The Race Car And The Athlete

What’s the difference between a race car and a high-performance sports athlete? What’s the difference between a pit stop and a warm-up, training, and an injury assessment?

My point is that both a race car and the human body are dynamic, highly complex machines — each needs to be consistently evaluated to minimize mechanical failures and optimize peak performance.

For instance, you would never park a race car in a garage all week, pull it out the day of a race, and expect it tuned to run at peak performance, let alone win. Months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds leading up to the race go into preparation. Respectively, I approach athlete strength training and conditioning in the same manner — along with their nutrition, sleep, and rest (another topic for another time).

Each time I have the pleasure of speaking with a recruit, I always ask, “Are you a dump truck or a Ferrari?” The athlete always responds proudly, “I’m a Ferrari, Coach!” “Great, I think you’re a Ferrari too; otherwise, you wouldn’t be here today,” I warmly reply. I remain with my comparison, explaining that I’m their mechanic; my athletes are my high-performance sports cars, and the weight room is the garage; the athletic training room is the detail shop; and the practice court in my test track. This equivalence lets the athlete appreciate my professional craft and the obligation we each share to fine-tune their bodies to attain peak performance and lessen injury.

As a strength and conditioning professional, I’m in the business of making athletes elite performers, not exclusively strong or tired! What we do in the weight room has to translate to the court or field. If an athlete’s strength were the most significant factor in sport, powerlifters and Olympic weightlifters would dominate the field and court sports. The strongest athlete doesn’t always win; the best performer does!

This comparison’s approach sparked the innovation, development, and refinement of the Dynamic Warm-up Movement Assessment (DWMA).