Can everyone answer the following questions?
- "When spinning in figure skating, where are you looking?"
- "When shooting in soccer, where do you aim for the goal?"
- "In baseball, where does the pitcher aim when throwing?"
These amateurish questions were actually asked by me to world-class athletes. Surprisingly, the answers were almost universally "I'm not looking anywhere!" Initially puzzled by this response, delving deeper into the questions revealed the mystery. As an illustrative example, here's a conversation with a professional soccer player:
TAD:"When you kick a shot in front of the goal, there's a goalkeeper, and several guarding players obstructing your view. Where do you aim the ball?"Player: "Nowhere specific."
TAD: "Just kick randomly?"Player: "In a way, yes!"TAD: "What does that mean?"Player: "At the professional level, if you give the opponent even a fraction of a second to think about where to kick the ball, it will be easily stolen.
As a forward, I believe a pass will come from behind, so I sprint at full speed toward the goal. When the pass comes, I instantly judge my position on the pitch based on the speed I've run and the field of view, and my body naturally reacts to kick the ball in the direction where I anticipate the goal.
It's not about avoiding the goalkeeper and targeting the ball to a specific spot on the goal line." This insight highlights the high level of memorization in an athlete's play, to the extent that they can perform with closed eyes.
Previously, the player mentioned, "During a game, I don't want to feel any discomfort." Initially, this statement didn't make sense, but for athletes performing at such an extreme level, eliminating any unnecessary physical and sensory stress is crucial to showcasing their full concentration in a match.
This made me recall when the player said, "Even if there's no pain, feeling like 'I can't pick up speed while running,' 'my knee slightly wavers to the left,' or 'I can't brace myself at the very end when stepping in'—even these very specific discomforts hinder full concentration, so I want them addressed somehow." I was prompted to reconsider the meaning of athlete conditioning.
What I can do to achieve the athlete's ideal conditions for full concentration in their performance is to constantly create conditions close to their ideals. The ultimate goal of these efforts is to make conditioning a self-responsibility. This involves:
- Visibility of issues: Providing simple methods for athletes to assess the level of fatigue in their bodies (such as assessing joint range of motion).
- Information sharing: Drawing solutions from the practical experiences of numerous Olympic athletes over the past 25 years and finding commonalities across various sports.
- Self-sufficiency: Making athletes, who tend to be passive, understand the importance of conditioning and encouraging them to proactively engage in it (far better results can be expected compared to passive conditioning).
The final goal of these efforts is for athletes to understand that conditioning is their self-responsibility. This is my approach to transform conditioning from "it's troublesome, so I won't do it" or "it hurts, so I won't do it" to "I'm doing it on my own accord" and "I'm doing it as told," as conditioning that is not done properly undermines the quality of training (making training meaningless).
Regardless of the goal difference, athletes who approach training with this mindset seem to be walking a satisfying athletic life. The shortcut to achieving one's own gold medal is to acquire high-quality conditioning. Conditioning is not only necessary for top athletes but also something children should develop alongside sports.
Finally, here's an example of a soccer player dramatically recovering from poor form through conditioning:
- Imagining a straight line on the kneecap and massaging it sequentially with the thumb (spending time on stiff areas).Balances the quadriceps, stabilizing play.
- Finding stiffness in the ankle (deep in the Achilles tendon) and self-massaging.Fatigue dissipates, and the ankle's range of motion improves, resulting in faster running.
- Self-massaging the deep internal thigh near the groin (iliopsoas).The lower body feels lighter, enhancing athletic performance.