reusable benefits. On the other hand, strategic muscle memory is about executing skills situationally regardless of opponent.
While it may not be easy for athletes to practice developing their muscle memory in this way, as this takes a tremendous amount of video review and visualization time, it’s well worth the effort.