Well-known Athlete: The term “athlete” isn’t just for the sports elite.
Find out how you can bring pro-level quality to your personal fitness regime.
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Well-known Athlete
1. Know about yourself
There are two kinds of people in the world of exercise, it seems.
There are those who are really good; the kind you see on TV competing at an international level, or leading the pack at a local road race.
And then there are the rest of us who, no matter how hard we try, may never excel at our chosen sport.
But not being the best doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take your athletic endeavors seriously-or call yourself an athlete.
After all, Merriam-Webster defines an athlete as “a person who is trained or skilled in exercises, sports, or games requiring physical strength, agility, or stamina.”
Nothing in there about winning.
So what truly separates the amateurs from the athletes?
It’s not how well you play; it’s how hard you try.
Here are tips anyone can become an athlete-you and me included.
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2. Know about the Career
Find out the facts about living a career as a well-known athlete.
Learn about the many requirements.
In addition to the benefits that may first spring to mind.
A well-known athletes compete in sporting events that serve as entertainment for spectators.
Some sports are team-oriented, such as basketball, football, baseball and soccer while other sports, like tennis and golf, are focused more on individual performers.
In addition to competing in sporting events.
Athletes must practice their sport and participate in extensive physical conditioning and training in order to stay competitive
Some top well-known athletes also endorse products and make public appearances
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Well-known Athlete
3. Get to know the required education
No specific education level is required to be a well-known athletes.
But they are often discovered while competing in high school or college games.
Most athletes learn about their sport and improve their athletic skills in school.
It is a good idea for people interested in well-known athletes to study weight training, nutrition and exercise selection.
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Well-known Athlete
4. Get the required Skills
Well-known athletes need to have a competitive mindset, excellent hand-eye coordination, great motor skills, and a high level of physical fitness.
They should also be able to deal with difficult physical and mental conditions and have to be able to maintain a high level of concentration and discipline while training and competing.
Well-known Athlete
5. Know the economic outlook
The number of jobs available for athletes and sports competitors, including well-known athletes, is expected to increase as fast as the average in the coming years.
And competition for professional positions will be extremely fierce. Well-known athletes must be among the best performers at their chosen sports to remain employed.
And they often have brief careers.
There is also the potential for a serious career-ending injury at any time.
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Well-known Athlete
6. Get to know some related careers
Some related careers include:
Coach and Scout
Usually needing a bachelor’s degree, these professionals teach skills to professional or amateur athletes and often travel to attend sporting events.
As fast as average employment growth of 6% was projected from 2014-2024 by the BLS.
The annual median salary for coaches and scouts was $31,000 in 2015; hours may be irregular, with duties and pay only lasting through specific seasons.
Well-known Athlete
Fitness Trainer and Instructor
Training requirements for these jobs vary widely but include a mandatory high school diploma and often encompass various types of training and certifications to enable instructors and trainers to instruct people of all types in exercise and strength training. Average job growth of 8% was anticipated by the BLS from 2014-2024, and a median wage of $36,160 per year was reported in 2015.
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Well-known Athlete
7. Get trained for the business
If you want to become well-known athletes, you’ve got to be fairly trained and in good shape.
It’s a long, arduous path, but it will be worth it when you stand on the international stage.
To become well-known athletes.
You’ll need to do plenty of long-term, professional level training in a specific Olympic sport.
Don’t neglect other aspects of your life, but be prepared to put in long hours of practice and competition.
Work hard at financing your dreams, commit to a remarkably healthy lifestyle.
If you’re ready to commit most of the next few years to a sport, you’re already starting with the right mindset.
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8. Assess your physical fitness.
It’s easy to look at a well-known athletes on TV.
And think, “I could do that!” Well, if you’re reading this with a bag of chips in your lap and a soda bottle at your side, you may want to think again.
This is serious stuff. People dedicate years of their life to become a well-known athletes. Are you willing to do the same?
- That being said, different athletic sports require different types of fitness, flexibility, and skill. Swimmers, football players, and sharpshooters have very different training regimens.
Well-known Athlete
9. Choose your sport.
So, here’s the thing: you probably want to choose a sport you’ve been doing for a while. This whole 10,000 hour, 10 years of practice thing isn’t 100% true, but it’s not far off. The typical athletes plays the sport for anywhere from 8 to 19 years before reaching the highest position.
- Most athlete started young, playing sports in primary school.
- If you are over 30 and do not have competitive sports experience, consider archery, shooting, or curling.
- It’s much easier to make it to the athlete in less popular sports.
- You may not get a choice: it’s almost impossible to get to the well-known athletes in a sport you haven’t fallen in love with.
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Well-known Athlete
10. Prepare for long term training.
Future athletes dedicate thousands of hours to the sport.
Here’s a rough example of a typical training schedule:
- When first introduced to the sport as preteens: 250 hours of training per year, over 6 months.
- After making the junior national team as teens: 600 hours per year over 9½ months.
- After making the athletic team in late teens or twenties: 1100 hours per year over 11 months.
Well-known Athlete
11. Get a coach.
Most athlete said that coaching is the most important factor for success.
And recommend it even before you compete at a local level.
A coach helps you train effectively and without injury.
Teaches you new tactics and strategies in your sport.
And guides you through the world of competitions.
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Well-known Athlete
12. Finance your business
Finances can be a serious limitation for elite athletes.
The further you get in a sport, the more you’ll spend on coaching, equipment, and travel.
It’s so common for the parents of athlete hopefuls to go broke that the Nigerian government is looking into a program to help them.
You may be able to get a college scholarship or athletic sponsorship at some point.
But many well-known athletes do not have major opportunities in these areas.
- If you can, get a job that supports your training, such as working at a gym or pool.
- Doing some coaching yourself is a great way to stay immersed in your sport.
- Flexible hours are another huge benefit, as you’ll need some serious time off once you’re competing at a national or international level.
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Well-known Athlete
13. Get a big dream
You know how they say if you want to be an actor, you can’t have a plan B?
How if you want to be anything that takes work.
You have to want it and nothing else?
Being a well-known athletes is one of those things.
You have to want it so bad you eat, sleep, and breathe it.
You have to dream about it at night.
This is not a Sunday afternoon hobby.
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Well-known Athlete
14. Get a team
You can’t get there without a team. Family, fellow athletes, coaches, and all the supportive people in your life will help you stay motivated and make your dream possible.
Well-known Athlete
15. Always be hard and smart.
During the training season, elite athletes often train six days a week.
But that doesn’t mean constant workouts.
In weightlifting, for example, a training day might involve only two hours of lifting and eight hours of recovery and active rest.
Your body needs recovery time to get stronger and healthier.
And pushing too hard is a path to the hospital, not the athlete.
Cross training is another valuable part of training.
Depending on your sport, you’ll dedicate varying amounts of time to flexibility, strength, and endurance training.
- The exact training schedule depends on your sport, which is part of why a coach is so valuable.
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Well-known Athlete
16. Always Compete.
It’s all well and good to have a coach, to be practicing every day and to be super serious about it.
But then you got to put your skills up to the test.
In many sports, it’s the only way to climb up the ladder and eventually get noticed. So start locally, go regional, and eventually hit Nationals!
- The more you do something, the easier it becomes.
- Imagine having the athlete be your first competition!
- Getting loads of competitions under your belt, even small ones, will prepare you mentally.
Well-known Athlete
17. Always monitor yourself
You’re not training a few hours a day — you’re training 24/7.
Everything you do will determine your progress, performance, and success.
This takes diligence, perseverance, patience, mental stability, and discipline.
Here’s why:
- Your diet. Everything you eat affects you.
- Load up on carbs at the wrong time and your workout could crash and burn. Too much caffeine and you’re not sleeping.
- Too much or too little of anything that keeps you from performing at 110% is off limits.
- Most athlete hopefuls get 8 to 10 hours of sleep every night, and often take a 30 to 90 minute nap during the day.
- Your body needs downtime to repair and recharge after intense exercise.
- Your lifestyle habits. If you’re downing a 40 of PBR between bong hits, this isn’t for you. Let’s just leave it at that.
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Well-known Athlete
18. Always make yourself available
If you’ve been competing for a while, it’s possible you’ll get noticed.
The cream of the crop usually gets at least some money for their time, either from sponsors or from your sport’s governing board.
Don’t expect to make big money, but do keep an ear out for opportunities.
- Because of that, look into being a part of your sport’s NGB that’s the National Governing Board for whatever it is you’re doing.
- The more you make yourself known, the better.
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Well-known Athlete
19 Set a targeting goals.
Concrete, achievable, short-term and long-term goals.
You need things to work toward that aren’t “being awesome” or “training every day.”
There are records that deserve breaking. There is competition that can be quantified. So set goals for this week.
Set goals for this month.
And set goals for this year. It’ll align your efforts like none other.
- The great thing about this is that you’ll probably be dealing with a lot of numbers. Whether it’s going faster, harder, or doing more, there’s a number associated with it.
- So keep an eye on yourself and what you’re capable of.
- If you know where you started, you know where you’ve gone — and where you can go.
Well-known Athlete
20. Always see yourself being honest
Millions of athletes are good enough to compete at some level.
To know if you’re made of well-known athlete’s quality stuff you’ve got to look at yourself realistically.
How do you compare? How long will it take you to start comparing?
Is the time investment worth it? What has your progress been like? What’s feasible?
What’s coach have to say about it?
- It’s important to do this on the regular.
- It takes the fun out of it, sure, but you’re making a decision that affects years of your life.
- have to know where you stand at any given point in time.
- You must develop the ability to take feedback, evaluate your progress, and understand what sacrifices need to be made if you wish to continue.
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Well-known Athlete
21. Always be social
A well-known athletes aren’t always tomorrow.
There will be times when you’re just training to get better.
Those are the days where it’ll only take the majority of your day.
Then there’s the time when the events are six months away and it’s your entire life.
Prepare yourself mentally for a full-time job away from your family and friends.
- It’s not going to be easy. There will be days when it feels like it’s not worth it, too.
- Those are the days when you got to grab your mind by the corpus callosum and wrestle it into submission.
- You haven’t done all this work for nothing.
- You can go back to drinking boxed wine and watching bad movies with your non-athlete friends later.
Well-known Athlete
22. Get to know the pains.
You don’t necessarily have to love it, but you have to know it, tolerate it, and even sometimes ask for it.
As the author and runner Haruki Murakami wrote.
It’s because of pain that “we can get the feeling of really being alive.
You won’t be able to lift your arms above your head some days.
But the feeling will pass, and the next time it happens, it won’t feel so bad.
- Injury is not a laughing matter here.
- We’re talking wasting years of your life if you get hurt.
- And sometimes, sure, it takes a little pain to prevent a lot of pain.
- If you take one thing away from this, it’s be safe.
- Never hurt yourself so hard you can’t come back from it.
- Know what you’re body can handle and what it can’t. And be careful
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Well-known Athlete
23. Attend national championships
For many, national championships in their sport is the key to the rest of their career.
It’s there that you may get scouted for the well-known athletes and secure the next couple years of your life.
So once you’ve gotten all the smaller competitions out of the way, it’s about time to go big or go home.
- Not all sports work the same way, of course.
- Some sports have athletic trials and some even have tried-and-true tryouts.
- But being on a national team, while not a guaranteed way to get into the well-known athlete, is a pretty darn good step.
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Well-known Athlete
24. Find a country to represent
You can only represent a country that accepts you as a citizen.
But once you’re an elite athlete, it’s not hard to make that happen.
Some teams have extra requirements.
But if you have an ancestor from a foreign country, look into competing under that nation’s banner.
- There may be teams you haven’t even heard of that don’t require you to get a new citizenship.
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Well-known Athlete
25. Get qualified in any athletic trials
Again, though not all sports are the same, you may have to participate in the athletic qualifying trials.
And there you must be in the top of those participating not just do well.
Once you score in the top of your sport, you’re officially in! WAHOO! Look at you go.
- Okay, that’s not necessarily true. Take boxing, for example: even if you dominate the trials, you may still have to participate in a national tournament (new regulations you can imagine competitors aren’t super happy about).
- But even in these corner cases, doing well in the trials is a major boost.
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Well-known Athlete
26. Get used to traveling
Between competitions, camps, and visiting different training centers.
You may be traveling all the time.
Not only does this cost a pretty penny, but it can be quite exhausting in its own right, too.
It’s hard on relationships and it sucks living out of a suitcase.
But you’ll get to see the world although mostly through a plane window.
Well-known Athlete
27. move to athletic training center
Many countries have dedicated facilities for training well-known athletes.
These offer access to top-level trainers and equipment.
And introduce you to the international community in your sport.
Some training centers even offer living space to athletes, which can be a big financial help.
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Well-known Athlete
28.Always remember to take a rest.
No joke. Many athlete takes it a little easier as the athletic competition approach.
“A little easier” here is, of course, way harder than any normal person would ever dream of, but still.
You don’t want to hurt yourself, burn out, or otherwise risk your chances.
So relish it.
The hard stuff is coming up. You deserve a little downtime right about now.
Well-known Athlete
29. Always see yourself as a successful person
Visualize every step of the process and how you want it to play out.
Visualize every inch of your event, every placement of your body, every smile you want to make for the camera.
Having it all played out in your head before you go on can be incredibly calming.
Not freaking out is half the battle!
Every serious athlete has their own “zoning” ritual.
Yours could be meditation, yoga, or even jamming out to your own personal theme song.
Whatever gets your brain in the right place is what you should be doing.
You’ll know it when you feel it!
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30. Always have an acceptable heart.
It’s a little cheesy, but it needs to be said.
Even the most naturally talented people fail when their hearts aren’t in it.
A decent athlete who wants nothing in the entire world but to win can best an athlete who’s wishing he were somewhere else.
So get your heart into it. It can make all the difference.