This is article 1 in the SP100 list, highlighting elite athletes' and coaches' achievements, philosophies and methodologies. These articles highlight stories and careers that have potentially been missed or gone under the radar by the mainstream media.
In the world of track and field, the name Edwin Moses holds legendary status. Not many athletes, of any sport, have achieved his level of success. Moses won every race he competed in for a decade, spanning from 1977 to 1987. He won 122 races, 107 consecutive finals and broke the world record in 400m hurdles four times during his career. Less well known, however, is his time as an academic scholar during college. As a physics student, Moses took a detailed and scientific approach to training; planning every session to exact specifications. Just four months after running his first 400m hurdles, he set a world record of 47.64 seconds.
“My life became measured in tenths of seconds. I knew exactly how hard I needed to run to hit those targets. I knew exactly how many I needed to do, to be in a certain condition. I knew exactly what intervals I needed for rest time in between. I had the whole thing wrapped up very scientifically. For me, it was like a big laboratory out there. I had to think about a year of workouts and where that would put me on race day” – Edwin Moses.
This level of routine is not practical for everyone in their everyday lives. Many high performers have achieved greatness without this level of detail. However, Moses teaches us two important lessons to success in the sport. Firstly, responsibility for our training and Secondly accountability of all our efforts.
Responsibility
Moses is an athlete who champions the idea that winners are made, not born. While studying at Morehouse College, Moses completed his athletics training without a college track. It was far from the perfect environment to train. Unlike many of his peers who had top collegiate training setups, Moses required flexibility and adaptability to make do with the resources he had. Without a professional set up, Moses chose to take full responsibility for his training plan. Later, becoming known as ‘The Bionic Man’ for the intensity of his scientific programmes. From understanding periodisation and peaking to nutrition and mobility training, no one can understand your body how you do. Having the ability to input your thoughts to your training is crucial to success. Even top international coaches cannot get you to perform maximally without you contributing your feelings and bodily insights. While it is essential for coaches to use their knowledge to help you excel, a dichotomy of responsibility is crucial.
Accountability
Many of us are guilty of giving everything when training but relaxing too much outside of these sessions. Additional factors such as nutrition, stretches, and sleeping, are vital for recovery but often overlooked. For optimal progress, we need to hold ourselves accountable for both our training and our recovery. Edwin Moses is a prime example of this. By planning and executing everything in life with exact precision, Moses brought the same intensity to recovery as he did to training. Often in training, it is easy to take accountability by tracking times or distances. Tracking can also be useful for recovery. For example, writing down what we eat helps with accountability. While recording exact calories is not necessarily crucial, a visual list of intake can help keep your diet balanced.
Moses is an extreme example of obsession and excellence. We do not all need to bring this level of intensity to every aspect of our training. However, it is always important to learn lessons from sporting greats. Modern sporting performance now benefits from a whole host of aids. Sports science, psychology, nutrition and analysis can all contribute hugely to our successes. Including these modern advantages in our training programmes, puts us in a great position to perform to our absolute bests. Importantly, these aids cannot be fully effective if we do not take full ownership of their implementations.
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